201.
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), the great Russian novelist, had this to
say:
“If Mormonism is able to endure,
unmodified, until it reaches the third and fourth generation, it is destined to
become the greatest power the world had ever known.”
The
Church News, November 16, 1991.
202.
Elder [John] Taylor was instrumental, along with Brigham Young, in
introducing the sugar industry to the Utah Territory. On July 4, 1852, a 52
wagon train left Fort Leavenworth, Kansas pulled by 200 oxen with the sugar
beet equipment. This wagon train, as it neared Utah got caught in snows two
feet deep. Supplies were running short enough that the men started to consume
the oxen. The heavier equipment was being stashed along the trail, to come back
at a later date. For now, survival was the imminent priority for these men.
When Elder John Taylor, who was a part of the caravan, realized the seriousness
of the situation he preceded the wagon train to Salt Lake and sent out a rescue
party to bring in the caravan.
Berrett,
William Edwin, The Restored Church (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book
Company, 1973), 303.
203.
One of the ladies to attend the trial of Joseph Smith in
connection with the assassination attempt of Lilburn W. Boggs was Mary Todd
Lincoln who had just married Abraham Lincoln two months earlier.
Isaac
Newton Arnold, Reminiscences of the Illinois Bar Forty Years Ago (1881),
5-7; Wasp (Nauvoo), January 14, 1843, 1.
204.
From the life of John Thompson:
I at one time took a couple of apostates, Henry and John Sermon, to see
Martin Harris and to talk to him. One of them asked Mr. Harris if he believed
the Book of Mormon to be true, and he told them, "No." They told him
they had heard that he had never denied the truth of the Book [of Mormon]. He
told them that he knew it was true and that was past believing. After that John
Sermon went to Salt Lake City, joined the Church and married a bishops's
daughter and lived a good life after.
John
Thompson, Autobiography, Harold B. Lee Library, pp. 8-9.
205.
George Adams is responsible for the conversion of hundreds of
converts but yet is an apostate to the church and was excommunicated. Shortly
after the death of the prophet Joseph Smith he affiliated with James J. Strang,
but also was excommunicated. In 1861 he founded the Church of the Messiah in
New England and in 1866 moved to the Holy Land; Mark Twain described his
encounter with the imperiled colony in his book Innocents Abroad. Adams
eventually returned to the United States and died at Philadelphia in May 1880.
Peter
Amann, “Prophet in Zion: The Saga of George J. Adams.” New England Quarterly
37 (1967), 477-500; Reed M. Holmes and G. J. Adams. The Forerunners (Independence,
Mo.: Herald House, 1981), 19-53; Arnold K. Garr, Donald Q. Cannon, and Richard
O. Cowan, Encyclopedia of Latter-day Saint History (Salt Lake City:
Deseret Book Company, 2000), 9.
206.
The following is an excerpt from a
letter of Mary Fielding to her sister, Mercy.
“I felt much
pleased to see Sisters Walton and Snider who arrived here on Saturday about
noon, having left Brother Joseph Smith and Rigdon about 20 miles from Fareport
[Fairport] (Ohio) to evade the mobbers. They were to come home in Dr. (Sampson)
Avards carriage and expected to arrive about 10 o'clock at night but to their
great disappointment they were prevented in a most grievous manner. They had
got within 4 miles of home after a very fatiguing journey, much pleased with
their visit to Canada and greatly anticipating the pleasure of seeing their
homes and families, when they were surrounded with a mob and taken back to
Painesville and secured as was supposed in a tavern where they intended to hold
a mock trial. But to the disappointment of the wretches the housekeeper was a
member of the church who assisted our beloved brethren in making their escape,
but as Brother Joseph Smith says not by a basket let down through a window, but
by the kitchen door.”
Kenneth
W. and Audrey M. Godfrey, Jill Mulvay Derr, Women's Voices (Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book Co., 1982), pp. 60-68.
207.
The following refers to the mob looking into Far West just prior
to the Battle of Far West:
“They came on
the direction of our city; which produced some little stir in the place, and in
a few minutes there was about two hundred men both old and young, mustered to
the public square in the city; the rest of the men living absent. We were
immediately marched to the south boundary line of the city in the direction of the
mob to defend our wives and children and property from destruction. When we
arrived to our post the mob was coming down on to a low piece of ground on the
boarders of Goose Creek where there was some scattering timber that took them
out of our sight but some of them climbed up in to the trees and looked over
into the city and swore that they saw an army of men that would number
thousands. This we learned from our brethren that was prisoner then in their
camp; the sight of this great army brought terror to their camp which caused
them to halt for a little time.
Autobiography
of William Draper, Typescript, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University;
http://www.boap.org/
208.
“It is a fact which should be remembered. . . . . the Hancock
brothers, Levi, Joseph, and Solomon, with their guns guarded and fed 600 men,
women, and children while camped in the woods after they had been driven from
their homes. They were waiting for an opportunity to get away. I saw the Prophet
marched away; and I saw, oh, the scenes I witnessed! I do not think people
would believe them, so I will forbear. The howling fiends, although they wore
the uniforms of the U.S., they were not to be trusted! So some of the brethren
made three hundred tomahawks for protection.
209.
The persecutions in Jackson County started in 1833. It would have
begun a year earlier in 1832 except that a non-Mormon Indian agent put a stop
to it. The following from the Times and Seasons:
As the church increased the
hostile spirit of the people increased also.—The enemies circulated from time
to time, all manner of false stories against the saints, hoping thereby to stir
up the indignation of others. In the spring of 1832 they began to brick-bat or
stone the houses of the saints, breaking in windows, &c., not only
disturbing, but endangering the lives of the inmates. In the course of that
season a county meeting was called at Independence, to adopt measures to drive
our people from the country; but the meeting broke up, without coming to any agreement
about them; having had too much confusion among themselves, to do more than to
have a few knock-downs, after taking a plentiful supply of whiskey. The result
of this meeting may be attributed in part, to the influence of certain
patriotic individuals; among whom General Clark, a sub-Indian agent, may be
considered as principal, He hearing of the meeting, came from his agency, or
from home, some thirty or forty miles distant, a day or two before the meeting.
He appeared quite indignant, at
the idea of having the constitution and laws set at defiance, and trodden under
foot, by the many trampling upon the rights of the few. He went to certain
influential mob characters, and offered to decide the case with them in single
combat: he said that it would be better for one or two individuals to die, than
for hundreds to be put to death.
Times
and Seasons, Vol. 1 No. 2. December, 1839.
210.
The Battle of Crooked River on October 24, 1838 is noted for the
fact that two commanders of the Missouri state militia faced-off against each
other and both were also ecclesiastical leaders. David Patten, a member of the
Quorum of the Twelve and Samuel Bogart, a Methodist minister.
James
B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day Saints (Salt
Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992), 136.
211.
The Saints were affected
much by scurvy, also known as blackleg to the pioneers. They knew that potatoes
provided a suitable cure, but also discovered, rather than sending a wagon into
Missouri for a load of potatoes, that horseradish, growing naturally near
Winter Quarters, was just as effective.
Berrett, William Edwin, The Restored Church
(Salt Lake City: 1973), 245.
212.
Pioneer, Robert Gardner explains Blackleg in his autobiography:
Men that could
work had to work nearly night and day, for many of the older was taken with a
disease called the black leg and was entirely helpless and many died with it.
Their legs from their knees down would get as black as a coal.
Autobiography
of Robert Gardner Jr., Typescript, HBLL; http://www.boap.org/
213.
The following from Warren Foote’s journal of March 17, 1842:
Saturday
morning, when the disease seemed to settle on me for a long spell of sickness.
It was the inflammation on my lungs. I now became very stupid. . .
Then
on January 12, 1845 Warren Foote describes his wife sickness:
12th. My wife and I have both been sick with a cold the past week.
She is smart again.
Autobiography of Warren Foote, Typescript, HBLL;
htpp://www.boap.org/
214.
In a letter from Brigham Young to the Mormon Battalion dated
August 19, 1846, Brigham Young writes:
. . . If you
are sick, live by faith, and let the surgeon’s medicine alone if you want to
live, using only such herbs and mild foods as are at your disposal.
Daniel Tyler, A Concise History of the March of the Mormon
Battalion, (Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Press, 1885), 146.
215.
The water stank in Commerce because of the many sloughs. We were
so sick at times that we knew not what to do! Sometimes my parents were so ill
they could hardly move, and I would take a quart cup and fill it with water
from the spring that was about 60 yards from the house. Then, I being weak,
would crawl on my arms and knees, and place the cup of water ahead of me and
crawl to it each time I reached it, until I reached the house. Then because of
father's feverish distress, I would usually give it to him. The water would
disappear before anyone could get scarcely a taste, and looking at the heroic
face of my mother, and the innocent face of my little sister Amy, I would
repeat the pilgrimage until my knees and elbows would be worn near the bone!
Autobiography of Mosiah Hancock, Typescript, BYU-S.
216.
The following is the
menu of those that survived the first winter in the Salt Lake Valley:
This looked
very discouraging, one thousand miles from any supplies our provisions fell
short on account of taking on one of the pioneers whom we found without any
provisions. So we fell from half ration to quarter ration. We tried to help out
with weeds and what I could with my gun, hawks, crows, snipes, ducks, cranes
and wolves, and thistles, roots and rawhide. I had no cow for I had to kill the
only one I had the fall before and we had no milk. I took the dry hide that
come of my cow. I scalded it and boiled it and eat it. And believe me this was
tough. I have known my wife, Jane, to pick wild onion and violets when they
first come up on the hillside for hours at a time, and boiled them and thicken
them with a rich gravy made of two spoonful of corn meal that would make just what
would lay on a small plate. This made a meal or a dinner for my wife and me and
three children, but we were blessed in one thing; our children never cried for
bread, and that was a thing I often dreaded, lest a time might come when my
children might cry for bread and I have none to give them. But all was quite
contented and we enjoyed good health . . .
Autobiography
of Robert Gardner Jr., Typescript, HBLL;
217.
The following story is in reference to when the Saints first
entered Commerce, Illinois after being pushed out of Missouri:
One day father was working on a
plow, and several good sized shoats came into the yard and began to root up the
garden. We had driven them out three times, and father said, "If you come
in here once more, I will kill you with a hewing"! I went into a thicket
and prayed that father would take a good sized chunk and kill one of those
pigs. They did come in again, and father picked up a good sized chunk he had
just hewed off a plough beam and threw it with unerring accuracy--hitting mr.
piggy right between the eyes, and knocking him dead! Father groaned out,
"I am undone!" Then he grabbed the shoat by one leg and started about
town to tell of his misfortune. He could not find the owner though, so he
anchored the pig at Squire Well's, telling him of his trouble. Whereupon, the
worthy Squire said, "Mr. Hancock, you cannot find the owner, so take the
pig home and make good use of it". Father brought it home, and it weighed
some 80 or 90 pounds! Mother skinned the shoat-then told father not to worry
over such small matters. But the rest of the shoats did not seem satisfied, so
they came back again! The same boy made another prayer, and the same arm threw
the same piece of wood-- and another shoat died right there--and mother skinned
another shoat! We were all happy as long as the meat lasted. I always felt that
God opened the way for us to get something to eat.
Autobiography
of Mosiah Hancock, Typescript, BYU-S; http://www.boap.org/
218.
The following from
the journal of Warren Foote dated April 7, 1845:
“7th. I took a
severe cold yesterday and the wind blows very cold this morning, but I thought
that I would attend conference which I did in the forenoon but I had to go to
bed in the afternoon with a severe pain in my side. Brigham Young said today,
‘From henceforth let this place [Nauvoo] be called the City of Joseph.’ The
congregation today was estimated at 20,000.”
Autobiography of
Warren Foote, Typescript, HBLL; htpp://www.boap.org/
219.
1. Times Square, New York City 37.6 million
2.
Las Vegas Strip 30 million
3.
National Mall, Washington D.C. 25 million
4.
Faneuil Hall, Boston 20 million
5.
Disney World 17.1 million
6.
Disneyland 14.9 million
7.
Fisherman’s Wharf and Golden Gate Recreation Area 14.1
million
8.
Niagara Falls 12 million
9.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park 9.04 million
10.
Navy Pier, Chicago, Ill. 8.6 million
11.
Lake Mead National Recreation Area 7.6 million
12.
Universal Studios, Orlando, Fl. 6.2 million
13.
SeaWorld, Florida 5.8 million
14.
Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, Pa. and NJ.
5.13 million
15.
San Antonio Riverwalk 5.1 million
16.
Temple Square 5 million
17.
Universal Studios Hollywood 4.7 million
18.
Metropolitan Museum, New York City 4.7 million
19.
Cape Cod National Seashore 4.64 million
20.
Grand Canyon 4.43 million
21.
Busch Gardens Africa, Tampa Bay 4.4 million
22.
SeaWorld, San Diego 4.26 million
23.
Independence National Historic Park, Philadelphia 4.08
million
24.
New York Museum of Natural History 4 million
25.
Waikiki Beach, Oahu, Hawaii 3.67 million
Forbes
Traveler.com, Rob Baedeker, February 20, 2009
220.
“We then traveled on about half a day to a camping ground near a
grove of timber which was called Cutler Park. The season now being so far spent
and so many of our best young men gone to Mexico. President Young thought best
to go no further this fall but find winter quarters cut hay for our stock and
start on early in the spring. A town site was selected down the river called
Winter Quarters. Streets, blocks and lots were layed out and given out to the
people. And in a few days a town of houses were in sight. Lots of hay was cut
and stock taken to herd grounds, a large log meeting house was build and a good
grist mill was build to grind our corn and wheat. The people had brought with
them houses and wood had to be provided for the family of the men that had gone
in the battalion and there was a meat market erected and several blacksmith
shops, shoe shops, chair makers and nearly all kind of work as if the people
was going to stay for years.”
221.
The sugar beet equipment
that the church purchased in 1852 was initially taken to Provo and then set up
on the northeast corner of the temple block in Salt Lake City to make molasses.
Eventually the equipment was moved four miles south of the city to the present
day location of what was eventually named Sugar House.
Berrett,
William Edwin, The Restored Church (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company,
1973), 304.
222.
What looks like the first
consensual interpretation of Book of Mormon geography among him (Joseph Smith)
and his associates was sweeping: The land southward was the whole of South
America; the land northward, the North American continent. One indicator of
that is an 1836 record in Frederick G. Williams’s handwriting attributing the
statement to Joseph Smith that “Lehi and his company . . . landed on the
continent of South America, in Chile, thirty degrees, south latitude.” Church
leaders B. H. Roberts and John A. Widtsoe, both careful critics, were hesitant
to accept the statements’ origin with the Prophet, yet it certainly wouldn’t be
surprising if the Prophet had once held this view, since other early Church
members seem to have believed it. (Williams later claimed that the statement
about Chile was made to him by an angel rather than by Joseph.) In view of the
fact that the Prophet’s ideas matured on other subjects over time his thinking
on Book of Mormon geography could also have undergone change. In 1842, an
editorial in the Church newspaper the Times and Seasons (September 15, pages
921-22) asserted that “Lehi . . . landed a little south of the Isthmus of
Darien (Panama).”
Franklin
D. Richards and James A. Little, eds., Compendium (Salt Lake City:
Deseret News Press, 1886), 289; Brigham H. Roberts, New Witnesses for God,
vol. 3. The Book of Mormon, vol. 3 (Salt Lake City: Deseret news Press, 1926,
501-03; John A. Widtsoe, “Is the Book of Mormon Geography Known?” in A Book
of Mormon Treasury: Selections from the Pages of the Improvement Era (Salt
Lake City: Bookcraft, 1959), 128-29; Francis W. Kirkham, A New Witness for
Christ in America: The Book of Mormon (Independence, Missouri: Zion’s
Printing and Publishing Co., 1942), 93.
223.
The question is often
asked, “How did the records that Mormon gave to Moroni about 385 AD and that
the Angel Moroni gave to Joseph Smith in 1827 AD get to the Hill Cumorah in New
York?
If the last battle was
fought in Veracruz, Mexico, then Moroni must have carried the records to New
York after the final battle at Ramah/Cumorah in Mesoamerica. The final battle
was 385 AD; Moroni’s last entry was 421 AD. That makes 36 years from the time
of the last battle to Moroni’s last dated entry. During the 36 years, he
abridged the Jaredite record that we know as the Book of Ether; he finished the
record of his father, Mormon; and he wrote material under his own name, which
is the last book in the Book of Mormon.
Furthermore, he tells
us that he did not make himself know to the Lamanites because they killed
everyone who did not deny Christ; and he refused to deny Christ. After
abridging the Book of Ether, Moroni very probable hid up, in the Mesoamerica
Cumorah, the 24 gold plates from which he abridged the Jaredite record and then
carried the abridged portion of the record to New York. He had ample time. His
motivation to distance himself from the Lamanites is adequate.
One evidence of
Moroni’s wandering is a statement by Elder Franklin D. Richards of the Council
of the Twelve. The incident he spoke of occurred at the temple-site dedication
of the Manti Temple on April 25, 1877. Early that morning, Brigham Young had
asked Warren S. Snow to go with him to the temple hill. According to Snow:
We two were alone;
President Young took me to a spot where the temple was to stand; we went to the
southeast corner, and President Young said: “Here is the spot where the Prophet
Moroni stood and dedicated this piece of land for a temple site, and that is
the reason why the location is made here, and we can’t move it from this spot.”
Ensign, January 1972, 33; Joseph
L. Allen, Exploring the Lands of the Book of Mormon (Orem, Utah: S.A.
Publishers, Inc., 1989), 351.
The question still remains, would
Moroni have been able to survive a trip of several thousand miles through
strange peoples and lands, if he did transport the record?
Such a journey would
be no more surprising than the trip by Lehi’s party over land and by sea
halfway around the globe. As a matter of fact, we do have a striking case of a
trip much like the one Moroni may have made. In the mid-sixteenth century,
David Ingram, a shipwrecked English sailor, walked in 11 months through
completely strange Indian territory from Tampico, Mexico, to the St. John River,
at the present border between Maine and Canada. His remarkable journey would
have been about the same distance as Moroni’s and over essentially the same
route. So Moroni’s getting the plates to New York even under his own power
seems feasible.
“Man Alone,” Christian Science Monitor (June 1, 1967), 16;
John L. Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting For The Book of Mormon (Salt
Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1985), 44-45.
224.
From the life of
Mosiah Hancock: On Christmas day we had
a scrap with the United States Soldiers. I saw in a certain history of Utah,
that it was a row with a set of persons that were drunk. I ask in all reasons,
why do people in getting up our histories resort to such abominable falsehoods?
Why is it not as easy to tell the truth and shame satan as it is the wish of
some to try to shame God and to raise satan to a standard? Have not our enemies
been the petted and pampered ones long enough? And now I tell it. That command
located in those barracks in Salt Lake City had been pampered by the elite of
the city until they supposed that the majority of the women and the girls were
their private property. Erma King was my partner as we were walking down the
sidewalk on the East side of what was then know as Hell-Street, or
Whiskey-Street. The walk was full of soldiers and some Mormons. Some of us were
going to the Seventies Party at the Seventies Hall of Science. There came along
two of the finest looking ladies I had ever beheld. There were two soldiers, or
perhaps two sergeants, one of whom made such an expression right in front of
the young ladies that all at once the blabbers head had broken a picket and his
head lay between two more pickets. Then there was considerable stir. I saw that
it was no place for my partner, so I hailed a team and having taken my partner
in we stopped to see the rest of the play and I saw it all through. I had had
no liquor of any kind. There might have been some under the influence of liquor
to some extent, but if there were, I failed to see it on any one of them. We
went on to our dance having an enjoyable time. Our dance being dignified, we
closed at an early hour.
Autobiography
of Mosiah Hancock, Typescript, BYU-S; htpp://www.boap.org/
225.
Hyrum [Smith] said that the
manuscript [Book of Mormon], “once fell into the hands of an apostate (I
[Hyrum] think one of the Whitmers) and they had to resort to stratagem to get
possession of it again.”
Letter from John Brown to John Taylor, December 20, 1879.
It is this manuscript that
eventually found its way into the cornerstone of the Nauvoo House. Lewis
Bidamon, second husband of Emma Smith, tore down the Nauvoo House and came
across the box containing the original manuscript. Over time he gave portions
of this manuscript away, although in poor shape (placed in the Nauvoo House in
1841 and recovered in 1882), to a number of individuals. Who were these people
that received portions of this manuscript from Mr. Bidamon?
Sarah M. Kimball (she
received 1 Nephi 2:2 to 1 Nephi 13:35 on September 7, 1883).
“I asked the lady friend with whom I was
riding to call with me on Mr. Bidamon a former acquaintance; after learning
where I was from, he recognized me and seemed pleased, we talked a little of
times that were, and of persons gone. . . . I referred to his home which is a
temporary four room building on the southwest corner of the foundation laid for
the Nauvoo House. I asked why the heavy and extensive foundations around him
were being torn up, he replied, that he had bought the premises, and the rock
was torn up to sell, as he was poor and otherwise would not have been able to
build I said, I am interested in this foundation, because I remember there were
treasures deposited under the chief corner-stone. He said, yes, I took up the
stone box and sold it . . . It had been so long exposed to the wet and
weather that its contents were nearly ruined, I gave the coin to Joe and told
him he could have the pile of paper. He said it was the manuscript of the Book
of Mormon; but it was so much injured that he did not care for it. While we
were talking, Mr. Bidamon’s wife brought a large pasteboard box and placed it
on my lap. It contained a stack of faded and fast decaying paper, the bottom
layers for several inches, were uniform in size, as they seemed to me larger
than common foolscap, the paper was coarse in texture and had the appearance of
having lain a long time in water, as the ink seemed almost entirely soaked into
the paper, when I handled it, it would fall to pieces. I could only read a few
words here and there just enough to learn that it was the language of the Book
of Mormon. Above this were some sheets of finer texture folded and sewed
together, this was better preserved and more easily read, I held it up, and
said, ‘Mr. B. How much for this relic?’ He said, ‘Nothing from you, you are
welcome to anything you like from the box.’ I appreciated the kindness, took
the leaves that were folded and sewed together. . . .
Letter from Sarah M.
Kimball to George Reynolds, July 19, 1884.
Franklin D. Richards
(he received 1 Nephi 15:5 to 2 Nephi 30 and Alma 2:19 to Alma 60:22 on May 21,
1885).
“. . . .We were quite willingly
shown all that remained of the Book of Mormon manuscript: . . . The paper is
yellow with age and from the moisture sweated from its own hiding place. It is
brittle to the touch. Many of the leaves crumble like ashes and some of them
are broken away. It is necessary to handle them with the utmost care. The
writing is faint, and is not legible on many continuous lines, but fragmentary
clauses, and even whole verses are occasionally discernible. . . .
“When the proprietor saw the
profound interest with which we regarded these things, he spoke to us about
them with great respect and generosity. We talked with him upon the subject of
the writings at considerable length, and through his complaisance, when we came
away we brought with us all of the manuscripts . . . and have them now in our
possession.”
Deseret News, July 1, 1885, p. 380-381.
Joseph W. Summerhays
(he received one page, 1 Nephi 15:26-29 on October 3, 1884).
“I was introduced to Major L.C.
Bidamon. . . . I said to him Major they tell me over in Missouri that you have
found the manuscript of the Book of Mormon in this house. How is it? He
answered: In 1882 I made some alterations in the house and in taking down the
east wing in the southeast corner I came across a stone box about 10 x 15 –6
inches deep. The box was sealed with a stone cap in it. I found a Bible. Book
of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Hymn Book, Times and Seasons, a letter
addressed to the Pres. of the United States written by Lyman Wight, setting
forth the wrongs of our people, some manuscript and less than one thousand
dollars in cash (a joke), all in a bad state of preservation. Then turning to
his wife he said to her, ‘bring the papers.’ Which she did. I examined them,
especially the manuscript. I cannot tell what it is, for it is very rotten and
the ink is faded but from the more visible, I make the following extracts: ‘And
again I say unto to you that it is my will that my servant Lyman Wight should
continue to preaching in Zion in the spirit of meekness confessing me before
the world and I will bear him up as on Eagles wings and he shall beget glory
and honor.’ I think this is from the Doc. and Cov. I quote further, ‘And they
said unto me what meaneth the river of water which our father saw and I said
unto them that the water which my father saw was filthiness and so much was his
mind swallowed up in other things that he beheld not the filthiness of the
water. I said unto them that it was an awful gulf which separated the wicked
from the tree of life and also from the saints of God and I said unto them that
it was a representation of that awful Hell which the Angel said unto me was
prepared for the wicked.’ I think this is from the Book of Mormon. Some of the
Manuscript was, I think, extracts from the Book of Mormon, and some from the
Doc. and Cov. Some of it was in printers takes and had been corrected. The
pencil marks being plain and the ink faded. I asked the Major for some of the
manuscript. He refused, but when he left the room his wife gave me one leaf and
a few leaves of the Bible. . . .”
Diary of Joseph W.
Summerhays, October 3, 1884.
Edward
Stevenson (He stated that he “a small portion as a relic, which I now have. . .
.” This was received in September of 1888).
Edward Stevenson,
“Diary,” September 12, 1888.
Andrew
Jenson (he received a hat full of pieces that had broken off from the badly
damaged manuscript on October 6, 1888).
Statement
of Andrew Jenson, March 18, 1938.
Others having portions
of the original manuscript are:
A.B.
Kesler of Salt Lake City
Deseret News, August 8, 1931
Community of Christ
(Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day)
Richard
P. Howard, Restoration Scriptures: A Study of Their Textual Development (Independence,
Missouri: Herald Publishing House, 1969), 27.
226.
The following are recollections of John H. Gilbert, the typesetter
for the Book of Mormon, many years after the fact.
“I am a
practical printer by trade. I have been a resident of Palmyra, New York,
since about the year 1824, and during all that time have done some typesetting
each year. I was aged ninety years on the 13th day of April 1892, and on
that day I went to the office of the Palmyra Courier and set a stickful of
type.
“My recollection of
past events, and especially of the matters connected with the printing of the
‘Mormon Bible’ [Book of Mormon], is very accurate and faithful, and I have made
the following memorandum at request, to accompany the photographs of ‘Mormon
Hill,’ which have been made for the purpose of exhibits at the World's Fair in
1893.
In the forepart of
June, 1829, Mr. E. [Egbert] B. Grandin, the printer of the Wayne Sentinel, came
to me and said he wanted I should assist him in estimating the cost of printing
5,000 copies of a book that Martin Harris wanted to get printed, which was
called the ‘Mormon Bible.’ It was the second application of Harris to
Grandin to do the job--Harris assuring Grandin that the book would be printed
in Rochester if he declined the job again.
“Harris proposed to
have Grandin do the job, if he would, as it would be quite expensive to keep a
man in Rochester during the printing of the book, who would have to visit
Palmyra two or three times a week for manuscript, etc. Mr. Grandin
consented to do the job if his terms were accepted.
“A few pages of the
manuscript were submitted as a specimen of the whole, and it was said there
would be about 500 pages.
“The size of the page
was agreed upon, and an estimate of the number of ems in a page, which would be
1,000, and that a page of manuscript would make more than a page of printed
matter, which proved to be correct.
“The contract was to
print, and bind with leather, 5,000 copies for $3,000. Mr. Grandin got a
new font of small pica, on which the body of the work was printed.
“When the printer was
ready to commence work, [Martin] Harris was notified, and Hyrum Smith brought
the first installment of manuscript, of 24 pages, closely written on common
foolscap paper-- he had it under his vest, and vest and coat closely buttoned
over it. At night [Hyrum] Smith came and got the manuscript, and with the
same precaution carried it away. The next morning with the same
watchfulness, he brought it again, and at night took it away. This was
kept up for several days. The title page was first set up, and after
proof was read and corrected, several copies were printed for Harris and his
friends. On the second day--[Martin] Harris and [Hyrum] Smith being in
the office--I called their attention to a grammatical error, and asked whether
I should correct it? [Martin] Harris consulted with [Hyrum] Smith a short
time, and turned to me and said, ‘The Old Testament is ungrammatical, set it as
it is written.’
“After working a few
days, I said to [Hyrum] Smith on his handing me the manuscript in the morning,
‘Mr. [Hyrum] Smith, if you would leave this manuscript with me, I would take it
home with me at night and read and punctuate it, and I could get along faster
in the daytime, for now I have frequently to stop and read half a page to find
how to punctuate it.’ His reply was, ‘We are commanded not to leave
it.’ A few mornings after this, when [Hyrum] Smith handed me the
manuscript, he said to me, ‘If you will give your word that this manuscript
shall be returned to us when you get through with it, I will leave it with
you.’ I assured Smith that it should be returned all right when I got
through with it. For two or three nights I took it home with me and read
it, and punctuated it with a lead pencil. This will account for the punctuation
marks in pencil, which is referred to in the Mormon Report, an extract from
which will be found below.
“Martin Harris, Hyrum
Smith and Oliver Cowdery, were very frequent visitors to the office during the
printing of the Mormon Bible [Book of Mormon]. The manuscript was
supposed to be in the handwriting of [Oliver] Cowdery. Every chapter, if
I remember correctly, was one solid paragraph, without a punctuation mark, from
beginning to end.
“Names of persons and
places were generally capitalized, but sentences had no end. The
character or short ‘&’ was used almost invariably where the word ‘and’
occurred, except at the end of a chapter. I punctuated it to make it read
as I supposed the author intended, and but very little punctuation was altered
in proofreading. The Bible [Book of Mormon] was printed sixteen pages at
a time, so that one sheet of paper made two copies of sixteen pages each,
requiring 2,000 sheets of paper for each form of sixteen pages. There
were thirty-seven forms of sixteen pages each--570 pages in all.
“The work was commenced
in August 1829, and finished in March 1830--seven months. Mr. J. H.
Bortles and myself did the presswork until December taking nearly three days to
each form.
“In December Mr.
Grandin hired a journeyman pressman, Thomas McAuley, or ‘Whistling Tom,’ as he
was called in the office, and he and Bortles did the balance of the
presswork. The Bible [Book of Mormon] was printed on a ‘Smith’ Press,
single pull, and old-fashioned ‘Balls’ or ‘Niggerheads’ were used--composition
rollers not having come into use in small printing offices.
“The printing was done
in the third story of the west end of ‘Exchange Row,’ and the binding by Mr.
Howard, in the second story; the lower story being used as a bookstore, by Mr.
Grandin, and now--1892--by Mr. M. Story as a dry goods store.
“[Oliver] Cowdery held
and looked over the manuscript when most of the proofs were read. Martin
Harris once or twice, and Hyrum Smith once, Grandin supposing these men could
read their own writing as well, if not better, than anyone else; and if there
are any discrepancies between the Palmyra edition and the manuscript these men
should be held responsible.
“Joseph Smith, Jr., had
nothing to do whatever with the printing or furnishing copy for the printers,
being but once in the office during the printing of the Bible [Book of Mormon],
and then not over fifteen or twenty minutes.
“Hyrum Smith was a
common laborer, and worked for anyone as he was called on.
[Oliver] Cowdery taught school winters--so it was said--but what
he did summers, I do not know.
“Martin Harris was a
farmer, owning a good farm, of about 150 acres, about a mile north of Palmyra
Village, and had money at interest. Martin--as everybody called him--was
considered by his neighbors a very honest man; but on the subject of Mormonism,
he was said to be crazy. Martin was the main spoke in the wheel of
Mormonism in its start in Palmyra, and I may say, the only spoke. In the
fall of 1827, he told us what wonderful discoveries Jo [Joseph] Smith had made,
and of his finding plates in a hill in the town of Manchester (three miles
south of Palmyra), --also found with the plates a large pair of ‘spectacles,’
by putting which on his nose and looking at the plates, the spectacles turned
the hieroglyphics into good English. The question might be asked here
whether Jo [Joseph] or the spectacles was the translator?
“Sometime in 1828,
Martin Harris, who had been furnished by someone with what he said was a
facsimile of the hieroglyphics of one of the plates started for New York.
On his way he stopped at Albany and called on Lieutenant Governor Bradish--with
what success I do not know. He proceeded to New York, and called on
Professor C. Anthon, made known his business and presented his hieroglyphics.
“This is what the
professor said in regard to them--1834-
‘The paper in
question was, in fact, a singular scroll.
‘It consisted of all
kinds of singular characters, disposed in columns, and had evidently been
prepared by some person who had before him, at the time, a book containing
various alphabets; Greek and Hebrew letters, crosses and flourishes, Roman
letters inverted or placed sidewise, arranged and placed in perpendicular
columns, and the whole ended in a rude delineation of a circle, divided into
various compartments, arched with various strange marks, and evidently copied
after the Mexican Calendar, given by Humboldt, but copied in such a way as not
to betray the source whence it was derived. I am thus particular as to
the contents of the paper, inasmuch as I have frequently conversed with my
friends on the subject since the Mormon excitement began, and well remember
that the paper contained anything else but "Egyptian Hieroglyphics."
“Martin [Harris]
returned from this trip east satisfied that ‘Joseph’ was a ‘little smarter than
Professor Anthon.’
“Martin was something
of a prophet--he frequently said that ‘Jackson would be the last president that
we would have; and that all persons who did not embrace Mormonism in two years
time would be stricken off the face of the earth.’ He said that Palmyra
was to be the New Jerusalem, and that her streets were to be paved with gold.
“Martin was in the
office when I finished setting up the testimony of the Three Witnesses--
([Martin] Harris--[Oliver] Cowdery and [David] Whitmer). I said to him,
‘Martin, did you see those plates with your naked eyes?’ Martin looked
down for an instant, raised his eyes up, and said, ‘No, I saw them with a
spiritual eye.’"
Recollections of John H. Gilbert [Regarding printing
Book of Mormon], 8 September 1892, Palmyra, New York, typescript, BYU; htpp://www.boap.org/
Book of Mormon], 8 September 1892, Palmyra, New York, typescript, BYU; htpp://www.boap.org/
227.
The following from Martin Harris
I then thought of the words of Christ, The kingdom divided against
itself cannot stand. I knew they were of the devil's kingdom, and if that is of
the devil, his kingdom is divided against itself. I said in my heart, this is
something besides smoke. There is some fire at the bottom of it. I then
determined to go and see Joseph as soon as I could find time. A day or so
before I was ready to visit Joseph, his mother came over to our house and
wished to talk with me. I told her I had no time to spare, she might talk with
my wife, and, in the evening when I had finished my work I would talk with her.
When she commenced talking with me, she told me respecting his bringing home
the plates, and many other things, and said that Joseph had sent her over and
wished me to come and see him. I told her that I had a time appointed when I
would go, and that when the time came I should then go, but I did not tell her
when it was. I sent my boy to harness my horse and take her home. She wished my
wife and daughter to go with her; and they went and spent most of the day. When
they came home, I questioned them about them. My daughter said, they were about
as much as she could lift. They were now in the glass-box, and my wife said
they were very heavy. They both lifted them. I waited a day or two, when I got
up in the morning, took my breakfast, and told my folks I was going to the
village, but went directly to old Mr. Smith's.
“Mormonism--II,"
Tiffany's Monthly 5 (August 1859): 163-70
Copy
located at American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.
228.
In each of the locations the Saints had gathered, a printing press
and a Church publication had been started. So in Nauvoo one of the first
achievements was the establishment of a printing press. On the night that the
mob forces of General Lucas had surrounded Far West, the Church printing press,
used at that place for the publication of the Elders Journal, was hidden
from the enemy and buried in the dooryard of a Brother Dawson. Later it was
secretly dug up and shipped to Commerce, Illinois. There it was set up again in
a cellar during the fall of 1839. On this press was published the fourth
periodical of the Church, the Times and Seasons.
Berrett,
William Edwin, The Restored Church (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book
Company, 1973), 162.
229.
In January, 1847, Brannan (Samuel) began the publication of the Yerba
Buena California Star, using the press on which The Prophet had been
printed by the Saints in New York. This was the first newspaper printed in San
Francisco and the second English paper in California.
Berrett,
William Edwin, The Restored Church (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book
Company, 1973), 231.
230.
On one of Josephs visit with the Angel Moroni, Moroni states the
following:
The sealed part contains the same
revelation which was given to John upon the isle of Patmos, and when the people
of the Lord are prepared, and found worthy, then it will be unfolded unto them.
Backman,
Milton V., Jr. & Keith W. Perkins. Writings of Early Latter-day Saints
and Their Contmporaries—Database. Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center,
1996.
231.
It is estimated that less
than forty-five plates, engraved on both sides, would be necessary for the
entire record translated, including that portion for which the translation was
lost.
J.M.
Sjodahl, An Introduction to the Study of the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake
City: Deseret News Press, 1927), 42.
232.
The most authentic source book for these legends is the Popol Vuh,
a rare manuscript written in the Quiche language and translated into the
Spanish by Francisco Jimenez, a well-known Catholic priest who lived among the
Indians of Guatemala during the early Spanish rule of America. This interesting
volume is replete with stories so closely akin to those of the Hebrews that one
noted scholar, Le Plongeon, declared that these stories originated in America
and were later carried to the old world where the Hebrews adopted and improved
upon them. Le Plongeon claimed to have found upon the walls of old buildings at
Chichen-Itza and Uxmal, in Central America, mural paintings of the creation,
the temptation of Eve in the garden of Eden, the story of Cain and Abel, and
many others of the Hebrew legends.
William
Edwin Berrett, The Restored Church (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book
Company, 1973), 64.
233.
Note where in the Book of Mormon John Corrill reads the testimony
of the Three witnesses:
In the course
of two or three days, the Book of Mormon, (the Golden Bible, as the people then
termed it, on account of its having been translated from the Golden plates,)
was presented to me for perusal. I looked at it, examined the testimony of the
witnesses at the last end of it, read promiscuously a few pages, and made up my
mind that it was published for speculation.
John Corrill, A Brief History of the Church of Christ of Latter
Day Saints (Commonly Called Mormons, Including an Account of their Doctrine and
Discipline, with the Reasons of the Author for Leaving the Church) (St. Louis,
n.p., 1839).
234.
Although the Literary Firm in Kirtland, Ohio, had planned to issue
an almanac in the 1830s, the first one actually published by a Latter-day Saint
was Orson Pratt’s Prophetic Almanac for 1845. It borrowed heavily from
the standard American almanacs of the day, with a calendar and astronomical
data along with the birth and death dates of secular leaders and prominent
individuals. Elder Pratt also included some of his own doctrinal teachings, as
well as those of his brother Parley and of Joseph Smith.
Orson Pratt’s second effort, the Prophetic
Almanac for 1846, was more distinctly Mormon with its exclusion of secular
names and dates and the inclusion of dates of Latter-day Saint interest. In
this issue he continued his missionary vent with doctrinal pieces and
information. His intention was to publish the almanac annually, but these were
the only two. He prepared one for 1849 at Winter Quarters, but there was no way
to publish it.
W. W. Phelps published the Deseret
Almanac between 1851 and 1866 in Salt Lake City. From 1859 to 1864 it was
called the Almanac. The 14 issues again borrowed from standard almanacs
of the day, with the inclusion of religious and cultural articles uniquely
pertaining to Latter-day Saints. He also included items of medical,
agricultural, and social information.
David
J. Whittaker, “Almanacs in the New England Heritage of Mormonism.” BYU
Studies 4 (Fall 1989), 89-113; Arnold K. Garr, Donald Q. Cannon, and
Richard O. Cowan, Encyclopedia of Latter-day Saint History (Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book Company, 2000), 19-20.
235.
The phrase “and it came to pass” occurs in the English translation
of the Book of Mormon 1,381 times. It appears 202 times in 1 Nephi alone. The
Book of Alma records the highest number of “it came to pass” phrases, 431. Only
the Book of Moroni fails to use the phrase “and it came to pass.”
The phrase “and it
came to pass” is not unique to the Book of Mormon, as the Bible utilizes the
same introductory phrase. “And it came to pass, or one of its derivatives,
occurs 526 times in the Old Testament and 87 times in the New Testament. This
fact suggests that the phrase “and it came to pass” is Hebrew in origin and
correlates with Nephi’s statement.
Apparently the Maya
people, who lived in Southeast Mexico and Guatemala, may have adopted the
phrase “and it came to pass.” Recent discoveries in the translations of the glyphs
of the 7th Century AD Maya ruins of
Palenque manifest the phrase “and then it came to pass” and “it had come to
pass.” Recently, another glyph had been interpreted as “and it shall come to
pass.”
Joseph
L. Allen, Exploring the Lands of the Book of Mormon (Orem, Utah: S.A.
Publishers, Inc., 1989), 31-32.
236.
He also stated that the Prophet [Joseph Smith] translated a
portion of the Book of Mormon with a seerstone in his possession. The stone was
placed in a hat that was used for that purpose, and with the aid of this
seerstone the Prophet would read sentence by sentence as Martin [Harris] wrote,
and if he made any mistake the sentence would remain before the Prophet until
corrected, when another sentence would appear. When they became weary, as it
was confining work to translate from the plates of gold, they would go down to
the river and throw stones into the water for exercise. Martin on one occasion
picked up a stone resembling the one with which they were translating, and on
resuming their work, Martin placed the false stone in the hat. He said that the
Prophet looked quietly for a long time, when he raised his head and said:
"Martin, what on earth is the matter, all is dark as Egypt." Martin
smiled and the seer discovered that the wrong stone was placed in the hat. When
he asked Martin why he had done so he replied, to stop the mouths of fools who
had declared that the Prophet knew by heart all that he told him to write, and
did not see by the seerstone; when the true stone was placed in the hat, the
translation was resumed, as usual.
Edward Stevenson, "The Three Witnesses to the Book of
Mormon," Millennial Star 48 (21 Jun 1886), 389-91.
237.
The following
story is from the autobiography of Chapman Duncan in reference to Joseph Smith
digging up the alter that Adam prayed from after he and Eve were forced from
the Garden of Eden.
“I think the
next day, he said to these present: Hyrum Smith, Bishop Vincent Knight, myself
and two or three others, ‘Get me a spade and I will show you the altar that
Adam offered sacrifice on.’ I believe this was the only time Joseph was in
Ondi-Ahman. We went about forty rods north of my house. He placed the spade
with care, placed his foot on it. When he took out the shovelful of dirt, it
barred the stone. The dirt was two inches deep on the stone I reckon. About
four feet or more was disclosed. He did not dig to the bottom of the three
layers of good masonry well put up wall. The stone looked more dressed like
stone nice joints, ten inches thick, 18 inches long or more. We came back down
the slope, perhaps 15 rods on the level. The prophet stopped and remarked this
place where we stood was the place where Adam, gathered his posterity and
blessed them, and predicted that should come to pass to later generations.”
Autobiography of Chapman Duncan, Typescript, Harold B. Lee
Library, Brigham Young University; http://www.boap.org
238.
A “gilded angel” was first placed on the Nauvoo Temple. In 1846
Thomas Kane, friend of the Saints said the following, “They had completed even
the gilding of the angel and trumpet on the summit of its lofty spire.” This
horizontal-flying angel apparently represented the angel in John’s vision in
the New Testament book of Revelation: “And I saw another angel fly in the midst
of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the
earth” (Rev. 14:6).
J.
Michael Hunter, “I Saw Another Angel Fly.” Ensign, Jan. 2000, 30.
239.
The manner in which the plates were deposited:
“First, a hole of sufficient
depth, (how deep I know not,) was dug. At the bottom of this was laid a stone
of suitable size, the upper surface being smooth. At each edge was placed a large
quantity of cement, and into this cement, at the four edges of this stone, were
placed, erect, four others, their bottom edges resting in the cement at the
outer edges of the first stone. The four last named, when placed erect, formed
a box, the corners, or where the edges of the four came in contact, were also
cemented so firmly that the moisture from without was prevented from entering.
It is to be observed, also, that the inner surface of the four erect, or side
stones was smooth. This box was sufficiently large to admit a breast-plate,
such as was used by the ancients to defend the chest, &c. from the arrows
and weapons of their enemy. From the bottom of the box, or from the
breast-plate, arose three small pillars composed of the same description of
cement used on the edges; and upon these three pillars was placed the record of
the children of Joseph, and of a people who left the tower far, far before the
days of Joseph, or a sketch of each, which had it not been for this, and the
never failing goodness of God, we might have perished in our sins, having been
left to bow down before the altars of the Gentiles and to have paid homage to
the priests of Baal!
“I must not forget to say that
this box, containing the record was covered with another stone, the bottom
surface being flat and the upper, crowning. But those three pillars were not so
lengthy as to cause the plates and the crowning stone to come in contact. I
have now given you, according to my promise, the manner in which this record
was deposited; though when it was first visited by our brother, in 1823, a part
of the crowning stone was visible above the surface while the edges were
concealed by the soil and grass, from which circumstance you will see, that
however deep this box might have been placed by Moroni at first, the time had
been sufficient to wear the earth so that it was easily discovered, when once
directed, and yet not enough to make a perceivable difference to the passer by.
So wonderful are the works of the Almighty, and so far from our finding out are
his ways, that one who trembles to take his holy name into his lips, is left to
wonder at his exact providences, and the fulfillment of his purposes in the
event of times and seasons. A few years sooner might have found even the top stone
concealed, and discouraged our brother from attempting to make a further trial
to obtain this rich treasure, for fear of discovery; and a few later might have
left the small box uncovered, and exposed its valuable contents to the rude
calculations and vain speculations of those who neither understand common
language nor fear God, but such would have been contrary to the words of the
ancients and the promises made to them: and this is why I am left to admire the
words and see the wisdom in the designs of the Lord in all things manifested to
the eyes of the world: they who show that all human inventions are like the
vapors, while his word endures forever and his promises to the last
generation.”
Latter Day Saints' Messenger
and Advocate, 3 vols. (published 1834-1837).
240.
This seer stone was about seven inches long and four inches wide
and one-quarter inch thick. It is flat, dark gray in color with waves of brown
and purple, and currently in the possession by the Community of Christ Church.
Wright, Dennis A. “The Hiram Page
Stone: A Lesson in Church Government.” In The Doctrine and Covenants: A Book
of Answers. Edited by Leon R. Hartshorn, Craig J. Ostler, and Dennis A.
Wright. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1996
241.
One of the treasures of pioneer Utah was a cane made from the
hickory grove at Andrew Jackson’s estate, the Hermitage, that Jackson gave to
Thomas Kane, a friend of the Mormons. Colonel Kane later gave this to John
Smith, the first stake president in the Salt Lake Valley, who passed it to his
son, Apostle George A. Smith, who gave it to his son, Apostle John Henry Smith,
who gave it to his son, Church President George Albert Smith.
George
Albert Smith, “Walking Stick of Thomas L. Kane”, in Conference Report, October
1947, First Day Morning Meeting, 2.
242.
Three Church structures other than temples have had a full-sized
statue of the angel Moroni: (1) In the 1930s a statue was placed 160 feet above
the ground atop the Washington D.C. chapel. (2) In 1935 a statue was
commissioned to adorn a thirty–foot monument at the Hill Cumorah in New York.
The sculptor, Torlief Knaphus, made seven sketches and then hiked to Salt Lake
City’s Ensign Peak, where he prayed to know which of these sketches was
acceptable to the Lord. Brother Knaphus said he saw a finger of light point to
a particular sketch that he felt impressed Church leaders would choose, and
they did. (3) A statue was made for the Church’s pavilion during the New York
World’s Fair of 1965. The statue was later used in the movie Legacy and
in the video Mountain of the Lord.
Chad
S. Hawkins, The First 100 Temples (Salt Lake City: Eagle Gate, 2001), 274
Additional information:
In the early 1930s, a replica of
the Salt Lake Temple angel Moroni was fashioned by Torleif Knaphus for the
Washington D.C. Chapel. The statue was removed in 1976 when the chapel was sold
(currently owned by the Unification Church) and is now on display in the Museum
of Church History and Art. It is owned by the LDS Motion Picture Studio and was
used in the filming of Mountain of the Lord. Castings of this statue
have since been made and installed atop the Atlanta Georgia Temple (since
replaced), Idaho Falls Idaho Temple, and Boston Massachusetts Temple.
243.
The first courthouse in
Independence, Jackson County, Missouri was ironically built under the
supervision of Lilburn W. Boggs in 1828. On February 20, 1832 Sidney Gilbert, a
member of the Church purchased it. This old log courthouse is noted for three
things: 1) President Harry S. Truman briefly held court in it. 2) It holds the
distinction as the oldest courthouse west of the Mississippi River, and 3) It
is also the oldest Mormon dwelling west of the Mississippi.
Max H. Parkin, “Joseph Smith and the United Firm,” BYU Studies 46,
no. 3 (2007), 25.
244.
June 16th [1845] Monday morning All well in Zion. Prosperity
attends the Saints temporally and spiritually. The work on the temple
progresses rapidly. The roof will soon be covered. In fact, the [Nauvoo] Temple
soon will be enclosed. Calculation now is to build a tabernacle on the west end
of the temple, twice as large as the temple, for the purpose of holding
meetings, as the temple will no more than convene the priesthood. Weather fine,
frequent showers, a growing time [and] a great prospect of a plentiful harvest
this fall. My family all well up to this date.
Autobiography of William Huntington, Typescript, Harold B. Lee
Library, Brigham Young University.
245.
The following from Warren Foote’s journal of October 2, 1841:
“2nd.
Conference commenced today. After meeting a deposit was made in the southeast
corner stone of the Nauvoo House. A square hole had been chiseled in the large
corner stone like a box. Any one had the privilege of putting in any little
memento they wished to. I was standing very near the corner stone when Joseph
Smith came up with the manuscript of the Book of Mormon and said that he wanted
to put that in there, as he had had trouble enough with it. It was the size of
common foolscap paper and about three inches thick. There were also deposited
the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, a five cent piece, a ten [cent], a 25
[cent] and a 50 [cent] and a one dollar all American coin. A close fitting
cover of stone had been prepared and was laid in cement and the wall built over
it. The day was clear and cool.”
Autobiography
of Warren Foote, Typescript, HBLL; htpp://www.boap.org/
246.
As early as 1902 the YMMIA General Board had recommended to the
First Presidency and the Twelve that the Church construct a building honoring
Joseph Smith on the corner where the Hotel Utah was later built. Apparently the
Smith family knew of the discussions, for in 1909 Joseph F. Smith expressed
disappointment when the decision was made to build a hotel there. “The Utah
hotel is being erected on the old Deseret News corner, where we had for so long
been given to expect that a Memorial building to the Prophet and grandfather
Hyrum Smith was to be built,” he wrote to his brother. “I cannot help but feel
that the erection of this building on that corner is going to be a great big
mistake—with a capital M.” After learning about the earlier discussions,
President Hinckley wrote, “I think it was inspiration, and I believe
revelation, that came to me when I could not sleep one night, that the building
should carry the name of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.”
See
Stan Larson, ed., A Ministry of Meetings: The Apostolic Diaries of Rudger
Clawson (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1993), 373-75, 421, 542, 725;
Joseph F. Smith Jr. to Elder E. Wesley Smith, 18 August 1909; Gordon B.
Hinckley to Calvin P. Rudd, 9 December 1993.
247.
The following from the
life of William (Billy) Gibson Wilson:
Billy returned to Ogden, worked
for the railroad for a short time, then in 1873 he went into Ogden Canyon and
established a logging camp at the old Hermitage, then know as Wheeler’s Camp.
According to the book Pioneers
and Prominent Men of Utah, Billy married Mary Wahlen on April 26, 1881, in
Ogden, Utah,
Billy made the Hermitage a resort
for recreation seekers, and as the attractions of it widened in popularity and
attention, he found it necessary to enlarge it. His work in this regard made it
a model summer camping place and yearly home for many Ogden people and
tourists.
The famous Hermitage hotel was
finished in August, 1905. It was made of pine, maple, and oak cut in his own
sawmill and built after his own plan and was acclaimed to be one of the largest
log buildings in America. It immediately became a famous hostelry and extended
its welcome to visitors from all over the world, among those being President
William Howard Taft, Italian composer Leoncavallo, and, so rumor says, Ulysses
S. Grant. Identification of its more renowned visitors is not possible, as
hotel records were burned with the building in 1939. At one time a governors’
conference attended by the chief executives of thirty-five states was held
there. The Union Pacific Railroad received so many inquiries from east-and
westbound passengers that stopover tours were arranged.
As many as 600 guests a day began
registering at the hotel. Horses and carriages carried people by the hundreds
to the hostelry and dining place, where linen-covered tables abounded with
fresh mountain trout in season, chicken, and game such as partridges,
pheasants, and quail. Among minor attractions were a dancing pavilion, hammocks
under the trees, swings, tennis and croquet grounds. A May 31, 1913, article
said that a large electric merry-go-round would be installed in the Hermitage
grove the following week.
Erma
H. Wilson, “Pioneers of Faith, Courage, and Endurance.” Chronicles of
Courage: Daughters of Utah Pioneers (Salt Lake City: Utah Printing Company,
1991), 2:70.
Additional
interesting information:
Another
individual that was generous with his money was William (Billy) Gibson Wilson.
He was the owner of the Hermitage, up Ogden Canyon, at the turn of the century
that brought in guest from around the world. The following was said of him:
Some remembered Billy “as an
eccentric Scotsman, quite close but strictly honest.” Others remember him as a
man too free with his money and hospitality, to the detriment of his business.
One writer said, “His generosity was equal to his giant frame.” Billy was six
feet four or five inches tall and weighed as much as 325 pounds. . . .
A nephew, Benjamin Wilson, wrote,
“In the fall of the year he would go to the bishop and ask for the names and
addresses of the widows in the ward. The next week a large wagonload of
kindling would be delivered to all of those homes, and no one would know where
they had come from.”
Again,
the following:
When the Seventh Ward chapel was
built, Billy had been having bad luck for some time, so the bishopric decided
not to send him an assessment. One day he met the bishop and said, “Isn’t my
money as good as anybody else’s?” The bishop replied, “Yes, but we understand
you were having some bad luck so passed you up.” He replied, “It is true, but
if you will send your committee up to the Hermitage and select a lot, I will
give you a deed for it.” They later sold the lot for $600.
Erma
H. Wilson, “Pioneers of Faith, Courage, and Endurance.” Chronicles of
Courage: Daughters of Utah Pioneers (Salt Lake City: Utah Printing Company,
1991), 2:71-72.
248.
The following appeared in the Shoe and Leather Record:
The fame of Salt Lake
City reaches round the world. Its name has oftener been in the mouths of men
than that of many greater cities. The cardinal maxim of the Mormons’ creed is
agriculture, and while the tilling of the soil has been carried on so
strenuously all these years, mining has been discountenanced. The development
of mines in Utah has been principally the work of the Gentiles, and its mining
wealth at this time is largely controlled by them. The city has a population of
40,000. Situated at the base of the Wasatch Mountains and eighteen miles from
the Great Salt Lake, it has an elevation of 4,350 feet above sea level.
Salt Lake City was
founded by the Mormons in 1847, and during the forty years of its existence, it
has developed into a wonderful city. There are one hundred miles of streets,
and the broad avenues are 132 feet wide and laid out in blocks; each block is
660 feet wide. The principle streets and shops are lighted by electricity.
There is also a service of electric streetcars.
The Tabernacle
where the Mormons worship is a building of peculiar construction. In form it is
like a huge turtle shell, having a seating capacity of 12,000 persons. Here may
be heard what is claimed to be one of the finest organs in the world. The
Temple, which is close to the Tabernacle, was commenced in 1853 and is built of
creamy white granite. Over a million sterling has already been expended on its
erection, and at the present time it is nearing completion.
There are two
theaters, each with a seating capacity of 1,500. There is no community of its
size in America that can boast of greater peace than Salt Lake City no people
among whom a greater love prevails. There are no thieves or burglars amongst
them, and seldom, if ever, is a citizen who pretends to respectability to be
seen staggering through the streets under the influence of liquor.
During my stay
there I never saw a policeman. Honesty and industry are the characteristics of
the people. In the refinement of home and social life they are not found
wanting. In short, it is a pleasant city with good people in it, and one might
do worse than make one’s home there. Everyone seems happy and contented, and
there seems to be no lack of money. Such is a brief description of Salt Lake
City as I found it.
The biggest
single enterprise there is the shoe factory, employing about two hundred hands.
It is owned and controlled by the Zion Co-operative Mercantile Institution.
They have a tannery in connection with it where they turn out three hundred
sides of oak-bark tanned leather a week. Also a clothing factory. All are under
the management of Mr. W. H. Rowe, an English manufacturer from London who
settled in Salt Lake City some fifteen years ago. He has been very successful
and is a large stockholder in the company.
Mr. Rowe soon
found out that the crude system of manufacturing boots and shoes as carried on
in the old country would not answer in America, and he very speedily abandoned
it for more advanced ways. The front building (which is an imposing one), where
the company transacts its business, stands at the head of Main Street. The shoe
factory is situated at the back. The whole concern is run with Mormon capital,
and they do a million sterling worth of business a year. The shoe factory is a
fine structure built entirely of solid brick and stone (most of the American
factories are wooden buildings.) The factory is 120 feet by 200 feet, four
stories high, with a large area. It is fitted up with every modern convenience
and is fully equipped with all the latest machinery run by a
fifty-four-horsepower engine, situated in the center of the building, thereby
balancing the weight of all the machinery.
Every comfort has
been studied; dressing rooms and lavatories are provided for the workpeople,
with soap and towels free. When the men arrive in the morning, they repair to
the dressing rooms, hang up their coats, etc., before commencing work. As only
a half an hour is allowed for dinner, most of the hands bring their dinner or
lunch with them. After the day’s labor is over, they each and all have a good
wash up and return home as clean and tidy as when they left in the morning. The
working hours are from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., closing at 1:00 p.m. on Saturdays.
As you enter
the factory from the office, you cannot help observing the following notices
hanging up: “Positively no admittance. No smoking allowed. Do not spit on the
floor.”(The floor of the factory is swept every night and the refuse cleared
away. Cleanliness and order is the rule here.
The principal
part of the workmen are English, with a few Swedes. I found men from London,
Leicester, Leeds, Northampton, Bristol, and Birmingham, who have adopted the
Mormon faith and emigrated to Utah. Nearly all the help are Mormons, and they
are a temperate lot of fellows who stick steadily to their work. The custom of
keeping Saint Monday they left behind when they quitted the old country; as a
consequence they have become thrifty folk, and most of the men own their own
houses. . . . When speaking, they address each other with the endearing term of
“Brother” So-and-so—Brother Brown, Jones, or Robinson.
The company
manufactures all kinds of boots and shoes—men’s, women’s, and children’s. The
goods are renowned for the excellent material of which they are made and the
solidity with which they are put together—real honest, good work. The output is
about 1,000 pairs each day which are sold by retailers throughout the whole
Territory of Utah and some of the adjoining states.
Thomas Todd, “Salt Lake City and It’s Shoe Industry, Shoe and
Leather Record, December 21, 1890; Millennial Star, Vol. 52, 1890.
249.
The following is in reference to a mission to Mexico that J.Z.
Stewart, Isaac J. Stewart, Helman Pratt, Louis Garff, George Terry, and Meliton
G. Trejo took in 1876.
They
took the route through Southern Utah, up the Little Colorado, southwest to
Prescott, then to Phoenix. Their entire journey was punctuated by frequent
stops to preach along the way wherever an opportunity presented itself.
Traveling to Tucson they contacted Governor Safford, who welcomed them into
Arizona and expressed his desire that the Mormons settle as much as possible in
the state, since they were an aggressive, successful class of colonizers and
made a wholesome type of citizen.
Peace
Like A River, The Historical and Spiritual Journey of The Isaac M. Stewart
Family, Compiled and Edited By David H. Epperson (Salt Lake City, 2007),
110-111.
250.
The only members of the Church who wear the symbol of the cross are
Latter-day Saint chaplains, who wear it on their military uniforms to show that
they are Christian chaplains.
True
to the Faith, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2004), 46.
251. During the Nauvoo years of the Church, the Whig Party
was instrumental in forming the Anti-Mormon Party mostly due to the fact that
the Saints supported the Democratic Party.
The Road to Carthage Leads West, Kenneth W. Godfrey, BYU
Studies, Winter 68, p. 210-211.
If
anyone wonders why the Saints preferred the Democratic Party, read the
following:
“At a meeting
of the Democratic Association, held on Saturday evening the 23rd ultimo, Mr.
Lindsay introduced a resolution setting forth, that the people called ‘The
Latter-day Saints,’ were many of them in a situation requiring the aid of the
citizens of Quincy, and recommending that measures be adopted for their relief;
which resolution was adopted, and a committee consisting of eight persons
appointed by the chair--of which committee J. W. Whitney was chairman. The
association then adjourned to meet on Wednesday evening then next, after
instructing the committee to procure the Congregational meeting-house as a
place of meeting, and to invite as many of the people to attend the meeting as should
choose to do so, in whose behalf the meeting was to be held, and also all
others, citizens of the town. The committee not being able to obtain the
meeting-house, procured the courthouse for that purpose.”
“Facts
Relative to the Expulsion of the Mormon’s or Latter-day Saints, From the State
of Missouri, Under the ‘Exterminating Order,’” John P. Greene
(Cincinnati: R.P. Brooks, 1839).
If any one state and Governor
treated the Saints with fairness, it would be Governor Lucas of Iowa Territory.
Executive Office, Iowa,
Burlington, March, 1839.
Dear Sir:--On my return to this
city, after a few weeks absence in the interior of the territory, I received
your letter of the 25th ult., in which you give a short account of the
sufferings of the people called Mormons, and ask "whether they could be
permitted to purchase lands and settle upon them in the territory of Iowa, and
there worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences,
secure from oppression," &c.
In answer to your inquiry, I would
say that I know of no authority that can constitutionally deprive them of this
right. They are citizens of the United States, and are entitled to all the
rights and privileges of other citizens. The 2nd section of the 4th article of
the Constitution of the United States (which all are solemnly bound to
support,) declare that "the citizens of each state shall be entitled to
all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states;" this
privilege extends in full force to the territories of the United States. The
first amendment to this constitution of the U.S. declares that "Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof."
The Ordinance of Congress of the
13th July, 1787, for the government of the territory northwest of the river
Ohio, secures to the citizens of said territory and the citizens of the states
thereafter to be formed therein, certain privileges which were, by the late act
of Congress organizing the territory of Iowa, extended to the citizens of this
territory. The first fundamental article in that ordinance, which is declared
to be forever unalterable, except by common consent, reads as follows, to wit:
"No person demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner shall ever
be molested on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments in said
territory." These principles I trust will ever be adhered to in the
territory of Iowa. They make no distinction between religious sects. They extend
equal privileges and protection to all; each must rest upon its own merits and
will prosper in proportion to the purity of its principles, and the fruit of
holiness and piety produced thereby.
With regard to the peculiar people
mentioned in your letter, I know but little. They had a community in the
northern part of Ohio for several years, and I have no recollection of ever
having heard in that state of any complaint against them for violating the laws
of the country. Their religious opinions I conceive have nothing to do with our
political transactions. They are citizens of the United States, and are
entitled to the same political rights and legal protection that other citizens
are entitled to.
The foregoing are briefly my views
on the subject of your inquiries.
With sincere respect,
I am your obedient servant, ROBERT
LUCAS.
“Facts Relative to the Expulsion of the Mormon’s or Latter-day
Saints, From the State of Missouri, Under the ‘Exterminating Order,’” John P. Greene
(Cincinnati: R.P. Brooks, 1839).
252.
Thursday, March 11, 1875-Another stormy day. President Young
was tried for not paying his fine; and Chief Justice MacKean condemned him to
24 hours imprisonment in the penitentiary and 25 dollars fine. He went
accompanied by Mayor [Daniel H.] Wells; and a large company stayed his time.
Kenneth W. Godfrey, Audrey M. Godfrey, and Jill Mulvay Derr, Women’s
Voices: An Untold History of The Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900 (Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book Company, 1982), 302.
Emmeline B. Wells shares
this interesting insight in her journal dated March 16th, 1875:
A
telegram reached us today stating Judge McKean’s removal from office, and the
appointment of Parker from Missouri.
So,
the question is what were the circumstances leading to Chief Justice McKean’s
removal from office:
Five
days after Mckean sentenced Brigham Young to one day in jail and a $25 fine, a
press dispatched from Washington D.C. announced his removal from office “caused
by what the president deemed fanatical and extreme conduct.”
Kenneth
W. Godfrey, Audrey M. Godfrey, and Jill Mulvay Derr, Woman’s Voices-An
Untold History of The Latter-day Saints: 1830-1900 (Salt Lake City: Deseret
Book Company, 1982), 303; B.H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Century I, 6 vols. (Salt Lake
City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1930), 5:446-47.
Additional
interesting information:
The
following from Emmeline B. Wells journal of March 13, 1875:
Yesterday
there was a petition of about nine hundred ladies taken to Gov. Axtell to see
what he could do towards releasing President Brigham Young from his confinement
in the penitentiary. . .
Kenneth
W. Godfrey, Audrey M. Godfrey, and Jill Mulvay Derr, Women’s Voices:
An Untold History of The Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900 (Salt Lake City:
Deseret Book Company, 1982), 302.
Emmeline B. Wells also wrote the following in her journal on April
1st, 1875, which just so
happens to be a Sunday:
They are trying
George Reynolds for polygamy here in the district courts, today brought in a
verdict of guilty, and found a flaw in the indictment being legally served,
consequently it will be necessary to try the case again.
The government understood the significance of the Sabbath day to
the Saints, so why would they call court to session? Obviously it was a case of
unbridled authority with a side platter of immaturity.
Kenneth W. Godfrey, Audrey M. Godfrey, and Jill Mulvay Derr, Woman’s
Voices-An Untold History of The Latter-day Saints: 1830-1900 (Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book Company, 1982), 306.
253. Joseph
Smith and Governor Dunklin advised the exiled people to continue seeking
redress in the courts for the damages they had suffered. Efforts at criminal
and civil prosecution in Jackson County, beginning in February 1834, failed
because of the hostile climate at Independence, even with the state militia
sometimes serving as a guard and with the presence at Independence of the
state’s Mormon-friendly attorney general, Robert W. Wells. Receiving a change
of venue to nearby Richmond, Ray County, leaders of the United Firm pressed for
two test cases from events that had occurred in Independence on July 20, 1833.
The charge of “trespass” was leveled against the Jackson County defendants both
for assaulting Bishop Partridge and for destroying the house and press of W. W.
Phelps. The two men claimed civil damages of $50,000 each. The circuit Court,
in its July 1836 term at Richmond, ruled against the mob defendants, but the
judge awarded Partridge the frivolous damages of “one cent” and Phelps “seven
hundred and fifty Dollars.”
Joseph Smith Jr., History of The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1971), 1:476-78; “The
Outrage in Jackson County, Missouri,” Evening and Morning Star 2, March
1834, 3; Ray County Circuit Court Record, A 245-248; Edward Partridge’s
handwritten statement of damages. Edward Partridge, “In the Year of Our Lord,”
1-3, Church Archives; Ray County Circuit Court Record, July Term 1836, 249-50;
see Max H. Parkin, “A History of the Latter-day Saints in Clay County” (PhD
diss., Brigham Young University, 1976), 97-108.
254. It may seem
somewhat ironic, but the Trail of Tears (the governments forced relocation of
the Cherokees) beginning in May 1838 was just months prior to Lilburn W. Boggs
extermination order to have the Saints displaced from the state of Missouri.
Introduction, BYU Studies 46,
no. 4, (2007), 4.
255. The following incident takes place at
Adam-ondi-Ahman in November of 1838 when the Saints were required to turn their
arms into the mob:
One little
incident; as we started to march off from the ground or as the arms were laid
down (the one immediately followed the other) one man attempted to retain and
secrete a pistol, but as all eyes were that way, he was easily detected and in
an instant several rifles were aimed, and a cry from some of the officers stopped
both parties from farther operations.
A young man by
the name of Ezekiel Megin, before our surrender, went and dressed up as nice as
possible, with white gloves and white hat; he made a fine appearance, which
attracted some considerable attention from the mob (I say mob because I
consider all their proceedings according to mob law although, acting under
executive authority) insomuch that they began to talk to him for being a Mormon
and for not leaving them, that he was too likely a looking man to be there and
already a home was provided for him; when to their astonishment they found he
was not a member of the society; and nothing to do then but he must leave; but
he stood for the Mormons declaring he never wished to live with better people.
This little occurrence gave a great many quite favorable opinion the Mormons,
and opened the eyes of others to look for themselves. The place where we lay
down our arms was in the valley of Adamondiahman [Adam-ondi-Ahman], where Adam
blessed his sons. It was a most glorious and joyfully handsome prairie of two
or three in length and in full view of the ground when both Adam’s altar and
tower once stood, only a few trees were between us and the altar, yet all three
places were just on the edge of the prairie.
Autobiography
of Oliver Huntington, Typescript, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young
University
256. The following incident as described by William
Waterfall on February 8, 1890:
Campaigning
in those days was something to look forward to. There was always a parade—flame
bearers with their torch-lights, marching clubs, and drum corps playing the
campaign songs formed a part of the procession. Drum corps and marching clubs
of the People’s Party (organized by the Saints but disbanded in 1890) and the
Liberal Party (Formed by the gentile population of Utah to run against the
Peoples Party. Also disbanded in 1890 in favor of aligning political interest
with the national parties.), were sometimes a mile or more long. The People’s
Party never postponed a parade no matter how hard it was raining. Our Shirts
were dyed red, and on a rainy night we would march down Main Street where the
marching column members would sink almost to their knees in mud. After the
parade was over, we looked as though we had been through a bloody war; all the
dye had washed out of our shirts, and our drums and hands and clothes were red.
Heart
Throbs of the West, Vol. 10, DUP, Kate B. Carter, comp., 1949, 22-23.
Additional
interesting information:
During
the political campaign in 1890 in Salt Lake City, the Liberals and the People’s
Party held torchlight processions at night up and down Main Street. Boys and
young men were employed to carry placards on short poles bearing appropriate
slogans and names of the candidates. The same youths marched for the Liberals
the first night and the People’s Party the next. Flaming torches illuminated
the signs. The bobbing flames extended for blocks, casting an eerie light in
the blackness of the street. At intervals in front of ZCMI Drugstore, a burst
of red or green fire flared for a minute or two and burned out.
Horsemen
escorting the United States Flag led the parade, followed by other banners and
a brass band. Some men rode by in carriages, and a drum and fife corps added
its music, but the marching boys chanted their own rhythm:
Scott,
Scott, George N. Scott,
Don’t
he make the People’s Party
Hot,
hot, hot!
“Scott,
Scott, George N. Scott” was repeated on and on as far as the young voices could
be heard.
The
sidewalks were crowded with people milling around and giving an occasional
cheer as a favorite candidate rode by. Above, in the second-story windows, sat
the wives and families of the proprietors, waving their handkerchiefs and
looking down upon the passing parade.
Heart
Throbs of the West, Vol. 10, DUP, Kate B. Carter, comp., 1949, 23.
257.
The Canadian Parliament in session in Ottawa, amended the criminal
law of the Dominion so as to make polygamy punishable with five years’
imprisonment instead of two as heretofore. This was undoubtedly done with a
view to reach the Mormons who had settled in Alberta.
April 11, 1890 Deseret News
258. The following is Wilford Woodruff’s response
to allegations that plural marriages were still being performed:
One case has
been reported in which the parties alleged that the marriage was performed in
the Endowment House in Salt Lake City in the spring of 1889, but I have not
been able to learn who performed the ceremony; whatever was done in this matter
was without my knowledge. In consequence of this alleged occurrence, the
Endowment House was, by my instruction, taken down without delay.
Chronicles of Courage, Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Lesson
Committee, comp., (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1991), 3.
259. Various religious denominations sent missionaries
to save the lost souls in Utah Territory but met with little success. Among
these were Joseph Smith III and other missionaries from the Reorganized Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Arnold
K. Garr, Donald Q. Cannon, and Richard O. Cowan, Encyclopedia of Latter-day
Saint History (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2000), 35.
260.
During the year of 1878, when women were making such progress in
political affairs, the subject of plural marriage was greatly agitated; and
active measures were taken by certain parties to arouse public sentiment
against its practice. A mass meeting of non-Mormon women was held, and after
some speech-making against the Mormons in general, certain resolutions were
adopted and a circular sent to Congress against polygamy and speaking in favor
of the disfranchisement of the women of Utah.
Thus the first blow against
women’s rights in Utah was struck by women. It has often been remarked that if
it were not for women themselves, women might vote. At any rate, the non-Mormon
women of Utah have shown little inclination to vote and have been very earnest
in their efforts against the rights of Mormon women.
The anti-polygamy meeting was
followed by a mass meeting of the women of Utah in the Salt Lake Theater. There
were present at least two thousand women—such a gathering as is seldom seen in
any place. There were, perhaps, some fifteen or twenty newspaper reporters
present, the only men admitted. There were eight or nine addresses by prominent
women, and then resolutions were read and adopted wherein the women declared
themselves loyal citizens and claimed the right to defend themselves against
the ruthless assaults being made upon their sacred and constitutional rights.
It was a great and brave defense
when two thousand women rose en masse and declared themselves determined to
maintain and defend their rights. Mass meetings of women were held all over the
Territory endorsing the sentiments expressed and adopting the resolutions
presented at the mass meeting. Not only were the women of Utah aroused, but the
noble women of the suffrage associations were alike enraged at the crusade
which had begun, and they defended the women of Utah in the halls of Congress.
. . .
Chronicles
of Courage: Daughters of Utah Pioneers (Salt Lake City: Utah Printing
Company, 1991), 2:167-168.
261.
The Bishop of the Draper Ward was very ambitious to have his ward
members make a good record in tithe paying. One year he looked the ward over
and decided what he thought each member should pay. When Lauritz (Lauritz
Smith) received his assignment he felt that it would be impossible for him to
meet the Bishop’s estimate. He had no fuel to use at the forge . . . he worried
about his tithing payment, he prayed about it, he thought about it, for weeks.
One night, while in a wakeful mood, there appeared before him a spot of stumps.
A voice out of the night said to him, ‘have you seen those mahogany stumps?’ he
understood both the vision he saw and the words he heard. Before daybreak the
next morning Lauritz was rapping at the door of Henry Day, a Counselor in the
Bishopric. He said, ‘I would like to get your wagon and mules for the day.’
Brother Day inquired, ‘What are you going to do with them?’ ‘I am going up
Little Cottonwood Canyon after some mahogany stumps,’ was the reply. ‘There are
no mahogany stumps in Little Cottonwood Canyon,’ responded Brother Day. ‘Yes,
the Lord showed them to me last night. I know right where they are,’ said the
blacksmith.
The
mules were soon hitched to the wagon and the immigrant was off on his journey.
And there, true to the vision and the voice, lay a south sloping surface
covered with mahogany stumps. It appeared that some early trappers had spent a
winter on that hillside, and they had stripped the mahogany of their boughs for
their beds and the dead mahogany stumps were standing. Worms and ants had eaten
their roots so they were easily chopped down. He soon had a load of them and by
nightfall was back home. He built a kiln and made charcoal from mahogany wood.
Years before, while a journeyman blacksmith in Germany, a blacksmith had taught
him how to make charcoal. He went to work at his forge and soon had a load of
much needed log chains, slips and wedges, neck yokes, single trees, double
trees, etc. Again he called on his close friend, Henry Day, for the mules and
wagon to transport these materials to the old tithing office in Salt Lake City,
where the Hotel Utah later stood. Edward Hunter, the Presiding Bishop looked
the load over and said, ‘You have much more than necessary to pay your tithing.
Half this load will do that. And now we’d like to buy the other half.’ He was
paid in much needed dried meat, beans, flour, vegetables, etc. These
commodities enabled him and his family to live, as he often said, far better
than at any time since coming to Utah.”
Peace
Like A River, The Historical and Spiritual Journey of The Isaac M. Stewart
Family, Compiled and Edited By David H. Epperson (Salt Lake City, 2007), 49.
262. Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery
were baptized at the time of the restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood by John
the Baptist. It would have been necessary for Joseph Smith to be baptized a
member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the time of the
organization of the Church since the Church was not officially organized at the
time of the appearance of John the Baptist. The following situation explains
what could very well be the third time:
April 11th, 1841ÑJoseph [Smith]
and Sidney [Rigdon] baptized each other for the remission of their sins as this
order was then instituted in the Church. Accordingly, on the 27th of April
[1841], I was baptized for the remission of my sins. Also, on the same day, was
baptized for my brother Hyrum Huntington.
Autobiography of William Huntington, Typescript, Harold B. Lee
Library, Brigham Young University; htpp://www.boap.org/
263. This ordinance could only take place
in the Mississippi River since the baptismal font in the Nauvoo temple was not
dedicated until 8 November 1841.
June
13th [1841]ÑWas baptized for my grandfather Huntington and his wife and also
for Samuel Huntington, who signed the Declaration of Independence of the United
States.
Autobiography
of William Huntington, Typescript, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young
University; http://www.boap.org/
264. The following is related by Robert Gardner
Jr., about the winter of 1845:
“I had no
trouble in believing the Book of Mormon for I had a burning testimony in my
bosom every time I took the book. It was so plain to me I thought I had nothing
to do but run and tell my neighbors and they would believe it all. Mother was a
Methodist but never fought against the gospel but believed it right along after
awhile she was taken very sick not expected to live. She wished to be baptized.
Our neighbors said if you put her in the water we will have you tried for
murder for she will surely die. But we put her on a sled and took her two miles
through the snow and then cut a hole in the ice and baptized her in the
presence of those who came to see her die. One man declared if she did not
[die] that night he would be a Mormon next day. The next day he met her going
to her daughter's; she was on foot. He gazed at her as if he had seen a ghost.
He gave her the road but never spoke nor never joined the church.”
Autobiography
of Robert Gardner Jr., Typescript, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young
University; http://www.boap.org/
265. The
order of baptism for the first six individuals who organized the Church on
April 6, 1830:
Oliver
Cowdery, Joseph Smith Jr., Samuel H. Smith, Hyrum Smith, David Whitmer, and
Peter Whitmer Jr.
Berrett,
William Edwin, The Restored Church (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book
Company, 1973), 71.
266.
After the dedicatory prayer was offered by President George A.
Smith (First Counselor to Brigham Young), Albert Carrington (European Mission
President), and Lorenzo Snow (Apostle and future President of the Church) on
the Holy Land, March 3, 1873, all of these men were rebaptized in the Jordan
River (Israel, not Utah) and then reconfirmed.
“President
George A. Smith’s Party,” Millennial Star 35 (April 1, 1873), 201.
267.
At the time when the Deseret Telegraph Company was organized, young
people received Church assignments to learn telegraphy during the 1860’s.
Sherry
Pack Baker, “Mormon Media History Timeline, 1827-2007, BYU Studies, Volume
47, Number 4, 2009, 121.
268. Palestine
11 times-the number of times the land was dedicated:
Listed are the dates and who gave the dedicatory prayer:
Orson Hyde (Apostle) 10/24/1841
Albert Carrington (president of the European Mission) 3/2/1873
Lorenzo Snow (Apostle) 3/2/1873
George A. Smith (First Counselor to Brigham Young) 3/2/1873
Anthon Lund (Apostle)/ Ferdinand Hintze (Turkish Mission
President) 5/8/1898
Francis Lyman (Apostle) 3/2/1902, 3/ 4/1902, 3/16/1902
James Talmage (Apostle) 10/18/1927
John Widtsoe (Apostle) 5/21/1933, 5/31/1933
Blair G. Van Dyke and LaMar C. Berrett, “In the Footsteps of Orson
Hyde,” BYU Studies, 47, no. 1 (2008), 62.
269. The various dedications of the Nauvoo Temple:
November 8, 1841- Joseph Smith dedicated the temporary baptismal
font located in the basement of the Nauvoo Temple.
October 5, 1845- Brigham Young dedicated the exterior of the
temple and the work that had been completed to that point.
November 30, 1845- Brigham Young dedicated the newly finished
attic.
January 7, 1846- Brigham Young dedicated an alter in the attic for
the purpose of sealings and eternal marriages. He also dedicates all the work
completed on the temple up to that point in time.
April 30, 1846- Joseph Young dedicates the finished Nauvoo Temple
in a private ceremony.
May 1, 1846- Orson Hyde offered the public dedicatory prayer over
the Nauvoo Temple.
Don F. Colvin, Nauvoo Temple: A Story of Faith (American
Fork, Utah; Covenant Communications, 2002), 245-251
270. Unfortunately not
all members involved in the Law of Consecration understood the system fully. As
a result, in May 1833 a Missouri court ruled in favor of one member who sued
for the return of a fifty-dollar donation.
James B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the
Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1992), 86.
271. Even
when the Saints were first in the Valley, ministers from other faiths were
permitted to preach. The following from the journal of Eliza Lyman on September
16th, 1849:
Attended meeting. Heard a discourse from the Reverend Mr. Marble
an emigrant.
Kenneth W. Godfrey, Audrey M. Godfrey, and Jill Mulvay Derr, Women’s
Voices: An Untold History of The Latter-day Saints 1830-1900 (Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book Company, 1982), 257.
272 At another fast meeting I was in the [Kirtland]
temple with my sister Zina. The whole of the congregation were on their knees,
praying vocally, for such was the custom at the close of these meetings when
Father Smith presided; yet there was no confusion; the voices of the
congregation mingled softly together. While the congregation was thus praying,
we both heard, from one corner of the room above our heads, a choir of angels
singing most beautifully. They were invisible to us, but myriads of angelic
voices seemed to be united in singing some song of Zion, and their sweet
harmony filled the temple of God.
Edward
W. Tullidge, The Women of Mormondom (New York, 1877) pp. 207-10, 213.
273. At another time a cousin of ours came to visit us
at Kirtland. She wanted to go to one of the saints’ fast meetings, to hear
someone sing or speak in tongues, but she said she expected to have a hearty
laugh. Accordingly we went with our cousin to the meeting, during which a
Brother McCarter rose and sang a song of Zion in tongues; I arose and sang
simultaneously with him the same tune and words, beginning and ending each
verse in perfect unison, without varying a word. It was just as though we had
sung it together a thousand times. After we came out of meeting, our cousin
observed, “Instead of laughing, I never felt so solemn in my life.”
Edward
W. Tullidge, The Women of Mormondom (New York, 1877) pp. 207-10, 213.
274.
Following these climactic events [the dedication of the Kirtland
Temple] the temple was put to thorough use. This included regular Sunday
meetings, fast meetings on the first Thursday of each month at 10 A.M. and 4
P.M. with Patriarch Joseph Smith, Sr., presiding, school classes during the
week, and separate meetings for the Melchizedek Priesthood quorums on weekday
evenings.
James
B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day Saints (Salt
Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1992), 111.
275.
Jean Rio Giffiths Baker gives us the following insight of a
meeting held on the ship Sunday, January 26, 1851:
Meeting
between decks. Sacrament administered, after which a couple were married by our
President Elder Gibson.
Kenneth
W. Godfrey, Audrey M. Godfrey, and Jill Mulvay Derr, Women’s Voices-An
Untold History of The Latter-day Saints: 1830-1900 (Salt Lake City: Deseret
Book Company, 1982), 205.
276.
In 1923, in the Salt Lake area, in a survey taken for the committee
found that a total of [over] thirty “foreign” meetings were being held in
twenty-one stakes, with two in Swedish, thirteen “Scandinavian,” two Danish,
two Dutch, and nine German, in addition of four “Mexican” local organizations.
New
Views of Mormon History, Edited by Davis Bitton and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher (Salt Lake
City, University of Utah Press, 1987), 280.
277. The following as told about Clara Decker
Young, wife of Brigham Young:
One of the
cruel customs in vogue among the Indians was to kill—if they could not
sell—their prisoners of war. During the winter of 1847-1848, several captive
Indian children were ransomed by settlers at the fort to save them from being
shot or tortured to death by their merciless captors.
One of these, a girl, was
purchased by Charles Decker, Clara Young’s brother, and, being placed in her
care, was reared by her to womanhood. Sally, as she was named, was a genuine
savage, and it required, at times, all the patience and perseverance that Aunt
Clara could command to correct her Indian manners and morals and instruct her
in the ways of civilization. Nevertheless she succeeded admirably, and Sally
grew up a neat housekeeper, the peer of any of her white sisters in the faith.
. . .
To these native children, this was
a narrow escape. It makes perfect sense why Brigham Young would have wanted the
Saints to buy as many native children as possible.
Chronicles of Courage, Lesson Committee comp.,
(Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1991), 2:156.
278. Bryant (Hinckley) had been promised in a
patriarchal blessing almost fifteen years earlier: “You shall not only become
great yourself but your posterity will become great, from your loins shall come
forth statesmen, prophets, priests and Kings to the most High God. The
Priesthood will never depart from your family, no never. To your posterity
there shall be no end . . . and the name of Hinckley shall be honored in every
nation under heaven.”
The day Bryant and Ada
rejoiced in the arrival of their first son, they couldn’t have foreseen that he
would in great measure fulfill that prophecy. Born on June 23, 1910, and given
his mother’s maiden name, he would be known as Gordon Bitner Hinckley.
Sheri
Dew, Go Forward With Faith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1996),
22.
279.
Now for President Hinckley’s Patriarchal Blessing. Could
he have known at eleven years of age, when he received this blessing, that he
would someday be a Prophet in the Lord’s Church? His fathers and his own
blessing certainly point that direction.
While on board ship,
(on the way to his mission in England) Elder Hinckley pulled out the
patriarchal blessing he had received at age eleven from patriarch Thomas E.
Callister. He couldn’t remember having read it since the day the patriarch had
come to the Hinckley home and pronounced blessings upon him and several of his
brothers and sisters, but now he was interested in reviewing those promises
made a dozen years earlier. “Thou shalt grow to the full stature of manhood and
shall become a mighty and valiant leader in the midst of Israel,” the patriarch
had promised. “the Holy Priesthood shall be thine to enjoy and thou shalt
minister in the midst of Israel as only those can who are called of God. Thou
shalt ever be a messenger of peace; the nations of the earth shall hear thy
voice and be brought to a knowledge of the truth by the wonderful testimony
which thou shalt bear”.
Sheri
L. Dew, Go Forward With Faith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company,
1996), 60.
280.
A patriarchal blessing given to Nanny Longstroth in Nauvoo by John
Smith, uncle of the Prophet, was fulfilled in her lifetime and later: “. .
.thou shalt be a mother in Israel—prophets, seers, and revelators shall proceed
forth from thee, and thy name shall be had in honorable remembrance in the
House of Israel.” (She was the wife of two apostles—Willard and Franklin D.;
mother of one apostle—George Franklin Richards; and grandmother of two
apostles—Stephen L. Richards and LeGrand Richards. Her grandson, Stayner
Richards, was an Assistant to the Twelve. Among her posterity are and have been
numerous missionaries, mission presidents, and Church leaders.)
“Pioneers of Faith, Courage, and Endurance.” Chronicles
of Courage: Daughters of Utah Pioneers (Salt Lake City: Utah Printing
Company, 1991), 2:91-92.
281. Accordingly to the journal of Lorenzo Hill Hatch,
he had received four patriarchal blessings and his wife, Sylvia, two.
Autobiography
of Lorenzo Hill Hatch, Typescript, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.
282.
At 6:00 in the morning of Saturday, May 24, the twelve and other
Church leaders met at the Temple site [Nauvoo] with great secrecy to lay the
capstone. Despite the supposed secrecy of the occasion, several thousand saints
quickly gathered and at precisely 6:22a.m. the capstone was pronounced set and
Brigham Young uttered the prayer. This prayer suggested the importance of the
temple endowment ceremonies which the Mormons could not conduct until the
building was completed, and is conscious of the risk that they would be driven
out of Nauvoo before that time. He stated, “The last stone is now laid upon the
temple, and I pray the Almighty in the name of Jesus to defend us in this place
and sustain us until the temple is finished and we have all got our
endowments.” John Taylor noted in his journal that the audience at the temple
site included several officers watching for us to take us but the leaders
escaped by leaving abruptly during the closing song. As the temple crowd
disbursed in Nauvoo a few minutes before 7:00, the courthouse crowd was just
assembling in Carthage, some fifteen miles across the prairie to the southeast,
to attend the trial of the indicted murderers of Joseph Smith.
Peace
Like A River, The Historical and Spiritual Journey of The Isaac M. Stewart
Family, Compiled and Edited By David H. Epperson (Salt Lake City, 2007), 28.
283. On the 17th of May, 1849, the first
gold diggers of California made their appearance in the City—they were a
company from Cincinnati, Ohio. They had mule teams, and seemed to be composed
of fair intelligence—very kind and affable in deportment. They asked me of our
faith, and I tried to give them the information which they seemed to desire.
Some of them seemed to be up in what might be worldly parlance, considered
profane history; but as far as that was concerned, their ideas seemed dull. One
of them asked me if I could let them know where they could stay through the
night with some woman. I told them that I thought there were none of that kind
in the City. The captain said to me, “Young man, if you will not take it as an
insult, I would offer you some bread that is somewhat stale”. Said I, “I would
take it with many thanks”. So they got me a sack and gathered up the bread, and
I had large sackful to take home. I tried to eat a biscuit on the way, but
could eat no more than a half one because it was the first bread I had tasted since
Christmas, five long months! Here I saw the prophesy of President Kimball
fulfilled which he spoke on the 1st of May. He said, “Cheer
up brethren and sisters; for I prophesy to you in the name of Jesus Christ,
that within three weeks clothing can be bought here as cheap as in New York
City”. He turned and sat down and said, “I wish I had not said that, for I do
not see how it is to be brought about”. I was on the stand and heard all he
said; for I helped to sing. After I took the bread home, I returned. We took
their teams out and tended them three days more. They paid us well. We also
baked a lot of bread for them, and they paid us in flour. We got a hundred
pounds of flour from them, and they also gave me a hundred pounds of coffee! We
later traded the coffee off. We also got a hundred pounds of states bacon; so
we began to hold up our heads in joy! I had worked like a slave, nearly starved
too, and here I was all ready paid for my toil! Before they left, a gentlemen
came up to me and asked me to go to their camp. There he made me a present of a
new brown broadcloth suit that had never been soiled! He also presented me with
a nice library of books. Said he, “I do this because of the respect due to you
from me, in consequence of your superior and excellent qualities of mind and
heart, in placing before me the principles of the doctrine of Christ in their
purity”. I only wish I could remember his name.
284. We have heard it said that
the Mormon Battalion was instrumental in the discovery of gold in California.
What we might not know are the details surrounding this discovery.
“Yes,” says the
objector, “that was creditable and very patriotic, but what had that to do with
the discovery of gold in California?” President Young and Mr. Brannan were on
the overland trail. Before Mr. Brannan left on his return to California, President
Young said to him, “If you meet the Battalion boys, tell them none must come
home, except they bring enough food to last them eight months,” or words to
that effect. Mr. Brannan met the boys on the mountains and delivered to them
President Young’s message. The boys counseled what best to do and decided that
those having families, or important duties urging them forward, should go. This
counsel was carried out, and those who returned to California applied to
Captain Sutter, then living in his fort, where Sacramento City is now located,
for employment, The captain had no money; he had plenty of land, and the
American river ran through it. The boys informed the captain that their needs
were not money, but flour and other food to carry to their relatives and
friends in the mountains for the coming year. Sutter said, “If you sow and
harvest a crop of wheat, and build a mill to manufacture the wheat into flour,
I will pay you for your labor in flour and ponies, after the wheat is ground
next year.”
A bargain was
made. Sutter to furnish the land, seed, farming tools, teams, etc., necessary
for plowing the land and sowing the wheat; also tools and teams necessary for
getting the logs out of the mountains, out of which to saw the lumber for
building the mill and digging the mill race. Etc. Mr. Sutter was to board the
boys while they were doing the work.
The wheat was
sown, the mill frame was up, and the mill race dug. I saw them. The wheat was
growing. The first water let through the race washed away the loose earth, and
left the shining yellow flakes of gold exposed in the bottom of the race, to
which the boys directed the superintendent Mr. Marshall’s attention. Thus it
may be seen that the “Mormons” performed the physical labor that discovered the
gold of California to the world, and there are many living witnesses that can
testify to the awakening of the world to its discovery. Not only the continent
of America, but the nations of Europe, Asia, Africa, and the islands of the
sea. The scramble for the precious metals was not in California nor the United
States only, but wherever they have since been discovered. It has made the
nations and their people more enterprising, and better acquainted with other
nations and their people.
If the
Battalion boys had not been sent to California, how long would the discovery of
gold in California have been delayed? That is a question difficult to answer,
as all the great events and discoveries of the precious metals that followed,
in consequence of this first discovery, must likewise have been delayed.
The Battalion
boys and ship Brooklyn “Mormons” were sent to California by President
Young, and by their labors gold was discovered. A great awakening in the world
was the result. California soon grew into a noted state, as a result of the
discovery.
Journal
of John M. Horner; htpp://www.boap.org/
285. I remember the story that President George Albert
Smith used to tell us. Now, as you remember Brother Smith, he was one of the
friendliest men that I think we ever had in the Church. No one was a stranger
to him. He’d get on a plane and within five minutes the man in the seat next to
him was like an old friend. When he arrived in Chicago during the Chicago
World’s Fair he learned that the president of the fair was a man by the name of
Dawes. He had been to Harvard University with a man named Dawes. He wondered if
this could be his old classmate. So, prompted by this spirit of friendliness,
he called up the office and asked the secretary if he could have an appointment
to see Mr. Dawes.
There were
three brothers-Charles Dawes who was the vice-president of the United States,
you will recall; Henry Dawes; and Rufus Dawes. Now, he wasn’t sure of the first
name of his friend, and this smart young secretary said,
“Well, there are 125 people lined up outside to see him, but I
guess if you want to come and stand in line you can see him.” “Well,” said
President Smith, “I didn’t want anything; I’m just an old schoolmate and just
wanted to pass the time of day.” “Well,” she said, “wait a minute. I think he’d
want to meet somebody who doesn’t want anything. All the rest of these people
want something. You come around to the side door and I’ll let you in to see
him.” So, President Smith caught a taxi and went out there.
Just as he got
to the side door, as indicated, this man was ushering out a couple who had been
in conference with him. One look told him this wasn’t the man he knew. Now,
here he was ushered into the busy man’s office without a thing to say to him.
He rubbed his hands a little bit and finally said, “Mr. Dawes, where do your
people come from?” President Smith said, “Wasn’t that an asinine thing to ask
him.” Mr. Dawes looked at him for a minute and asked, “Are you interested in
genealogy?”
Well, here was
President Smith’s cue. He told him about the genealogical library, our great
interest in genealogical research. Mr. Dawes said, “Let me show you something.”
He went into the back room and came out with a volume, a beautifully bound
volume, and said, “This is the genealogy of my mother. I loved my mother
and I was curious about her ancestors. So I had researchers go over to the old
country and search out her genealogy. It cost me somewhere between $30,000 to
$40,000 to make this research. And now that I have it done and have satisfied
my curiosity I have no further use for it. How would you like it if I gave it
to you to take back and put in your wonderful library?”
“My,” President
Smith said, “I think that would be a treasure.”
This was the
genealogy of the Gates family-one of our pioneer families. And that genealogy
linked with many of the pioneer families. Within 15 minutes President Smith
walked out of this man’s office, within his arms $40,000 worth of research from
a man he had never seen before. You tell me the Lord isn’t opening the doors to
genealogy work? It means merely that when you do all that you can, then you can
expect the Lord to open the doors beyond our own efforts.
Genealogical Devotion Addresses--1970, Fifth Annual Priesthood
Genealogical Research Seminar, Brigham Young University, 1970, pg. 31-32.
286. In September of 1933, sponsored by funds provided
by industrialist Henry Ford, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir arrives at the
“Century of Progress” fair in Chicago. The choir sang in the Ford Symphony
Gardens during a week of open-air concerts, two of which were broadcast
nationally by CBS.
Richard Neitzel Holzapfel et al., On This Day In The Church
(Salt Lake City: Eagle Gate, 2000), 175.
287.
The following from the journal of John M. Horner:
About this time, a convention was
called for the purpose of making a nomination of someone for President of the
United States. The Prophet was unanimously chosen and many delegates were
appointed to electioneer in a number of states, to endeavor to elect the
Prophet president. I was sent back to New Jersey; I ordered a thousand or so of
the Prophet’s “Views of the Powers and Policies of the Government of the United
States,” printed and took these with me. One night while speaking to a full
house of attentive listeners, I invited all to speak who wished to, at the
close of my lecture. One gentleman got up and said: “I have one reason to give
why Joseph Smith can never be President of the United States: my paper, which I
received from Philadelphia this afternoon said that he was murdered in Carthage
jail, on June 27th.” Silence reigned: the gathering quietly dispersed; but the grief
and sadness of this heart was beyond the power of man to estimate.
288.
The first suspect to the murder attempt [Lilburn W. Boggs}, even
before Joseph Smith and Porter Rockwell were thought of was a man by the name
of Tompkins (approximately 38 to 40 years of age), however, the anti-Mormon
militia leader Samuel D. Lucas cleared the suspect.
Jeffersonian
Republican, May 21, 1842.
Additional interesting
information:
It
might surprise you that no one in Missouri pointed a finger at Joseph Smith or
Porter Rockwell at first for the deed. If Missouri didn’t, then who did?
The postmaster at the nearby town
of Montrose, Iowa, a man by the name of David W. Kilbourne and an anti-Mormon
agitator wrote a letter to the then Governor of Missouri, Governor Reynolds.
Mr. Kilbourne stated in his letter, “should to entertain a doubt that it was
done by some of Joe’s minions at his instigation.”
D. W.
Kilbourne to Thomas Reynolds, May 14, 1842, “Thomas Reynolds Letters.” Quoted
in Warren A. Jennings, “Two Iowa Postmasters View Nauvoo; Anti-Mormon Letters
to the Governor of Missouri,” BYU Studies 11, no. 3 (1971): 275-76.
289. Anti-Mormon and
excommunicated first mayor of Nauvoo, John C. Bennett wrote to the Warsaw
Signal that Joseph Smith predicted to him in 1841 that Lilburn Boggs would
die by violent means and that when Porter Rockwell left Nauvoo shortly before
the assault that Joseph Smith had said Porter had “gone to fulfill prophecy.”
“Nauvoo,”
Warsaw Signal, July 9, 1842.
290.
How many times was ex-Governor Boggs shot on the May 6, 1842
assassination attempt?
There
have been arguments for three to four shots fired. All accounts agree on twice
to the neck and at least once to twice to the head.
“A
Foul Deed,” St. Louis Daily Missouri Republican, May 12, 1842; “Governor
Boggs,” Jefferson City (Mo.) Jeffersonian Republican, May 14, 1842.
291.
Wilford Woodruff recorded the following in his journal when he
learned of the assassination attempt of Boggs. Woodruff later corrects the fact
that Boggs did not die:
He says that Boggs had “just Been
assassinated in his own house & fallen in his own Blood. . . . Thus this
ungodly wretch has fallen in the midst of his iniquity & the vengeance of
God has overtaken at last & he has met his Just deserts though by an
unknown hand.”
Susan
Staker, ed., Waiting for World’s End: The Diaries of Wilford Woodruff (Salt
Lake City: Signature Books, 1993), 55-56 (May 15, 1842).
292. The
Nauvoo Wasp, a Nauvoo newspaper edited by William Smith, brother to the prophet
received a letter from an individual who wrote under the pseudonym “Vortex,”
was equally joyous as the paper states:
“Boggs
is undoubtedly killed, according to report; but Who did the Noble Deed remains
to be found out.”
Nauvoo
(Ill.) Wasp, May 28, 1842, 2.
293. June 27, 1844 the governor left those of our
brethren in prison with only eight men to guard them while he, the governor,
went to Nauvoo with three to four hundred men to guard him. When he arrived at
Nauvoo, he gave an insulting speech and drove away.
Autobiography of Joseph Grafton Hovey, Typescript, Harold B. Lee
Library, BYU.
Additional interesting information:
James W. Woods, a lawyer for Joseph Smith, stated that he counted
35 bullet holes in the walls of the room where the attack took place in
Carthage Jail.
Joseph A. McRae and Eunice H. McRae, Historical Facts regarding
the Liberty and Carthage Jails (Salt Lake City: privately published by the
McRaes, 1954), 116.
294. How many bullets found their mark in the four
prisoners?
Hyrum Smith, five; John Taylor, four; Willard Richards, one
(barely grazed his earlobe); Joseph Smith, three or four.
Joseph L. Lyon and David W. Lyon, “Physical Evidence at Carthage
Jail and What It Reveals about the Assassination of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, BYU
Studies, Volume 47, Number 4, 2009, 42.
295. The following is from the journal of Parley P.
Pratt at the time he was returning home from his mission at the news of the
martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum:
As I walked
along over the plains of Illinois, lonely and solitary, I reflected as follows:
I am now drawing near to the beloved city; in a day or two I shall be there.
How shall I meet the sorrowing widows and orphans? How shall I meet the aged
and widowed mother of these two martyrs? How shall I meet an entire community
bowed down with grief and sorrow unutterable? What shall I say? Or how console
and advise twenty-five thousand people who will throng about me in tears, and
in the absence of my President and the older members of the now presiding
council, will ask counsel at my hands? Shall I tell them to fly to the
wilderness and deserts? Or, shall I tell them to stay at home and take care of
themselves, and continue to build the Temple? With these reflections and
inquiries, I walked onward, weighed down as it were unto death. When I could
endure it no longer, I cried out aloud, saying: O Lord! In the name of Jesus
Christ I pray Thee, show me what these things mean, and what I shall say to Thy
people? On a sudden the Spirit of God came upon me, and filled my heart with
joy and gladness indescribable; and while the spirit of revelation glowed in my
bosom with as visible a warmth and gladness as if it were fire. The Spirit said
unto me: “Lift up your head and rejoice; for behold! It is well with my
servants Joseph and Hyrum. My servant Joseph still holds the keys of my kingdom
in this dispensation, and he shall stand in due time on the earth, in the
flesh, and fulfill that to which he is appointed. Go and say unto my people in
Nauvoo, that they shall continue to pursue their daily duties and take care of
themselves, and make no movement in Church government to reorganize or alter
anything until the return of the remainder of the Quorum of the Twelve. But
exhort them that they continue to build the House of the Lord which I have
commanded them to build in Nauvoo.”
Scot Facer Proctor and Maurine Jensen Proctor, Autobiography of
Parley P. Pratt (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2000), 413-415.
296. With the Prophet now living in Missouri, many of
the faithful who remained in Kirtland wanted to follow him. On March 6, 1838,
the seventies met in the temple to plan the migration. They extended the
privilege of joining the exodus to all members of the Church. The result was
the pioneer party known as Kirtland Camp, which left the city on July 6 with
515 people, 27 tents, 59 wagons, 97 horses, 22 oxen, 69 cows, and 1 bull.
James B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the
Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1992), 124.
297. In reference to Kirtland Camp:
Discouragement
was great, and before reaching Springfield, Illinois, the group had been
reduced to about 260 persons. On October 2, after traveling 866 miles, Kirtland
Camp was met by Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, and others and happily escorted
into Far West. Two days later this group of Saints began to settle at
Adam-ondi-Ahman.
James B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the
Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1992), 124.
298. Benjamin
Cluff Jr., the schools second principle (Karl G. Maeser was the first
principle) chose the colors [BYU colors] in the early 1890’s.
Eugene
L. Roberts and Mrs. Eldon Reed Cluff, “Benjamin Cluff Jr., Scholar, Educational
Administrator, and Explorer: Second Principal of the Brigham Young Academy and
First President of Brigham Young University; A Study of the Life and Labors of
One of Utah’s First School Administrators,” unpublished typescript (1947),
60-61.
299. In order
to boost the academic qualifications of his faculty [Brigham Young Academy] in
the short run, (Benjamin Cluff Jr.) Cluff broke with tradition and hired
non-Mormons. In 1894, he hired his first gentile faculty member, Abby Calista
Hale, a graduate of Clark College in Worcester, Massachusetts, and the niece of
U.S. Senate Chaplain Edward Everett Hale. Although she never embraced
Mormonism, she loved Utah, regarded Mormonism favorable, and later quipped that
she was “not so very ‘non’” as some feared.
Ernest L. Wilkinson, ed., Brigham Young University: the First
One Hundred Years, 4 vols. (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press,
1975-76)1:258-59; Abby Calista Hale to Benjamin Cluff, April 6, 1897,
President’s Records.
300. Peter O.
Thomassen issues the first foreign-language paper (Danish and Norwegian)
published in Utah, the Utah Posten in December of 1873.
Richard Neitzel Holzapfel et al., On This Day In The Church
(Salt Lake City: Eagle Gate, 2000), 245.
301.
In October of 1924, the Church broadcasts general conference for
the first time on a Church-owned radio station.
Richard
Neitzel Holzapfel et al., On This Day In The Church (Salt Lake City:
Eagle Gate, 2000), 92.
302. General Conference is broadcast on television for
the first time (September 30, 1949).
Richard
Neitzel Holzapfel et al., On This Day In The Church (Salt Lake City:
Eagle Gate, 2000), 189.
303.
In August of 1940, the largest world premiere of any Hollywood
movie to date is held in Salt Lake City with the release of Darryl F. Zanusk’s
production of Brigham Young, one of the first motion pictures to portray
the Church in a positive way. It stars Dean Jagger, who later joins the Church.
Richard
Neitzel Holzapfel et al., On This Day In The Church (Salt Lake City:
Eagle Gate, 2000), 164.
304.
Spencer Adams was the first LDS player in the Major Leagues. He
played in the World Series for the 1925 Washington Senators and the 1926 New
York Yankees.
Jim
Ison, Mormons In The Majors (Cincinnati: Action Sports, 1991), 4.
Additional interesting
information on Spencer Adams:
Spencer’s
son said, “A definite highlight for my father (Spencer Adams) was rooming with
Lou Gehrig.” He also roomed with Tony Lazzeri who had occasional epileptic
seizures that Spencer would help treat. He was a part of the 1926 Yankee World
Series team and played in games six and seven as a pinch-runner. He is the only
Church member to play in two consecutive World Series for different teams.
When Babe Ruth was on a trip in
Utah, he was asked whether he knew Spencer Adams. Babe said, “Sure I do, he was
the best poker player in the American League.” This unexpected praise had its
origin in a train car carrying the Yankees to a game. The Babe was engaged in a
favorite pastime, playing poker. When he needed to leave the game temporarily,
he said to Spencer, Hey rookie, sit in for me.” When Ruth returned, he was $300
richer!
Paul
Eaton, “Griffith May Have Something On Fire.” The Sporting News, January
21, 1926.
305.
Newt Kimball pitched a no hitter in his first professional game in
the Major Leagues.
He
accomplished this feat in 1934.
Jim
Ison, Mormons In The Majors (Cincinnati: Action Sports, 1991), 261.
306.
Red Perry pitched for the 1927 Pittsburg Pirates.
Jim
Ison, Mormons In The Majors (Cincinnati: Action Sports, 1991), 158.
Additional
interesting information:
In
1927, he pitched for Wichita in the Western League and was called up at the end
of the season by the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was an exciting time to be with the
Pirates as they were in the thick of a pennant race with the St. Louis
Cardinals and New York Giants. With so much on the line, Red was able to get
into only one game. On September 22, with the Pirates beating the Giants 5 to
2, he entered the game to pitch the ninth inning. Before the largest crowd in
Pirates history, he pitched no-hit, no-run relief. The Pirates won the pennant
by a game and one-half and played the Yankees in the World Series. Red had
joined the team too late to be on the post-season roster. As a memento of
winning the National League pennant, the team gave Red a diamond-studded
cigarette lighter. He was upset with the choice of the gift; nevertheless, when
he accidentally threw the lighter out the window of a moving automobile, he
spent over an hour looking for it without luck.
Jim
Ison, Mormons In The Majors (Cincinnati: Action Sports, 1991), 159.
307. LDS major league pitchers have a 10-0 record as
starting World Series pitchers (as of 1991).
Jim Ison, Mormons In The Majors (Cincinnati: Action Sports,
1991), back cover
308. On putting together the first LDS historic
pictorial book: The author and
photographer was George Edward Anderson. Anderson traveled “without purse or
script” on his four-year Birth of Mormonism interval from his Utah
gallery. . . . It all began when the talented photographer, at age forty-six,
was called on a mission to England in the spring of 1907. He saw the call as an
answer to a prayer, a prayer that he might be able to use his camera to serve
God and Zion. He asked for, and received, permission from the Church to make
detours on his way east to photograph some of the historic sites important to
the Mormon culture. He said, “I feel so impressed with the necessity of making
the views,” he wrote. “I can see what a blessing they would be to our people in
arousing an interest in this land, and the work that is before us as a people
in building up the centre stake of Zion. . .”
. .
. And so it was with his photo-documentation of the historic Church sites. He
was slow and particular, and it took so long that eventually the delay in going
to England became an embarrassment to his family. Anderson was still in New
York in June of 1908, ten months after he had departed Springville. A month
later he finally boarded a steamer and went to England, but three years later
his mission concluded, he didn’t bother to go home. He simply returned to New
England and picked up where he had left off on his passion.
In
all, Anderson was absent from his Springville gallery for more than seven
years, only three of which were spent in England on his mission.
Douglas F. Tobler and Nelson B. Wadsworth, The History Of The
Mormons In Photographs And Text: 1830 To The Present (New York: St. Martins
Press, 1987), 37, 39.
309. Many assume since Joseph Smith Sr. was the
first patriarch to the Church that he would have given the first patriarchal
blessing; not so. This distinction is held by Joseph Smith Jr. who provided the
blessing on December 18, 1833 at Kirtland, Ohio.
Smith, Joseph Fielding, Essentials in Church History, 4
vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1973), 141.
310. In June of 1831, John Whitmer, Church historian,
begins the Book of John Whitmer, the earliest history of the Church.
Richard Neitzel Holzapfel et al., On This Day In The Church
(Salt Lake City: Eagle Gate, 2000), 115.
311. For some years past, a few benevolent ladies have
been trying to provide Salt Lake City with an orphan’s home, a need which is
not yet greatly felt; but since the project of also making it a day nursery
where working women’s children are cared for and taught has been carried out,
it has made more progress, and the legislature of 1888 made an appropriation
for this purpose.
Chronicles
of Courage: Daughters of Utah Pioneers (Salt Lake City: Utah Printing
Company, 1991), 2:166.
312. April 8, 1898: Elders
Brigham F. Duffin and Thomas H. Chambers, two missionaries from Utah, hold the
first Latter-day Saint meeting in Caldwell County, Missouri, since the Saints
were expelled from the state in 1838.
Richard
Neitzel Holzapfel et. Al., On This Day in the Church (Salt Lake City:
Eagle Gate, 2000), 69.
313. While
Wilford Woodruff served his mission to the Fox Islands in Maine he records that
he had baptized Justin Eames and his wife on September 3, 1837. The Eames were
the first individuals in this dispensation to be baptized upon an island of the
sea.
Daughters
of Utah pioneers, Chronicles of Courage (Salt Lake City: Utah Printing
Company, 1991), 2:101.
314. The
1922 film, Trapped by the Mormons, is the first anti-Mormon movie,
released in Britain.
Arnold K. Garr, Donald Q. Cannon, and Richard O. Cowan, Encyclopedia
of Latter-day Saint History (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2000),
23.
315.
The following from J.Z. Stewart’s journal of his experience with
the other elders called on a mission to Mexico in 1876.
Pleased
with their reports of southern Arizona, the First Presidency conceived a scheme
of Mormon expansion into the intermountain valleys, reaching down into Mexico
and beyond, and in April, President Brigham Young wrote to the elders asking
that Sonora be explored as a country of possible settlement. In April, the
Stewart brothers received a letter from President Young suggesting that they
unite with J.W. Campbell to draw up plans for a Mormon colony in old Mexico.
This made it necessary for them to cross the country eastward to San Elizario,
Texas, where Mr. Campbell was then situated.
They
began their journey by way of the Rio Grande settlements; then along the San
Pedro River. They were repeatedly assured along the way that they could not
cross the country into Mexico in safety, since the Apaches were ravaging the
country and attacking all travelers. The elders refused to be deterred from
their purpose and continued on their way, traveling through the most dangerous
Indian sections during the night. James Z’s diary describes the following
events:
“Sunday,
27 May, 1877. Arose early and went to San Pedro 22 miles. There is but little
travel on this road for fear of the Apaches. Drove on through the pass 15 miles
in the evening and over a very dangerous road.
Monday,
28 May, 1877. Went on to the Sulphur Springs early, stopped a while there and
drove on near the Apache Pass. Distance from San Pedro to Sulphur Springs 32
miles.”
At
Sulphur Springs they found the station a black mass of ruins, the Indians having
killed the manager and burned the buildings shortly before their arrival. The
elders stopped for several hours off the road a few hundred yards, making no
fire or light. At midnight they drove over the dreaded Apache Pass, descending
down to the creek at daybreak. J.Z.’s journal noted:
“Tuesday,
May 29, 1877. Traveled on through the Pass and stopped to let our animals pick.
We heard several shots fired ahead of us in the road. Then a soldier came down
full speed and we were informed that the mail had been taken and rider killed.
We turned around and drove back to Camp Bowie and again started on the road,
met the buckboard coming in with the dead body of the mail rider. Soldiers went
out and found the Indians and Indians fired on them when West ordered a retreat,
the Indians making fun of them, etc. Soldiers were anxious for a fight but the
officers did not want any. We laid over on account of the excitement.”
Miriam’s
history supplies this additional detail: An Army officer rode past them at top
speed to the military post beyond. Shortly afterwards he returned with horses
and guards, one of which called to the elders to leave as quickly as possible,
since the Apaches had just killed the mail driver ahead and were coming that
way. Soon after they were passed by a riderless horse followed by two men on
horseback. A flying instant was enough to reveal that one of the men and one of
the horses had been pierced by bullets. In their wake came a troop of soldiers
bearing the dead mail rider’s body. It was with horror that the brothers saw he
had been scalped.
The
elders traveled on with the soldiers to Camp Bowie, where, because of the
danger in every direction, they remained six days. It was a week of intense
excitement; a second mail driver from the west was attacked by Indians and
escaped only when cavalry troops came to his rescue, the mail rider from the
east was not afforded military protection and he met his death at the hands of
the red men within a short distance of the post. His body was not retrieved
until it had been partly eaten by wolves.
The
elders finally resumed their travels from Camp Bowie in company with the east
bound mail rider who had so narrowly escaped death, and his escort of four
cavalrymen and one Mexican. They encountered no difficulties until they came
within a short distance of the Sansamon River. The trail was lined on either
side with thick brush. Here the Mexican discerned Apache tracks by the side of
the road and other indications that the Indians were ahead and waiting. What to
do had to be decided quickly. The road, extremely dry and dusty, ran about
three quarters of a mile through this thicket. The scout decided that the
safest way would be for all to go through on the run so as to raise such a dust
that the Indians would not be able to see clearly, thus some of their number
might get through alive. All agreed to this plan and started off as fast as
possible, but when the elders reached the middle of the jungle, one of the
tires of their wagon came off. Their companions fled on, leaving them alone.
There was no alternative for the brothers but to get out and, guns in hand, go
through the ordeal of putting on a wagon wheel, constantly expecting that the
next minute would bring a horde of Indians upon them.
The
mail rider and guards, in the meantime, just had cleared the thicket and
ascended an elevation across the Sansamon River. Here, being out of the zone of
immediate danger, they stopped to see what had become of their companions. It
was with amazement that they saw the Indians, very close to the brothers
suddenly leave their ambush and flee toward the mountains, leaving a trail of
dust behind them for miles. The soldiers and mail rider were completely at a
loss to understand the situation; the elders questioned it not at all—they believed
that their God had protected them.
The
brothers reached San Elizario, Texas, on June 13 and in October they turned
homeward, traveling up the Rio Grande. They reached Salt Lake City on December
8, 1877, and reported their mission to President John Taylor who had succeeded
Brigham Young in the Church presidency since their departure. Once again, James
Z.’s blessing of protection proved true.
Peace
Like A River, The Historical and Spiritual Journey of The Isaac M. Stewart
Family, Compiled and Edited By David H. Epperson (Salt Lake City, 2007),
111-113.
Additional interesting
information of years later after the Church was firmly planted in Arizona:
The
following item of interest related about the Mormons in Arizona appeared in the
Millennial Star of March 17, 1890. It gives an account of a visit to
Fort Apache, Arizona, by a correspondent of the St. Louis Globe Democrat
From Fort Holbrook to Fort Apache,
the distance is about one hundred miles, the road passing through a series of
little “Mormon” settlements, each one of which seems a veritable oasis in the
midst of a vast and barren waste. It is astonishing how these “Mormon” people,
fleeing from contact with the Gentiles, erect comfortable homes for themselves
and turn western deserts into garden spots. I found in every settlement through
which I passed fine reservoirs and complete systems of irrigation ditches.
Orchards and shading trees had been planted, hundreds of acres of land brought
under cultivation, and fine vegetable gardens laid out. The dwellings and
outhouses were neat looking and comfortable and supplied with all the
requisites of well regulated farms. I could not help; noticing the marked
difference in the appearance of the cattle and horses of the “Mormons” from
those which I had been accustomed to see elsewhere in the southwest. They were
fat and sleek looking, showing that they had received good care. At every
farmhouse there was an abundance of milk, butter, chickens, and eggs, things
almost unknown to the average Arizona rancher.
In stopping one night at a
settlement some forty miles from Holbrook, I was surprised to find pianos and
organs in most of the houses, and was equally surprised at the hospitable
manner in which I was treated. The people talk unreservedly of their religion
and the history of the Mormon Church. They claim that the strength of the
Mormon Church lies in the doctrines of temperance, patience, and industry which
it teaches, and the perfect system of cooperation among its followers which
enables them to prosper in any part of the West. No liquor is sold in any of
the Mormon towns, and there has never been a murder committed in any of the
settlements along the road. All the freighting to and from Fort Apache is
carried on by Mormons, the superiority of their teams and their own steady
habits having enabled them to fill government contracts so satisfactorily that
they have completely supplanted Mexican and Gentile freighters.
March
17, 1890 Millennial Star
316. In the year 1875, President Brigham Young
called J.Z. Stewart on a mission to Arizona and Old Mexico. He was advised to
load pack horses with food to last four months, and to take plenty of
ammunition for protection against the hostile Indians along the Texas and
Mexican border. Julia Ann had no idea when she would see or hear from her
husband again. She watched him as far as she could see him, and then took her
three little children and returned to the house. For her support she had a cow,
pig, and some chickens. With great courage she carried on by taking in some
sewing and weaving carpets. While her husband was gone, the roof fell down!
J.Z.
Stewart returned having filled an honorable mission. He was home but seven days
when he received another call for a second mission to Mexico. For the second
time, with the same faith and courage, Julia Ann took up her labors knowing
full well now, the anxiety of the struggle to be met with the care and
responsibility of her children alone. But this was not to be the end for her
husband would be called to yet a third mission to colonize Colorado and Mexico.
Peace
Like A River, The Historical and Spiritual Journey of The Isaac M. Stewart
Family, Compiled and Edited By David H. Epperson (Salt Lake City, 2007), 114.
317.
6 months
The
General Church Board of Education agreed in 1900 to open missionary training
courses at Brigham Young Academy in Provo, the Latter-day Saints University in
Salt Lake City, Brigham Young College in Logan, and the Latter-day Saints
Academy in Thatcher, Arizona. Prospective missionaries were taught theology,
religious history, and teaching methods from the scriptures in a six-month
curriculum. The Church schools charged no tuition for the class, and stake
president were expected to provide for board and lodging for their students.
The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Church History In The Fulness
Of Time (Salt Lake City: Published by the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, 1993), 459.
318. Damage his wagon
Some
people, not particularly caring for the church in Indiana, decided to steal
Almon Babbit’s wagon, move it a mile and damage it, then removing one of the
wheels in hopes Almon would move along on his mission to some other area. Not
so, Almon just had to wait longer in this area to have his wagon repaired. This
resulted in five more baptisms.
Times
and Seasons, Vol. 1. No. 2. December, 1839.
319. It is said that
Martin Harris joined the Strangites and preached against the Church while on a
mission to Great Britain as the following story suggests:
History tells us that shortly after the death of the Prophet,
Martin Harris came under the influence of James J. Strang, an apostate from the
Church who claimed to be the true successor to Joseph Smith. Under the
influence of this man, Martin Harris went to England as a missionary for the
Strangites in that country, but he soon saw that his task was hopeless and he
left without accomplishing the object of his visit.
Preston Nibley, comp. The
Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1958).
The following gives insight of why
this mission failed:
Another blow at Brighamism was the appointment of a mission to
raid the rich proselyting field of industrial England. Moses Smith, Leicester
Brooks, Hazen Aldrich, and Martin Harris, the last of whom had financed and
been one of the three witnesses of Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon, were
delegated to leave in the fall for the British Isles . . . .
The English mission, on which Strange had counted for
reinforcements in money and souls, ended in disaster. Without the stalwart
Moses Smith, who was detained at Voree to help Strange fight the schisms and
apostasies which threatened to shatter the walls of Zion, the mission lacked a
dependable leader. Moreover, the other two members of the mission, Martin
Harris, and Leicester Brooks, had been preceded to England by Orson Hyde and
John Taylor, the Brighamite Apostles and scourges of Strangism, who had
prepared a hot reception for them.
The landing of Harris and Brooks at Liverpool was the signal for
Hyde and Taylor to let loose a torrent of scorn. Unfortunately, both of the
Strangite missionaries were vulnerable to impeachments of their honesty. The
Brighamites lost no time in publishing the fact that Martin Harris had once
been a follower of Anne Lee in Shakerism as well as a recidivist Mormon. “Any
one can see that he must have been a wicked man, and no wonder that a man
without revelation should join Anne Lee, Strang, or any other imposition or
strong delusion, having rejected the truth.
O. W. Riegal, Crown of
Glory — A life of James J. Strang (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1935), pp.
85, 102, 103, cit. Wayne Gunnell, “Martin Harris,” p. 53.
Here is some additional insight
into Martin Harris’ failed mission:
We stop the press to say that our letters by this morning’s mail
(October 31) bring cheering accounts from our elders in various parts. They are
baptizing in almost all directions. We also learn, from Elder Wheelock’s letter
of Birmingham, that Martin Harris and his escort have paid them a visit. He
introduced himself to their conference meeting and wished to speak, but on
being politely informed by Elder Banks that the season of the year had come
when Martin sought a more genial climate than England, he had better follow. On
being rejected by the united voice of the conference, he went out into the
street and began to proclaim the corruption of the Twelve; but here the
officers of government honored him with their presence—two policemen came and
very gently took hold of each arm and led Martin away to the Lock-up. We would
insert Brother Wheelock’s letter entire if we had room. Elder Wheelock will
remember that evil men, like Martin Harris, out of the evil treasure of their
hearts shall bring forth evil things.
Just as our paper was going to press, we learned that Martin
Harris, about whom we had written in another article, had landed in Liverpool,
and being afraid or ashamed of his profession as a Strangite, and we presume
both, for we are confident we should be, he tells some of our brethren on whom
he called, that he was of the same profession with themselves—that he had just
come from America and wished to get acquainted with the Saints. But there was a
strangeness about him, and about one or two who came with him, that gave them
plainly to see that the frankness and honest simplicity of true hearted
brethren were not with them. A lying deceptive spirit attends them, and has
from the beginning. They said they were of the same profession with our
brethren, when they knew they lied. If they were of our profession, why not
call at our office and get their papers endorsed? Because they know that they
are of their father, the devil, who was a liar from the beginning, and abode
not in the truth. The very countenance of Harris will show to every
spiritual-minded person who sees him, that the wrath of God is upon him. . . .
Source: Wayne Gunnell, “Martin Harris,” p. 55.
Upon the failure of his British Mission, Martin Harris withdrew
from the ranks of Strang and joined William E. McLellin, formerly one of the
Twelve Apostles and who had been excommunicated from the Church in 1838. On
January 23, 1847, a small group under the leadership of McLellin and Harris
proceeded to organize a church. “It was moved by McLellin and seconded by
Martin Harris that this following take upon them the name of `The Church of
Christ,’ and wear it henceforth shorn of all appendages or alterations, which
motion was carried.” Soon after the organization was effected, McLellin
communicated with the Whitmer brothers who had remained in Missouri, and in
September of 1847, he visited them.
Orson Hyde, “Notices,” MS
8 (15 Nov 1846):128.
The question is did Martin Harris
leave and preach against the Church in Great Britain? The following from
Brigham Young:
“When the new presidency of the
Church was chosen, Martin felt greatly disappointed that he was not called to
leadership, but Martin Harris never denied the faith, never affiliated with any
other sect or denomination, but when the Church came west, Martin Harris
remained behind. It is true that Martin Harris did not apostatize; he was never
tried for his fellowship; he was never excommunicated.”
William Harrison Homer,
“The Passing of Martin Harris,” The Improvement Era 29 (March 1926):468-72.
This
would agree with what Martin Harris states of the situation:
To H. Emerson, dear sir: -- Your second letter, dated December
1870, came duly to hand. I am truly glad to see a spirit of inquiry manifested
therein. I reply by a borrowed hand, as my sight has failed me too much to
write myself. Your questions: Question 1, “Did you go to England to lecture
against ‘Mormonism?’”
Answer. I answer emphatically, No, I did not; -- no man ever heard
me in any way deny the truth of the Book of Mormon, the administration of the
angel that showed me the plates; nor the organization of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints, under the administration of Joseph Smith, Junior,
the prophet whom the Lord raised up for that purpose, in these the latter days,
that he may show forth his power and glory. The Lord has shown me these things
by his Spirit — by the administration of holy angels — and confirmed the same
with signs following, step by step, as the work has progressed, for the space
of fifty.
Martin Harris to H. B. Emerson, cit. The
True Latter-day Saints’ Herald 22 (15 Oct 1875):630.
320.
“When father was able to, he preached the Gospel as often as possible.
While on a mission in Indiana, he stopped at a building where 400 people had
gathered to dance. The man who was to furnish the music could not get his
violin to work. Father’s shoes were gone, and his pants were holey at the knees
and behind, but he stepped up to the man and asked him what was the matter with
his goose. Father took the thing and tuned it and made it fairly sing! The
people danced until satisfied; then one of the men suggested that they get
father a new suit, hat, and boots because he had fixed the violin and because
they had had so much enjoyment. So they bought him a new suit, hat and boots!
Then he addressed them for two hours on the principles of the gospel, and
afterwards he baptized two dozen of them about daylight.”
321. A young, inexperienced
elder from Canada named Hugh B. Brown was laboring in Cambridge, England in
1904. On his arrival in that city, he saw posters in the train station
declaring “Beware of the vile deceivers; the Mormons are returning. Drive them
out.” For two days he went from house to house leaving tracts where he could
and unsuccessfully attempting to engage Britons in gospel conversations. One
Saturday evening, as he later remembered, a knock came on the door.
“The lady of the house answered
the door. I heard a voice say, ‘Is there an Elder Brown that lives here?’ I
thought, ‘Oh, oh, here it is!’
“She said, ‘Why, yes, he’s in the
front room. Come in, please.’
“He came in and said, ‘Are you
Elder Brown?’
“I was not surprised that he was
surprised. I said, ‘Yes, sir.’
“He said, ‘Did you leave this
tract at my door?’
“Well, my name and address were on
it. Though I was attempting at that time to get ready to practice law, I didn’t
know how to answer it. I said, “Yes, sir, I did.’
“He said, ‘Last Sunday there were
17 of us heads of families that left the Church of England. We went to my home
where I have a rather large room. Each of us has a large family, and we filled
the large room with men, women and children. We decided that we would
pray all through the week that the Lord would send us a new pastor. When I came
home tonight I was discouraged, I thought our prayer had not been answered. But
when I found this tract under my door, I knew the Lord had answered our prayer.
Will you come tomorrow night and be our new pastor?’
“Now, I hadn’t been in the mission
field three days. I didn’t know anything about missionary work, and he wanted
me to be their pastor. But I was reckless enough to say, ‘Yes, I’ll come.’ And
I repented from then till the time of the meeting.
“He left, and took my appetite
with him! I called in the lady of the house and told her I didn’t want any tea
[supper]. I went up to my room and prepared for bed. I knelt at my bed. My
young brothers and sisters, for the first time in my life I talked with God. It
told Him of my predicament. I pleaded for His help. I asked Him to guide me. I
pleaded that He would take it off my hands. I got up and went to bed and
couldn’t sleep and got out and prayed again, and kept that up all night-but I
really talked with God.”
He spent the next day without
breakfast or lunch, walking and worrying that he had to be the religious leader
of these people.
“Finally
it came to the point where the clock said 6:45. I got up and put on my long
Prince Albert coat, my stiff hat which I had acquired in Norwich, took my
walking cane (which we always carried in those days), my kid gloves, put a
Bible under my arm, and dragged myself down to that building, literally. I just
made one track all the way.
“Just as I got to the gate the man
came out, the man I had seen the night before. He bowed very politely and said,
‘Come in, Reverend, sir.’ I had never been called that before, I went in and
saw the room filled with people and they all stood up to honor their new
pastor, and that scared me to death.
“Then I had come to the point
where I began to think what I had to do, and I realized I had to say something
about singing. I suggested that we sing ‘O my Father.’ I was met with a blank
stare. We sang it-it was a terrible cowboy solo. Then I thought, if I could get
these people to turn around and kneel by the chairs, they wouldn’t be looking
at me while I prayed. I asked them if they would and they responded readily.
They all knelt down and I knelt down, and for the second time in my life I
talked with God. All fear left me. I didn’t worry any more. I was turning it
over to Him.
“I said to Him, among other
things, ‘Father in Heaven, these folks have left the Church of England. They
have come here tonight to hear the truth. You know that I am not prepared to
give them what they want, but Thou art, O God, the one that can; and if I can
be an instrument through whom you speak, very well, but please take over.’
“When we arose most of them were
weeping, as was I. Wisely I dispensed with the second hymn, and I started to
talk. I talked 45 minutes. I don’t’ know what I said. I didn’t talk-God spoke
through me, as subsequent events proved. And He spoke so powerfully to that
group that at the close of that meeting they came and put their arms around me,
held my hands. They said, ‘This is what we have been waiting for. Thank God you
came.’
“I told you I dragged myself down
to that meeting. On my way back home that night I only touched ground once, I
was so elated that God had taken off my hands an insuperable task for man.
Within three months every man,
woman, and child in that audience was baptized a member of the Church.
“Father, Are You There?” Brigham Young University
fireside address (Provo, 8 Oct. 1967), pp. 13-15.
322.
Ephraim Hanks was one of the premier frontiersman of his day. He
wore a long beard which was brown and wavy and reached almost to his waist. He
reportedly crossed the plains probably more times than any other white man;
performing the journey upwards of sixty times. Eph in the fall of 1856 spent
considerable time hauling fish from Utah Lake to Salt Lake City. In the fall of
1856 he had occasion to stop overnight with Gurnsey Brown in Willow Creek
(later Draper, Utah). Being tired after his day’s journey he retired to rest
early and while laying in his bed describes a voice calling him by name and
saying “The handcart people are in trouble and you are wanted; will you go and
help them?” He stated, “I turned instinctively in the direction from whence the
voice came and beheld an ordinary sized man in the room. Without hesitation I
answered, ‘yes, I will go if I am called. . .’” When I got up the next morning
I says to Brother Brown, “The handcart people are in trouble, and I have
promised to go out and help them.” He traveled to Salt Lake City and the next
day headed east over the mountains with a light wagon, all alone. At South Pass
he encountered a storm that lasted three days which he described as the worst
he had seen in all his travels in the Rocky Mountains. Snow fell so deep that
for many days it was impossible to move wagons through it. Feeling anxious of
the condition of the immigrants, he determined to start out on horseback to
meet them. He secured a pack saddle and two animals and began to make his way
slowly through the snow alone. He describes miraculously encountering several
buffalo which he killed and dressed and loaded his horses with the meat. He
resumed his journey toward evening and reached “the ill-fated train just as the
immigrants were camping for the night” He stated, “The sight that met my gaze
as I entered their camp can never be erased from my memory.” The starved forms
and haggard countenances of the poor sufferers, as they moved about slowly,
shivering with cold to prepare their scanty evening meal was enough to touch
the stoutest heart. When they saw me coming, they hailed me with joy
inexpressible, and when they further beheld the supply of fresh meat I brought
into camp, their gratitude knew no bounds. . . Five minutes later both my
horses had been released of their extra burden, the meat was all gone, and the
next few hours found the people in camp busily engaged in cooking and eating
it, with thankful hearts. When the relief teams met the immigrants, there was
only one day’s quarter ration left in camp.
Stewart
E. Glazier and Robert S. Clark, Journal of the Trail (Salt Lake City:
[s.n.], 1997), 120.
323.
We killed our first antelope at Soapfork; and I also caught a catfish
there that weighed 36 pounds--John Pulsipher helped me pull it out. We got our
first buffalo about 100 miles out of Soapfork. There were four of us boys, and
we went to camp and brought out seven yoke of oxen to get the buffalo! John
Benton mourned because of the parts of the buffalo we threw away. Then we boys
thought we would stroll along up the Platte in quest of other game; but we went
too far and got surrounded by wolves before we got back. We got a severe
scolding when we got home, but the howling and the massing of the wolves was a
great deal worse in my estimation!
Autobiography of Mosiah Hancock, Typescript, BYU-S;
htpp://www.boap.org/
324.
Clara Decker Young said the following:
“I
have come 1200 miles to reach this valley and walked much of the way, but I am
willing to walk a thousand miles farther rather than remain here.”
Berrett,
William Edwin, The Restored Church (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book
Company, 1973), 262.
325.
The following is from the journal of Mary Ann Jones, a nineteen-year
old young lady in the Ellsworth Company. The first hand-cart company to cross
the plains:
We were allowed 17 lbs. of baggage
each, that meant clothes, bedding, cooking utensils etc. When the brethren came
to weigh out things some wanted to take more than allowed so put on extra
clothes so that some that wore real thin soon became stout and as soon as the
weighing was over put the extra clothes in the hand cart again but that did not
last long for in a few days we were called upon to have all weighted again and
quite a few were found with more than allowed.
David
Roberts, Devils Gate (New York City: Simon and Schuster, 2008), 102.
326.
When Brigham Young stood in General Conference on October 5,
1856 and called for a united effort to bring in the handcart companies stranded
on the plains of Wyoming he received an outpouring of donations from those
willing to help in the cause. Lucy Meserve Smith records the following in her
journal:
Then Brigham
Young asked the women to fetch food, blankets, skirts, shoes, hoods, winter
bonnets—“almost any description of clothing”—to fill the wagons. “The sisters
stripped off their petticoats, stockings, and everything they could spare right
there in the Tabernacle.”
Heidi Swinton and Lee Groberg, Sweetwater Rescue: The Willie
and Martin Handcart Story (American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications
Inc., 2006), 58.
327.
The cost for an ox team and wagon for a family of five was $300. To
transport that same family by handcart was $10 to $20.
David
Roberts, Devils Gate-Brigham Young and The Great Mormon Handcart Tragedy (New
York City: Simon and Schuster, 2008), 93.
328.
For the Martin and Willie Handcart Companies, not only was the
landscape and limbs frozen, but also the ink. The following from November 3,
1856:
From
this date on, the camp journal was written with lead pencil which. . . can
scarcely be read. It would appear that the ink used by the scribe had frozen,
and the journal from [then] on only contained a few entries.
Journal
of the Trail, compiled and edited by Stewart E. Glazier and Robert S. Clark, 73.
(Monday Nov. 3, 1856 at Greasewood Creek).
329.
In the year of 1848, while crossing the plains, Eliza Marie
Partridge Lyman named her new born son Platte (after the Platte River that the
Saints had followed for so many days).
Kenneth
W. Godfrey, Audrey M. Godfrey, and Jill Mulvay Derr, Women’s Voices: An
Untold History of The Latter-day Saints 1830-1900 (Salt Lake City: Deseret
Book Company, 1982), 247.
330.
The following from the pioneer journal of Patience Loader, a
member of the Martin Handcart Company:
I well remember that when we
camped in Echo Canyon that Sister Squires was confined in the morning. She had
a lovely baby girl and they named her Echo.
Kenneth
W. Godfrey, Audrey M. Godfrey, and Jill Mulvay Derr, Women’s Voices: An
Untold History of The Latter-day Saints 1830-1900 (Salt Lake City: Deseret
Book Company, 1982), 241.
331.
The following from the life of pioneer Lucy Clements Hale:
A second child, Martha Ann, was
born June 20, 1846, in Nauvoo, not long before the family moved westward with
the body of the Church. Many hardships awaited Lucy and James. Perhaps the
hardest to bear was when their daughter Martha Ann was stolen by a band of
Indians and carried away. The child would not be found, so the parents were
forced to go westward without their beloved daughter. Their days were full of
anxiety and loneliness, and each night they prayed for the safe return of their
child. Lucy’s pillow was wet with tears each night and finally, from
exhaustion, she would fall into a half sleep. Missionaries learned of their
loss and promised to continue searching for Martha Ann; this they did for many
months. One missionary made friends with an Indian brave and felt he could rely
on his friendship in his search. After six months, Martha Ann was found in an
Indian village. She was a beautiful child with jet black hair and deep brown
eyes. When the Indians were asked why they had stolen the white child, the
reply was, “She no white child. She Indian. Has black hair, black eyes. She
stolen from Indian tribe.”
Through the grace of God and the
friendship between the Mormon missionaries and the Indian brave, Martha Ann was
returned to her family. Lucy and James’s joy and relief were beyond expression
as they held their child close to them and expressed gratitude for her safe
return.
Chronicles
of Courage, Lesson Committee comp., (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah
Pioneers, 1991), 2:57-58.
332. Amanda and Samuel Chambers
were among the first black converts to the Mormon Church. Both embraced
Mormonism as slaves in the South, came west to Utah after the Civil War, and
prospered. Chambers lived to the ripe old age of 98. At the time of his death
he was a man of wealth and owned a 30-acre estate.
William
G. Hartley, “Samuel D. Chambers,” New Era, Jun. 1974, 47.
Additional
information on Samuel Chambers:
Samuel
Chambers first learned about the Church while he was a thirteen-year-old slave
in Mississippi. After the Civil War in 1869, Chambers was able to move to Utah
with his wife and son. He was a member of the Salt Lake City 8th Ward. In 1873 he bore his
testimony: “I know we are the people of God, we have been led to these peaceful
vallies of the mountains, and we enjoy life and many other blessings. I don’t
get tired of being with the Latter-day Saints, not of being one of them. . . .
I thank God, for my soul burns with love for the many blessings I enjoy. I’ve
been blest from youth up, although in bondage for 20 years after receiving the
gospel, yet I kept the faith. I thank God that I ever gathered with the Saints.
As
quoted in William G. Hartley, “Samuel D. Chambers,” New Era 4(June
1974): 48-49.
333.
The Lord said that Edward Partridge (The first traveling bishop of
the Church) was most similar to Nathanael.
Who
is Nathanael? He is a follower of Christ. Jesus said of him in John 1: 47 “. .
. Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile.” If you like to read more of
Nathanael, reference John 1: 43-51
The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Church History In The Fulness
Of Times (Salt Lake City: Published by The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints), 120.
334.
Ray Jacobs was in baseball for twenty-years, but only played in two
Major League games.
Jim
Ison, Mormons In The Majors (Cincinnati: Action Sports, 1991), 261.
335.
The following is a newspaper interview with David Whitmer:
“Early
in the morning, Thursday the 15th, we left Lexington in the
stage coach, crossed the Missouri River, and was landed at the railroad depot,
a mile or more from the city. It was between this station and the river that
the mail coach was robbed by highwaymen last summer; and it is a most favorable
place for such work, there being thick brush and woods all around. We would not
have been surprised to see some ugly hand poked out of the thick brush after
us, as the coach moved along. We were soon on the way to Richmond, Ray County,
to visit David Whitmer, one of the witnesses. Arrived about 8:30 a.m., and
breakfasted at the hotel.
“Here we met David
Whitmer, Junior, eldest son of David Whitmer, Senior. He looks to be about
forty-five years of age. Is kind hearted and is a firm believer in the Book of
Mormon and in the testimony borne by his father concerning it. After breakfast
we called on David Whitmer, Senior, meeting him just outside of his residence,
and introducing ourselves. He invited us into the house and directed us into a
small room, presumably, his own resting and sleeping apartment. John Whitmer,
son of John Whitmer, deceased, and two or three more gentlemen, whose names are
not remembered, were present. The women folks were house cleaning. (Just our
luck).
“Elder
Whitmer remarked that he did not feel much like talking as he had not been
feeling well for some time. He appeared feeble. He is now upwards of
seventy-six years of age, having been born January 7th, 1805. He is of medium
height, and rather of a slender build; but his appearance may be on account of
age and recent illness. He has darkish brown eyes, and his hair is white and
thin. Has a good head and honest face. He talks with ease and seemed at home
with every subject suggested; and without an effort, seemingly, went on to
amplify upon it, so that we had nothing to do but question, suggest and listen.
His intellect is far more vigorous and retentive than we expected to find. He
is careful in his speech, for he studies to express himself in such a way as
not to be misunderstood; and it hurts him to be misrepresented.
“A
reporter called to see him some time ago, asked a few questions and went off
and published that he had denied his testimony concerning the truth of the Book
of Mormon. This hurt him so, that he is very careful, now, to have some known
friends present when strangers call to see him. This accounts for the presence
of others when we were there.
“Speaking of Joseph
Smith the Seer, he said, and this is very nearly his wording: ‘It makes no
difference what others say, I know Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, and he
translated the Book of Mormon by the inspiration of God from the plates of the Nephites.
Some people think if they can only make it appear that Joseph’s life and
character were not perfect, and that he had human weaknesses, that it would
prove that he was not a prophet; yet the same persons will believe that Moses
who killed the Egyptian, and David, who had Uriah killed, and who took a
multitude of wives and Solomon who was a polygamist and idolater; and Peter,
who lied and cursed, and etc., were all prophets and should be honored and
respected.
What the individual
life of Joseph Smith was after he translated the Book of Mormon, has nothing to
do with the question was to whether he was, or was not inspired to bring
forth.’”
“Do you know anything
of his character?”
“‘I know nothing
against him. I have heard some things; these I know nothing about. I have
nothing to say about the character of any one, only as I know. It is not my
mission to talk about the character of any. My mission is to testify concerning
the truth of the coming forth of the work of God.’”
“What kind of man was
he when you knew him personally?”
“‘He was a religious
and straightforward man. He had to be; for he was illiterate and he could do
nothing of himself. He had to trust in God. He could not translate unless he
was humble and possessed the right feelings towards every one. . . .’”
“His statement
concerning the vision they had of the plates and the angel was as follows:
“‘I was plowing in the
field one morning, and Joseph and Oliver came along with a revelation stating
that I was to be one of the witnesses to the Book of Mormon. I got over the
fence and we went out into the woods, nearby, and sat down on a log and talked
awhile. We then kneeled down and prayed. Joseph prayed. We then got up and sat
on the log and were talking, when all at once a light came down from above us
and encircled us for quite a little distance around; and the angel stood before
us. He was dressed in white, and spoke and called me by name and said, ‘Blessed
is he that keepeth His commandments.’ This is all that I heard the angel say. A
table was set before us and on it the records were placed. The Records of the
Nephites, from which the Book of Mormon was translated, the brass plates, the
Ball of Directors, the sword of Laban and other plates.
“‘While we were
viewing them the voice of God spoke out of heaven saying that the Book was true
and the translation correct.’”
“We then asked him,
‘Do you remember the peculiar sensation experienced upon that occasion?’”
“He answered very
slowly and definitely. ‘Yes; I remember it vey distinctly; and I never think of
it, from that day to this but what that same spirit is present with me.’
“How did you know it
was the voice of God?”
“‘We know it was the
voice of God just as well as I knew anything.’
“This narration was
delivered in a mild, but fervent voice; and as he spoke and bore witness, and
we listened, the Spirit of God rested in great power upon us like a flame of
Glory, to burning coal from the altar of God. It enveloped our beings and
glowed in our hearts which tears of gratitude and joy flowed down our cheeks.
“Brother Blakeslee who
sat opposite, but nearby and facing me, was so moved by this divine
touch-silent and heavenly power-that he could not refrain from weeping. Despite
our power of resistance, for a moment we sat speechless, uttered not a word,
but with a look exchanged thoughts and read the moving of each other’s heart.
We were satisfied, established, confirmed. The Spirit of God that had been with
me and inspired my soul while defending that Record, and the divinely appointed
mission of the Seer, for lo! These many years while standing and testifying
before multitudes, large and small, now appeared and lit up my being as with a
flame, as I listened to the voice of a chief witness testify of what he had
seen ,and heard, and felt, in relation to the coming forth of this Latter Day
Work. The worthy sage testified truthfully, for God bore witness. Whatever
other men may think of David Whitmer, it is our belief that he is a man of God;
and that he is performing his part in this great Latter Day Work, faithfully
and acceptably to his heavenly Father. He is respected and honored of his
neighbors, and loved and admired by his relatives, of which there is a large
circle there, and all in the faith. Who shall say that this man of candor, now
standing upon the verge of the grave, has borne a false witness.”
The
Saints Herald, 29, March 1, 1882.
336. Following
the publication of Kane’s influential 1850 pamphlet, The Mormons, Elder
Orson Hyde told Kane this work “will forever immortalize your name in the records,
and in the memory of the Saints.”
Orson Hyde to Thomas L. Kane, May 31, 1851, L. Tom Perry Special
Collections, Harold B Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.
Additional interesting
information:
Colonel Kane is not the only individual to write in defense of the
Mormon people, his wife, Elizabeth Kane, wrote the classic, Twelve Mormon
Homes, after the Kane’s tour of Utah from Salt Lake City to St. George in
1872.
Twelve Mormon Homes Visited in
Succession on a Journey through Utah to Arizona, ed. Everett. L. Cooley
(Philadelphia: William Wood, 1874; reprint, Salt Lake City: Tanner Trust Fund,
University of Utah Library, 1974)
He wrote Brigham Young often and even advised him on such matters
as the writing of his will and the establishment of Brigham Young Academy.
Matthew J. Grow, “Thomas L. Kane and Nineteenth-Century American
Culture,” BYU Studies, Volume 48, Number 4, 2009, 53.
337. The following is Kane’s last words to the Saints:
I request you to receive my heart for deposit in your Salt Lake
City Temple that after death it may repose where in metaphor at least it was
when living.
Thomas L. Kane to “My dear friends,” September 1850, Kane
Collection, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham
Young University.
Additional interesting
information:
There has always been some
speculation as whether Colonel Kane was or was not baptized a member of the
Church. Truth be told he had received baptism from the hands of the Mormon
Elders in 1846 while residing with the Church at Winter Quarters. His baptism
was not for the remission of sins though, only for healing as he was dying of
Malaria at the time. You must remember that in the early church, baptism for
healing was a common occurrence.
David J. Whittaker, “New Sources on Old Friends: The Thomas L.
Kane and Elizabeth W. Kane Collection,” Journal of Mormon History 27 (Spring
2001), 67-94
338. Most people are entitled to one patriarchal blessing
in a lifetime. The question can be asked, how many patriarchal blessings did
the non-member Thomas L. Kane receive? From the following it appears to be two:
Years later,
while in St. George with Brigham Young in 1873, William G. Perkins, the local
patriarch, pronounced another blessing on Thomas Kane, at the same time, Thomas’s
wife, Elizabeth Wood Kane, received her own blessing. She remained skeptical
about Mormonism and recorded in her journal her thoughts about the blessings:
“The blessing was somewhat prophetical, and so far as it was did not coincide
with one given K. long ago by the old patriarch John Smith, which has been
curiously fulfilled so far, strange to say.”
David J. Whittaker, “My Dear Friend,” BYU Studies, Volume
48, Number 4, 2009, 201; Elizabeth Kane, St. George Journal, February 11, 1873,
Kane Collection, Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham
Young University.
339. The following is in reference to Emmeline B.
Wells joining the Church while living with her mother at Petersham,
Massachusetts:
On March 1, 1842, when a little
group of Latter-day Saints was assembled to perform the ordinance of baptism on
her mother’s own ground, zealous friends sent messengers down to ask her if she
was sure she was acting of her own free will and choice, otherwise they would
take her by force, and she should never lack for means of a higher education;
but if she accepted the Mormon faith and gathered at Nauvoo, she must renounce
not only her friends but also all the advantages of literary culture she had so
ardently hoped to attain, and be forever disgraced.
Not knowing but that it was true
that her hopes for further advancement must be resigned, she laid them on the
altar of her faith, willing to yield up her future entirely to the will and
care of the Creator. Some power, potent indeed, buoyed her up as she went
through this trying ordeal. Though her delicate nerves were somewhat shaken,
yet she told her mother and friends what proved true afterwards, that the
crisis was past. She had renounced all she had before looked foreward to;
henceforth, she desired to dedicate herself entirely to the work in which she
was enlisted.
What’s
interesting is that she did become assistant editor of the Woman’s Exponent in
1874 and became the editor in 1877.
Mrs. Wells went to Washington as a
delegate from the women of Utah in January 1879, to attend the convention of
the National Woman’s Suffrage Association. While there she had the opportunity
of speaking before committees of the House and senate and had an audience with
President Hayes and several of the leading men of the nation on the Mormon
question. They also prepared a memorial to Congress and succeeded in getting it
presented.
The
Lord moves in mysterious ways. Something tells me this might not have happened
if she turned her back on what she knew to be true.
Additional Information:
Emmeline B. Wells received an honorary Doctor of Literature in
1912.
Chronicles
of Courage: Daughters of Utah Pioneers (Salt Lake City: Utah Printing
Company, 1991), 2:183-186.
340.
Ralph Waldo Emerson: Transcendentalist philosopher, poet, and essayist,
Emerson was a friend of Thomas L. Kane and expressed interest in the Mormon’s
plight after the publication of Kane’s 1850 pamphlet The Mormons.
Matthew J. Grow, “Thomas L. Kane and Nineteenth-Century American
Culture,” BYU Studies, Volume 48, Number 4, 2009, 18.
Additional
interesting reading:
Others
interested in the Mormon cause after reading Kane’s pamphlet, “The Mormons:”
Abolitionist
Charles Sumner
Abolitionist
Wendell Phillips
Reformers
Horace Greeley, Frederick Douglass, and John Greenleaf Whittier
Matthew
J. Grow, “Thomas L. Kane and Nineteenth-Century American Culture,” BYU
Studies, Volume 48, Number 4, 2009, 26.
Other
Philadelphia residents so touched by the pamphlet, “The Mormons,” they donated
money to help the Saints move to the Salt Lake Valley:
Judge
John K. Kane (Thomas Kane’s father) donated $50 a sum comparable to $2,500
today.
Joseph
D. Browne also donated $50
Thomas
P. Cope donated $25
William S. Appleby to Col. T.L. Kane, June 20, 1848, Thomas L. Kane
collection, L. Tom Perry Collection, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young
University.
The following statement
was made by Colonel Thomas L. Kane, friend of the Mormons. Not being a big fan
of Evangelical religion and Evangelical reform he said:
One Sunday he heard a “dreadful” noise, which turned out to be
“One of the Methodist Meeting Houses where the law permits wicked people to
make lunatics nearly as fast as the Hospitals can cure them.
Thomas L. Kane to Bessie
Kane [his sister], [undated, about 1846?], Kane Family Papers, William L.
Clement Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
341. Martha
Hancock shares the following:
“We needed to put up a desperate fight, for it would have been bad
for us if he’d taken Mosiah and left Esther and me alone with the children on
that winter wilderness. When we got a watering place (I think it was Jacob’s
Pools near the Buckskin Mountains,) Mosiah took the team, which had traveled
all day without water, to a mining place and asked for water. They told him they
were U. S. Army officers and would let him have water if he would let them have
one of the women with him, for they had no women there. Mosiah knew that he
would have not to appear to be opposed to their desires. So he got them to let
us have water then by promising that he would see what the girls said about it
and then let the officers know the next morning. So when he told us, I said,
`Well, if either of us has to go, I’ll go. I’ll stand out where they can see me
and you point me out to them.’”
“We did a lot of praying about that also. When Mosiah went with
his bucket and horses for more water, I saw him pointing me out to them. When
they looked over at me, I waived my gun above my head and yelled out in a very
coarse voice, `Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah! For Hell!’ I repeated that three times,
then added,`Come on, come on, ye sons of Hell!’ I’m ready for you!’”
“Well they thought I was insane or something else awful; they
looked disgusted and said, `Go on, go on, Mr. Hancock. We don’t want her.’”
History
of Martha M. Hancock; htpp//www.boap.org/
342.
Orson Hyde shares the following story at the time he belonged to
the Campbellites:
Early in the spring of 1830, I returned to Elyria and Florence,
and became the pastor of the churches raised up the fall previous. During the
fall and winter of 1830, I also taught school in Florence. During this fall,
Samuel H. Smith, Zibar [Ziba?] Peterson, F. [Frederick] G. Williams and Peter
Whitmer [Jr.] came along through that section, preaching the `golden bible’ or
`Mormonism,’ I encountered them; but perceiving that they were mostly
illiterate men, and at the same time observing some examples of superior wisdom
and truth in their teaching, I resolved to read the famed `golden bible,’ as it
was called.
Accordingly, I procured the book and read a portion of it, but
came to the conclusion that it was all a fiction. I preached several times
against the `Mormon’ doctrine or rather against the `Mormon’ bible. On one
occasion, the people of Ridgeville, near Elyria, sent for me to preach against
the `Mormon’ bible. I complied with the request, and preached against it. The
people congratulated me much, thinking that `Mormonism’ was completely floored.
But I, for the first time, thought that the `Mormon’ bible might be the truth
of heaven; and fully resolved before leaving the house, that I would never
preach against it anymore until I knew more about it, being pretty strongly
convicted in my own mind that I was doing wrong. I closed up my school and my
preaching in that section, and resolved to go to Kirtland on a visit to my old
friends. Elder S. [Sidney] Rigdon, Gilbert and Whitney, and many others of my former
friends had embraced the `Mormon’ faith. I ventured to tell a few of my
confidential friends in Florence my real object in visiting Kirtland. The
Prophet, Joseph Smith, Jun., had removed to that place. My object was to get
away from the prejudices of the people, and to place myself in a position where
I could examine the subject without embarrassment.
“History
of Orson Hyde [1805-1842],” Millennial Star, 26 (1864), 742-44, 760-61, 774-76, 790-92.
343.
One might wonder how John Muir, the founder of Yosemite National
Park, and the Mormons connect. Most would be surprised to know John Muir
climbed Mt. Nebo in late May of 1877, lodging with David Evans, the bishop of
Lehi.
Lowell
C. Bennion and Thomas R. Carter, “Touring Polygamous Utah with Elizabeth W.
Kane, Winter 1872-1873, BYU Studies, Volume 48, Number 4, 2009, pg. 179.
John Muir said the following about
Mormons during a trip to Utah in late May 1877:
The production of babies is the darling pursuit industry of
Mormons.
Donald Worster, A Passion for nature: The life of John Muir (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2008), 229-32.
344.
As a young man, Joseph Smith regularly read the Palmyra Register
and took part in a young people’s debating club.
James
B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day Saints (Salt
Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1992), 26.
345.
We know that Joseph Smith worked for Josiah Stowell in search of
a lost Spanish treasure. It’s this activity that led to a disorderly conduct
charge in spite of the fact that Joseph Smith was anything but disorderly.
What’s ironic is that Joseph Smith was the individual that convinced Josiah to
give up his search for the treasure.
The
laws at the time (1826) defined actions by “persons pretending. . .to discover
where lost goods may be found” as “disorderly.”
James B. Allen and
Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City:
Deseret Book Company, 1992), 41-42.
346.
One of the most interesting descriptions of the Prophet in Missouri
was later recorded by Peter H. Burnett, a non-Mormon attorney who helped defend
him in the trial in Daviess County in early April:
Joseph Smith Jr., was at least six
feet high, well-formed, and weighed about one hundred and eighty pounds. His
appearance was not prepossessing, and his conversational powers were but
ordinary. You could see at a glance that his education was very limited. He was
an awkward but vehement speaker. In conversation he was slow, and used too many
words to express his ideas, and would not generally go directly to a point.
But, with all these drawbacks he was much more than an ordinary man. He
possessed the most indomitable perseverance, was a good judge of men, and deemed
himself born to command, and he did command. His views were so strange and
striking, and his manner was so earnest, and apparently so candid, that you
could not but be interested. There was a kind, familiar look about him that
pleased you. He was very courteous in discussion, readily admitting what he did
not intend to controvert, and would not oppose you abruptly, but had due
deference to your feelings. He had the capacity for discussing a subject in
different aspects, and for proposing many original views, even on ordinary
matters. His illustrations were his own. He had great influence over others. As
evidence of this I will state that on Thursday, just before I left to return to
Liberty, I saw him out among the crowd, conversing freely with every one, and
seeming to be perfectly at ease. In the short space of five days he had managed
so to mollify his enemies that he could go unprotected among them without the
slightest danger. Among the Mormons he had much greater influence than Sidney
Rigdon. The latter was a man of superior education, an eloquent speaker, of
fine appearance and dignified manners’ but he did not possess the native
intellect of Smith, and lacked his determined will.
Peter
H. Burnett, Recollections and Opinions of an Old Pioneer (New York: D.
Appleton and Co., 1880), 66-67.
347. This summer I played my first game of ball with
the Prophet. We took turns knocking and chasing the ball, and when the game was
over the Prophet said, “Brethren, hitch up your teams”; which we did, and we
all drove to the woods. I drove our one-horse wagon standing on the front
bolster, and Brother Joseph and father rode on the hounds behind. There were 39
teams in the group and we gathered wood until our wagons were loaded. When our
wagon was loaded, Brother Joseph offered to pull sticks with anyone—and he
pulled them all up one at a time—with anyone who wanted to compete with him.
Afterwards, the Prophet sent the wagons out to different places of people who
needed help; and he told them to cut the wood for the Saints who needed it.
Everybody loved to do as the Prophet said, even though we were sickly, and
death was all around us, folks smiled and tried to cheer everyone up. In those
days it seemed that we were all of the blood of Israel, and we were more willing
to help our neighbor. In these days, it seems that the man who has the most
money is the only hog worthy of notice. As the prophet Moroni said: “Their wail
is, ‘Yea Zion prosper, all is well’”. Those who can yell it the loudest are the
ones most sought after, while the meek and humble followers of Christ are cast
down to earth with their bodies laid across a ditch for the nobility to cross
over on. It reminds me of hypocritical Israel worshipping the golden-calf. . .
. while the God of Heaven was giving His Holy Laws, ‘Thou shalt have no other
God before Me’. I ask myself this question, “What are the people worshipping
today? Is it the golden calf or the image of the beast?” Suppose we go back a
few years to the time when Grover Cleveland was president. At that time, three
Church leaders went to ask him if he would use his influence to have the
persecutions against the Saints stopped. His reply was, “I wish you people up
there would do as we do down here”. Did all of them do it? No, just one, who
wanted to play politics. And I noticed the other day in a paper where this man
met with a brilliant party, an honored and petted one of the land. Why? I asked
myself. “Is it because he obeyed the thing called the law of the land instead
of what I thought was the law of God?” I asked myself, “What am I? I seem as if
I am not fit to be even a hewer of wood or a drawer of water for such gentry.
What shall I do or where shall I go to find refuge? Shall I give up my choice
friends that I have loved so long, and take up my abode with the outcasts of
Israel, and patiently await the time of the Lord?” These are serious thoughts
on my part.
Autobiography
of Mosiah Hancock, Typescript, BYU-S; http://www.boap.org/
348.
November 6, 1835- Joseph Smith met a man from the eastern United
States who was disappointed that Joseph Smith the Prophet “was nothing but a
normal man.”
Smith, Joseph Jr. History of The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, Edited by B. H. Roberts, 2d, ed., rev. 7 vols. (Salt
Lake City: Deseret Book, 1971), 2: 302.
349.
Joseph Smith Jr. ranks 52nd and Brigham Young at 74th on America’s most
influential personality list. This list appeared in the December 2006 issue of
the Atlantic Monthly who polled ten prominent historians to compile the
inventory.
David
Roberts, Devils Gate-Brigham Young and The Great Mormon Handcart Tragedy (New
York City: Simon and Schuster, 2008), 32.
350.
What’s unique about Martin Harris is the first obituary written
about him, an obituary written 34 years before his death! Alvah Strong, editor
of the Rochester Daily Democrat, put too much faith in a widely circulated
story at the time of Martin Harris’s death. Strong, who once knew Martin Harris
during the Palmyra years, wrote the following:
“We have ever regarded Mr. Harris as an honest man. We first
became acquainted with him at Palmyra, in the spring of 1828, shortly after the
plates from which the Book of Mormon is said to have been translated, were
found. . . Though illiterate and actually of a superstitious turn of mind, he
had long sustained an irreproachable character for probity. . .By his neighbors
and townsmen with whom he earnestly and almost incessantly labored, he was
regarded rather as being deluded himself, than as wishing to delude others
knowingly; but still he was subjected to many scoffs and rebukes, all of which
he endured with a meekness becoming a better cause.”
Rochester Daily Democrat, June 23, 1841.
351. The economy of Martin Harris was particularly
illustrated on the occasion of our visit to the Fifteenth Ward of Salt Lake
City. The meeting was crowded, as usual, with those anxious to see him, and to
hear his constant, undeviating testimony. Sister M. H. Kimball, of the
Fifteenth Ward, eminent in the Relief Societies, on their behalf offered to
have a new set of artificial teeth made for Brother Harris, to which he
replied, “No, sisters, I thank you for your kindness, but I shall not live
long. Take the money and give it to the poor.”
Edward Stevenson, “The Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon,” Millennial
Star 48 (21 Jun 1886):389-91.
352.
It has been said that Martin Harris was a very successful and
accomplished farmer. Just how good was he?
He
won two county fair prizes in 1822, eight in 1823, and three in 1824.
What
he won his prizes in might seem surprising. One may think animals since he was
a judge of swine, nonetheless, not so:
He
produced linen, woolen ticking and cotton, worsted and flannel fabrics, and
finally blankets.
Richard
Lloyd Anderson, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses (Salt Lake City:
Deseret Book Company, 1981), pp 98-103.
353. Mr. Grandin of the Wayne Sentinel wrote the
following of Martin Harris:
"Mr. Harris was among
the early settlers of this town, and has ever borne the character of an
honorable and upright man, and an obliging and benevolent neighbor. He had
secured to himself by honest industry a respectable fortune--and he has left a
large circle of acquaintances and friends to pity his delusion." (Wayne
Sentinel, May 27, 1831).
The first time I heard of the matter, my brother Presarved
[Preserved] Harris, who had been in the village of Palmyra, asked me if [I] had
heard about Joseph Smith, jr., having a golden bible. My thoughts were that the
money-diggers had probably dug up an old brass kettle, or something of the
kind. I thought no more of it. This was about the first of October, 1827. The
next day after the talk with my brother, I went to the village, and there I was
asked what I thought of the Gold Bible? I replied, The Scripture says, He that
answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is foolishness unto him. I do not
wish to make myself a fool. I don't know anything about it. Then said I, what
is it about Joe's Gold Bible? They then went on to say, that they put whiskey
into the old man's cider and got him half drunk, and he told them all about it.
They then repeated his account, which I found afterwards to agree substantially
with the account given by Joseph. Then said I to them, how do you know that he
has not got such gold plates? They replied, "Damn him! angels appear to
men in this enlightened age! Damn him, he ought to be tarred and feathered for
telling such a damned lie!" Then I said, suppose he has told a lie, as old
Tom Jefferson said, it did [not] matter to him whether a man believed in one
god or twenty. It did not rob his pocket, nor break his shins. What is it to us
if he has told a lie? He has it to answer for [it] if he has lied. If you should
tar and feather all the liars, you would soon be out of funds to purchase the
material.
“Mormonism--II," Tiffany's Monthly 5
(August 1859): 163-70.
354. Louis Alphonse Bertrand was a brilliant writer,
French revolutionary, and advocate of the gospel in a war-torn, unlistening
country. He was born 8 January 1808 near Marseilles, France, under the name
John Francis Elias Flandin. Originally intended for the ministry, he went into
trade at an early age and lived in the United States, South America, China, and
India. Upon his return to Paris he became steeped in political affairs and was
chosen a member of the Revolutionary Committee of 1848, resulting in three
months’ prison time. It was likely during this time that he changed his name to
protect his wife and two young boys. After the revolution, Bertrand remained in
Paris, where he served for a time as the political editor of Le Populaire—a
prominent and influential communist periodical run by the Icarians (a small
branch of whom had settled at Nauvoo, Illinois, after the Saints’ exodus). In
September 1850 he was contacted by John Taylor then the French Mission
president, who baptized him three months later on 1 December.
A skilled writer and editor in
both French and English, Bertrand was instrumental in completing the
translation of the Book of Mormon into French; he also translated the Doctrine
and Covenants and several other Latter-day Saint works and helped establish the
Church periodical L’etoile du Deseret. In 1853 Bertrand, as a
missionary, taught Victor Hugo and other revolutionary refugees on the Island
of Jersey; they “listened with attention at the time, but their heads were too
full of revolution to think much about the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
After spending four years in the
Salt Lake Valley, where he received numerous awards for his agricultural
produce, Bertrand was called back to France as the mission president in 1859.
There he worked tirelessly, publishing articles and books on Mormonism,
fighting both his own political history and the oppressive political and
intellectual currents of the time, and seeking permission to preach in France.
He formally petitioned Louis Napoleon III, who read Bertrand’s request,
laughed, and tore it to pieces. Bertrand returned to Utah in 1864, leaving
behind his family who refused to accept his faith.
A close friend to Brigham Young
ever since his first stay in Utah when he lived in the president’s home,
Bertrand briefly oversaw the prophet’s cocoonery, bringing it to its peak
production of 800,000 silkworms. For the remainder of his life, Bertrand acted
as a correspondent for the Deseret News and was often consulted as an
expert in both viniculture and sericulture. He died 21 March 1875.
Arnold
K. Garr, Donald Q. Cannon, and Richard O. Cowan, Encyclopedia of Latter-day
Saint History (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2000), 99-100.
355.
The following from the Journal of John Horner:
In
the beginning of January 1850, my brother William came to me by the way of
Panama, consuming six months time on the journey. By the blessing of heaven he
escaped the cholera on the isthmus his shipmates died by the dozens. He escaped
starvation and perhaps a violent death by a fair wind springing up and wafting
them safely into Acapulco at the critical moment when the ship's company were
about to turn cannibals and cast lots to decide who should be eaten first. He
afterwards heard that since he was more fleshy then others of the company they
were going to make the lot fall on him.
356. I saw the Prophet and the rest when they departed
from Nauvoo for the last time; and I went out to meet their martyred bodies
when they were brought from Carthage with Apostle John Taylor, who was himself
so badly wounded that he could not stir. There were many of the Saints who went
out to meet them, and their hearts were full of sorrow. I went to see those
noble martyrs after they were laid out in the mansion. Their heads were placed
to the north. As we came in at the door, we came to the feet of the Prophet
Joseph, then passed up by his left side and around his head, then down by his
right side. Next we turned to the right and came to the feet of Hyrum, then up
by his left side and around his head and down by his right side; then we filed
out of the other door. So the great stream of people continued until the Saints
all had the privilege of taking their last look at the martyred bodies.
After the people had gone home, my father took me again into the
mansion and told me to place one hand on Joseph's breast and to raise my other
arm and swear with hand uplifted that I would never make a compromise with any
of the sons of Hell. Which vow I took with a determination to fulfill to the
very letter. I took the same vow with Hyrum.
Autobiography of Mosiah Hancock, Typescript, BYU-S;
htpp://www.boap.org/
357. It’s sad enough that Levi Hancock had his
property stolen from him on a few occasions during the Missouri and Nauvoo
years of the Church. This next incident would definitely have added salt to the
wound:
In 1856 he
consecrated his property to the church, as he supposed the circumstances were
on this, wise. He and I were down from Payson and Bishop Raleigh got the
consecration deeds up, and he said to father one morning, "Brother
Levi", `If you are ready to consecrate your property to the nineteenth
ward now is the time.' "All right," said father. So we went over to
Bishop Raleigh's residence with my uncle Samuel Alger and myself as witnesses.
When we got there Raleigh said, "Brother Levi, I haven't had time to make
out these deeds in full, but you put your name here and Brother Alger and
Brother Mosiah put your names here," which we did. Now we were required to
consecrate to Brigham Young, he being trustee for the Church. We supposed it
would be filled out in his name. Some few years after we found out that the
Government took it in hand to see that things were restored to their right
owners. We found that the deeds had been made out to another person by the name
of Thomas White for $1.50 (one dollar and fifty cents). I inquired into the
affair and found by Mr. White that he had paid Mr. Raleigh sixteen hundred
dollars and fifty cents for the premises. While we were toiling to build up the
kingdom, those whom we had calculated as brethren were sucking our life's blood
from us and taking upon themselves of Mr. so and so after the gentiles fashion.
These and other things were too much for my brothers and they left the Church.
The gentile mobbers had been hard on us, but the climax of exquisite grief came
by the horrible profidity of those who we thought were our Brethren.
358.
Christened the “Wild Ram of the Mountains” by the New York Sun, Wight
was ordained an Apostle by Joseph Smith in 1841.
Melvin
C. Johnson, Polygamy on the Pedernales: Lyman Wight’s Mormon Villages in
Antebellum Texas, 1845 to 1858 (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press,
2006), 3.
359. Phoebe
Arabell Woodruff Moses, daughter of Wilford Woodruff, gives us a glimpse of
some of the critters that snuck into their adobe house in Arizona in the early
1880’s:
We had all kinds of vermin to
contend with. Jesse made the same kind of bedsteads here as in the other cabin.
We made a bed on the cedar chest for little Jesse. One night he cried with
earache. His father was going to get up to go to him. I told him to light the
candle first, which he did, and right beside the bed where he would have put
his foot was a tarantula as large as a saucer. It is a hairy-legged spider that
runs and jumps. My husband killed it with a club. One morning, I picked up the
baby’s stocking by the toe, and a scorpion fell on my finger. It happened to be
a young one, so a bath of alcohol and a poultice of indigo cured it. We had to
shake our bedding twice a day because we often found lizards in them. One night
we shook a centipede out. It is a flat green worm with dozens of legs on both
sides, and deadly poison. It runs very fast.
Daughters
of Utah Pioneers, Chronicles of Courage (Salt Lake City: Utah Printing
Company, 1991), 2:140.
360.
Large farming corporations were organized for cooperative farming.
One of these cooperative farms, the Western Agricultural Company voted to
enclose one field for grain containing twelve sections of land, or 7680 acres.
By
the way, this was not the only planned field of this size. A few others were in
the works.
Berrett,
William Edwin, The Restored Church (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book
Company, 1973), 137.
361.
The Methodist faith was the fastest growing religious society in
early America (at the time of Joseph Smith). This religion flourished due to
the fact that they regularly proselyted rural areas.
Milton V. Backman, Joseph Smith’s First
Vision (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1971), 57.
362. The
diary of Henry G. Boyle sheds some additional light on the above:
“When I returned home to Tazewell,
the Methodist had got up a great revival in religion and as I naturally liked
to go to meeting and hear them preach, I must say that I was influenced by them
more or less and when I found all or nearly all the young men and girls of my
acquaintance had attached themselves to the church, I concluded I would not be
behind in doing good and joined them also. I confess I was not satisfied that
all was right, yet I done the best I knew how, I lived up to the light and
knowledge I was in possession of. I remained a member of the Methodist one
year.
“About this time a man by the name
of Duncan came into our settlement and commenced to preach. He belonged to the
Christian Baptist or Cambellites. He preached faith, repentance and baptism for
the remission of sins. I had read a great deal in the scriptures and I knew
this to be true and according to scripture. Another preacher came with Duncan,
by the name of Lucas and they continued to preach and they got a good many to
join them.
“I had always believed in baptism
by immersion, but the Methodist never would immerse me, because I had been
sprinkled when a child. As I felt it to be my duty to submit myself to the
ordinances of the gospel and as my mother and grandmother was going to join
them, I concluded I would also. I did and was baptized. The reason I did this
was because I believed they had more truth than the Methodist.”
363.
The Baptist were the first major convert faith in America, “the
first religion to grow primarily by converting unchurched Americans rather than
by immigration. . . . These Protestants solved the problem of a shortage of
ministers by not requiring their elders to be college graduates, but ordaining
many men who claimed an inward call to preach. . . . Preaching was an avocation
rather than a profession”
Milton
V. Backman, Joseph Smith’s First Vision (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft,
1971), 56.
364.
Jesse Crosby records the following observation. This event took
place while serving his mission to Canada.
“On June 6,
1844, we left our lodgings at Mr. Griffis' Hotel and repaired to Parish Church
where we saw High Mass performed and other Catholic ceremonies; great splendor
was exhibited. Two or three hundred wax candles were burning, some of them six
feet long; 100 to 200 priests were present, some of them dressed in garments
gilded, others in white robes. Next we visited the "Grey Nunnery" and
examined it critically; we were not permitted to enter the "Black
Nunnery." The day was spent agreeably.”
Autobiography
of Jesse W. Crosby, Typescript, HBLL;
365.
“September 5th. [1841] I attended the Dunkard's (One of the early
American religions) Soup meeting. They had two large iron kettles fixed in a
furnace in which they boiled beef and made soup. Bread was also furnished, and
bread and soup was free to all. I attended their baptism as there were some to
be baptized. They went down into the water, and the administrator immersed the
candidate forward, that is face downward, first in the name of the Father, then
secondly in the name of the Son and thirdly in the name of the Holy Ghost,
plunging them under the water three successive times. At night they
administered the ordinance of washing of feet. They had preaching both forenoon
and afternoon. I stayed all night at a neighboring house in company with Moses
Clawson and Ebenezer Clawson cousins.
“6th. This
morning we went back to the meeting house and took breakfast with the Dunkards,
as they gave invitation to all last night. We had a very good breakfast. After
breakfast, meeting was dismissed.”
Autobiography
of Warren Foote, Typescript, HBLL; htpp://www.boap.org/
366.
The following is in reference to Solomon Hancock, brother to
Levi Hancock:
“They used to whistle together,
until Solomon joined the Methodist Church. He once played the violin, he had
bought it from my brother Elijah in about the year of 1811 and had learned to
play a few tunes on it. Soon after mother got well he used to talk to her and
he became quite serious and took to singing. He learned many religious songs
and it was thought a sin to play a violin. He told his experience at a
Methodist meeting where a young woman by the name of Naby Bunce shouted and
shouted, "Glory to God we have got a fiddler." He then came home and
thanked Father for his kindness and said he hoped from this time on he should
serve God and talked swell to his brothers. He told us to be good children. He
then took his violin and broke it and burned it.”
Autobiography
of Levi Hancock, Typescript, HBLL; htpp://www.boap.org/
367.The
following situation took place in the area of Far West, Missouri during some of
the darkest days of the Church:
“Once I was
permitted to go to a Methodist Camp Meeting, and I used to think it funny to
see them pass the hat to get money. I could not help contrasting the way they
had of conducting their meeting to that of the Latter-day Saints. While our
meetings are conducted with singing and prayer and intellectual talks, theirs
were conducted, ‘Come to the Anxious Seat,’ ‘Come to Jesus.’ I would like to
have seen which of the howlers was supposed to be Jesus. I, being young, could
not understand, but being of an inquisitive mind, I desired to know, for it was
told to me by one of the greatest shouters that if my parent's would come to
that meeting and join them, they would not be killed! My parents told me that
if I liked, I could go again to their meetings. I never knew why I went, but I
did go four nights in succession. I used to think that if the Saints ranted and
howled like these people, what a host of people we might have in our Church
someday. I decided not to go any more, but I changed my mind when a man told me
that Jesus would be there tomorrow night, sure! I decided to go and see if he
looked like the same one I had seen there before, and oh! the groaning,
shouting, and hollering of ‘Amen’! One man said that Jesus would not fail to
come this time. At last a woman came to the anxious seat and shouted ‘Glory’,
and the congregation said ‘Amen’. Then the woman said she had the power, and a
man grabbed her in his arms and said, ‘I've got him’. The woman fell to the
floor as limp as a dish-rag, then a man with a cloak on kicked the candled
over. . . . I went home wondering if those good religious people would kill us
all. The noted, Sam Bogart [leader of the mob in Missouri], seemed to be the
chief howler and cloak carrier in the whole congregation.”
Autobiography
of Mosiah Hancock, Typescript, BYU-S; htpp://www.boap.org/
368. The following is from the journal of Warren
Foote of August 22, 1843:
“22nd. The
Methodist have been holding a camp meeting very near our house. We could not
sleep nights on account of their noise. Yesterday afternoon their preacher
requested the congregation to go out into the woods after the meeting was
dismissed and have secret prayers. Soon after we could hear them praying in
every direction--not much secrecy about it certain.”
Autobiography of Warren Foote, Typescript, Harold B. Lee Library,
Brigham Young University; htpp://www.boap.org/
369. The following interesting fact from the
journal of Joseph Holbrook prior to him joining the Church:
In August 24 [1827] I went to
Albany to see a Mr. Strany executed for the murder of a Mr. Whipple of Albany.
There was supposed to be 100,000 people who witnessed the execution. The day of
pleasant and no accident occurred worthy of notice. I bought some lottery
tickets in the amount of about 20 dollars, but only drew six which paid me but
poorly for my speculation.
Autobiography of Joseph Holbrook, Typescript, Harold B. Lee
Library, Brigham Young University.
370.
The children of Salt Lake City seem to be fair game for
Anti-Mormon writers, apostates, and even Church leaders as the next few quote
facts attest to:
Anna Elizabeth Dickinson in her
book,”Whited Sepulchers,” described Salt Lake City as the “new Sodom,” claiming
there were “no free schools, no general system of education, no libraries, no
reading-rooms, no morality in the streets.” She commented that she had “heard
of five out of six [children] dying,” and described the remaining children as
“puny, sunken, stunted animals.”
“Anna
E. Dickinson in Boston,” The Revolution, October 21, 1869, 241-42.
Apostate,
John Hyde said, “every visitor [to Salt Lake] proclaims them to be the most
whiskey-loving, tobacco-chewing, saucy and precocious children he ever saw.”
John
Hyde, Mormonism: Its Leaders and Designs (New York, 1857), 77, quoted in
Davis Bitton, “Zion’s Rowdies: Growing Up on the Mormon Frontier,” Utah
Historical Quarterly 50 (Spring 1982): 182-95.
Some
of the leaders of the Church even said, “the nuisance-loving children and at
times like thugs and ruffians.”
Davis
Bitton, “Zion’s Rowdies: Growing Up on the Mormon Frontier,” Utah Historical
Quarterly 50 (Spring 1982): 191.
The New
York Evening Post had the following to say about Salt Lake City children:
As
might be expected, the mortality among Mormon children is frightful. The
polygamists are like the old woman who lived in a shoe, and do not know what to
do with their many children, at any rate they do not properly care for them.
“Mortality
among Mormons,” New York Evening Post, August 23, 1869.
One last story:
The following from the pioneer
journal of Martha Cragun Cox:
I one day
passed a group of boys who had stolen out of school to play marbles on the
street. The poor old crone who was trying to teach them must have been glad
they had played truant for they were of the age and disposition to be most
trying in school. And truly, the fact that a great many children were growing
up on the streets of St. George without schooling or moral training even was
truly alarming. I said to the boys mentioned “If I were your teacher I’d be
sorry to have you out of school.” A big fellow answered. “Oh the old woman’s
glad we’re out.” I told the boys I was sorry to see them growing up without
education. “If you’re sorry for us” they said, “why don’t you teach us? We
wouldn’t stay out of school if you taught us.” “I wish I knew enough to teach
you,” I said “and I’d see whether you would.” One bright little fellow spoke up
and said “I should think you’d teach us that that you do know.” Here was a new
thought. There were many children who knew less than I. Why not give the little
I had, if I could not give much. The bantering words of these rude boys on the
street aroused a feeling hard to resist, and I resolved that henceforth as far
as it lay in my power to do so I would spread light into darkened chambers. I
decided to become a teacher.
Kenneth W. Godfrey, Audrey M. Godfrey, and Jill Mulvay Derr, Women’s
Voices: An Untold History of The Latter-day Saints 1830-1900 (Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book Company, 1982), 276.
371.
It’s highly possible that these were the first shoes that the
young Mosiah Hancock had in a few years. We do know that when he and his family
were pushed out of Missouri, he crossed Missouri in the winter of 1838 with no
shoes or coat. Is it any wonder he prized them the way he did? He was almost
seven-years old at the time of him receiving the shoes.
“On April 9th [1841], my Uncle Alvin
presented me with a pair of shoes, which I dared not wear except on Sundays. On
Sundays I tucked the shoes under my arm and started for meeting; slipping them
on just before I arrived there. After meeting was out, I would take them off
and walk home in my bare feet. They were so roomy that I kept them in good condition
for three years, then turned them over to my brother, Francis Marion. I hadn’t
even dared to wear the shoes while cutting wood for fear of cutting them!”
Autobiography
of Mosiah Hancock, Typescript, BYU-S; htpp://www.boap.org/
372.
Father sold some goods, clothing, groceries etc. he’d brought from
Manti and bought lumber, with which he started a three room house. But it was
never finished, for although they raised a good garden when they got
water—after digging a large ditch a mile long—they had much trouble with a
neighbor—an apostate Mormon who kept stealing their water. But that was not
their worst grief; the officers who had not bothered father in Manti were again
on his trail. But he did manage to teach school there that next winter. The bones
of my leg not being very strong, I had to walk a mile to school through deep
snow and tall sage brush. And I had to wear big heavy wooden shoes. As that was
mostly a Danish community, quite a number of the people wore them. Mine were
too large so I’d take them and my stockings off and hurry as best I could
barefooted, for the snow would almost freeze my toes; I’d put on my “woodies”
before reaching the school house.
373. The following from the life of early pioneer
James Ririe as told by La Verna Burnett Newey:
“By the summer
of 1857, our food famine was past, but now we found ourselves destitute of
clothes. I had managed to buy or trade with the Indians for buckskins, so I had
a buckskin shirt and straw hat. These were my weekday clothes. I had got a
Sunday pair of pants made of the end of a Scottish Tartan plaid I had brought
with me. The other part made a good shawl for my wife. My wife made a Sunday
shirt for me out of her bedgowns. I had moccasins for Sunday shoes. I went
barefooted all the week. I thought myself as well dressed as the rest on
Sunday. I saw several brethren come to meeting barefooted.”
Chronicles of Courage, Lesson Committee comp.,
(Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1991), 2:64.
374. Between 1875 and 1910
the Church developed thirty-three stake academies in seven states, Canada, and
Mexico. By 1934, at the low point of the great depression, only the Juarez
Stake Academy in Colonia Juarez, Mexico, remained as an academy. Three former
academies, though still under Church jurisdiction, had expanded their
curriculum: Brigham Young Academy had become Brigham Young University, Salt
Lake Stake Academy had become LDS Business College, and Bannock Stake Academy
had become Ricks College. Prominent among those turned over to the state were
St. George Stake Academy (later Dixie State College), Sanpete Stake Academy in
Ephraim, Utah (Snow College), Weber Stake Academy in Ogden, Utah (Weber State
University), and St. Joseph Stake Academy (Gila Junior College, then Eastern
Arizona College).
Arnold
K. Garr, Donald Q. Cannon, and Richard O. Cowan, Encyclopedia of Latter-day
Saint History (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2000), 4-5.
375.
The following from the life of early pioneer Lucy Clements Hale:
Hardships
were many for the Hale families. Their beds consisted of sheep pelts spread on
the earthen floor of their dugouts. Often they were compelled to retire at
night with little or no food. Shoes they had none and clothing but little.
Their clothing was made of factory, dyed with sage, and the color fixed with
lye made of ashes and greasewood. When they made bread, they gathered white
saleratus from the bank of sloughs. (A slough is a muddy pond, and the white
foam that covered the top was skimmed off—saleratus.) To keep warm in cold
weather they would fill a large iron kettle with greasewood ashes and place the
kettle in their dwelling. They made their own soap of tallow, a dish with grease
and tallow, and lighted.
Chronicles
of Courage, Lesson Committee comp., (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah
Pioneers, 1991), 2:59.
376.
With dread I think of the first summer—their suffering was intense:
no shade, no fruit, vegetables scarce, not much milk and no butter, poor water
(and that warm), winds hot and scorching, days long and blinding, nights close
and sultry; nothing to protect them from flies and tormenting insects; sick
babies with no comforts. Is it any wonder that many slept before their time?
This was the life of pioneer women.
The machinery was of a simple
nature. If the careless wife forgot to bank her fire overnight, the next
morning she must scurry forth for the loan of a little fire. With shovel in
hand she would watch for smoke, then hasten for a live coal.
Salt-rising bread was the most
common kind in use, and neighbors frequently exchanged “emptying” in order to
get a “start.” Tallow candles could not be made in the summer because of the
heat, so a bit of rag tied around a button in a dish of grease was used for
lighting.
Clothing that was brought with them gave
out, then real want became known. Some became very expert spinners, making a
smooth, even warp for cloth. . . . Others were skillful with the dye kettle,
and many beautiful hues were produced by dipping and redipping in baths of
indigo, madder, copperas, chaparral, and the despised rabbitbrush. Mira Kelsey
Hunt writes: “My mother was a weaver. She would card, spin, and weave. I can
remember well her weaving a dress for Eliza Lund and myself on the same piece.
It was sheep’s grey, madder red, and indigo blue checks.”
Soap was a problem that the
pioneer women were forced to solve. Fortunately for them, soft wood trees were
found on the creek bottoms, and the ashes of the cottonwood and willow were
rich in lye, which was leached out by pouring water on a quantity of ashes
contained in a barrel. The drippings from this barrel were received in a
container, then united with grease, which formed a soft soap. Loads of saleratus
were brought in from the lowlands; this united the lime and grease in the right
proportions made a hard soap. Failing to get either of these, the “never to be
thwarted” pioneer women took to the hills and dug goose root, which produced a
wonderful suds that cleaned without fading the color or injuring the fabric.
The sick were not neglected. The
pioneer nurse with her superior knowledge is not forgotten, and with love and
almost reverence, the names of Sister Stanton, Grandmother Atchinson, Grandmother
Attwood, Aunt Dicy Perkins, Mother Hardy, Sister Barnes, and Sister Church are
mentioned with loving thoughts.
Time passed on. Conditions
improved. More comforts were obtained, and the strenuous life of the pioneer
woman eased up. But she, too, passed on, and is now resting in the warm
sunshine of the hillside. Life, with its hardships and sorrows, with its joys
and successes, has ceased. . . . May her rest be sweet and her salvation sure.
She has not lived in vain. . . .
Under
Dixie Sun, Washington County DUP, 1950, 95-98.
377.
From the journal of Lucy Meserve Smith, who entered the Salt
Lake Valley September of 1849, we learn the fun name for a flax wheel:
Whimmikie
Whammikie two Standard Lillikie Strikiety Huffity Whirlimagig.
Really,
not a whole lot different from the thing-of-a-majigs of today.
Kenneth
W. Godfrey, Audrey M. Godfrey, and Jill Mulvay Derr, Women’s Voices: An
Untold History of The Latter-day Saints 1830-1900 (Salt Lake City: Deseret
Book Company, 1982), 265.
378. We boys
in Nauvoo formed a company called the 'Sons of Helaman'. Brother Baily from
Massachusetts was our captain; and he was proud of us and we were proud of him.
I was second Lieutenant, and we drilled quite a lot. Just before we left
Nauvoo, I was in the Prophet's guard most of the time. I loved to march and
parade and have the martial spirit; and was happy under military discipline. I
would take my rifle with me even though not in company nor on parade with the
Sons of Helaman. Often I was in the rank of the grown men, and no one ever
said, "Your in the way". Why it was thus, I could never comprehend. I
loved to see a martial feeling cultivated.
Autobiography
of Mosiah Hancock, Typescript, BYU-S; htpp://www.boap.org/
379. I joined
the whistling and whittling band. In those days there was, now and then, a fop
or dude who would go to a man's shingle pile, and with his hat or cap cocked on
one side, would sit and whittle and whistle. There was no law against that, but
from what we could learn, some of them were interested in taking the life of
the Prophet. We kept a good watch, and were directed to keep an eye on the
"Black Ducks". We really tried to do our duty and we succeeded in
bagging some game. I was about to give some instances, but forbear by saying,
"In no case did I ever help to engage in whittling any one down to make
them cross the great river unless they were known to be lurking around the
Prophet's premises quite late, or to be seeking that which was none of their
business. In extreme cases when we knew a man to be a snobber, and who still
sought the life of the Prophet, we would use our rail. We generally had four
boys to a rail-----the rail would be flat on the bottom and was three cornered;
on the top corner it was terribly sharp-----fixed to suit the aggravating
circumstances. Four boys generally knew how to manage the rail. We all had our
knives and our timbers to whittle and make rails from, and we knew what tunes
to whistle. I do not know if the boys from Nauvoo would like for me to betray
those old-fashioned secrets; but that was the way we initiated those who seemed
to wish with all their hearts to become thoroughly acquainted with the secrets
of the Prophet. If they appreciated the way of innocent childhood, they could
repent of their sins and be ready for baptism. I do not know of any who seemed
to be desirous of continuing the war; instead they were on hand for a covenant
of peace. Bennet and some of the others were left to the Prophet's own
management. Well do I remember the Prophet's speech from a frame in front of
his mansion--where he said, "Brethren, I now roll this work onto the
shoulders of the Twelve; and they shall bear and send this Gospel to every
nation under Heaven". He asked the Legions if they were not all his boys,
and they shouted "Yes!" I stood on the rail of the fence in front of
the mansion. When the Prophet said, "Brethren, the Lord Almighty has this
day revealed to me something I never comprehended before! That is--I have
friends who have at a respectful distance been ready to ward off the blows of
the adversary. (He brought his hand down on my father's head as he was acting
as body-guard to the Prophet) While others have pretended to be my friends, and
have crept into my bosom and become vipers, and have been my most deadly enemies.
I wish you to be obedient to these true men as you have promised. ARE YOU
WILLING TO DIE FOR ME?" Yes! was the shout. "You have said you are
willing to die for me--". Then he drew his sword and cried, "I WILL
DIE FOR YOU! If this people cannot have their rights, my blood shall run upon
the ground like water". When the Prophet had his hand upon my father's
head, I said to myself, "I trust that I will be as true to young Joseph,
the Prophet's son, as my father is to his father". Afterwards at home, I told
my father of my thoughts, and he said, "No, Mosiah, for God has shown to
Brother Joseph that his son, Joseph, will be the means of drawing many people
away from this Church after him. Brother Joseph gave us to understand that it
was our duty to follow the Twelve. The majority of this people will be right;
but when you see people thirsting for the blood of the Saints, you may know
they are not right". Before the Prophet spoke from the frame, he had
started to go to the Rocky Mountains, and went as far as Montrose; but through
the interference of some pretended friends, he returned. I was a witness to
these things--and when the Prophet spoke from the frame, he spoke with power,
and the people loved him.
380.
"One day I had to leave my children alone while I planned to
go to Snowflake on business. On the way a fearful feeling about the children's
safety took hold of me. I told the man in whose wagon I was riding, that I'd
have to go back. Our place was about a mile out of Taylor. Before I reached
home, I heard an awful screaming. I hurried fast, resulting in a fall into a
ditch that almost stunned me. Oh! what a sight met my eyes inside the house.
Victoria told me about it afterwards. She had been curious about a can that I
had put on top of the cupboard. She and David piled up boxes, and she reached
up and pulled the cayenne down into the eyes of all three, George had also
creeped over there. The cayenne went into their eyes, noses, and throats and
nearly sent them crazy--almost strangled them to death. I hurried and bathed
their eyes with milk and sugar, then applied mashed apple poultices, which
helped. But their eyes were badly swollen and it was a long time before they
got over this."
History
of Martha M. Hancock; http//www.boap.org/
381. "In the summer of 1884 my baby George and
Esther's Mosiah got the summer complaint--very badly. I checked George's
sickness with oak bark. I tried to get Esther to use it for her baby, but she
hesitated, for she was young and didn't realize its condition and the value of
certain herb remedies in these pioneer times. She often left the sick baby for
Victoria to tend. I had about all I could do in the garden, I could only feed
him. Finally he turned cold, we didn't realize that he was getting so bad. We
sent for Margaret, who tried to warm him with peppermint tea. Finally he passed
away. The dear little soul seemed almost like my own child. Mosiah was still
away, but Margaret tried to comfort us. She was a good soul in such cases.
Esther was away working."
History of Martha M.
Hancock; http//www.boap.org/
382. The journal of Patty Sessions on March 24th, 1847 list various home
remedies including the following for bowel complaint:
Take tea one spoonful of rhubarb one forth corbnet soda one table
spoonful brandy one tea spoonful peppermint essence half tea cup ful warm water
take a table spoonful once an hour until it operates.
The
Diaries of Perrigrine Sessions, comp. Earl T. Sessions (Bountiful,
Utah: Carr Printing Co., 1967).
383.
The following from the journal of Nancy Abigail Clement
Williams:
One Thursday evening after school
we were all out playing stink base for exercise. I got to chasing my cousin
(Darius Sanders) and was determined to catch him. I run so hard that I had to
sit down and rest. I turned faint and dizzy and had to go in and went to bed. I
would chill awhile, then nearly burn up with fever all night. In the morning I
had a high fever. As soon as the drug store was opened, my cousin got me salts
and quinnene, which I took, but threw it up as fast as they gave it to me.
Lizzie bathed and soaked my feet, did all she could for me.
Kenneth
W. Godfrey, Audrey M. Godfrey, and Jill Mulvay Derr, Women’s Voices: An
Untold History of The Latter-day Saints 1830-1900 (Salt Lake City: Deseret
Book Company, 1982), 363.
384.
Mosiah would have just turned seven-years old.
“On April 19,
1841, my little brother John was born. This summer my father made me a little
Kentucky rifle; so now and then we have squirrel for soup. Mother certainly
knew how to make a savory soup!”
385. Some of the brethren went to California in order
to have a better time. Those of us who stayed kept the Word of Wisdom and tried
to make a living and keep the commandments of God. When our ammunition gave
out, we sharpened some sticks and went up the mountain and dug segos, but oh,
the back aching job for the meager messes we obtained! Some got poisoned by
getting the wrong kind. As soon as the frost was out of the ground in the
bottoms, we went for the thistle roots which were nice to eat-- either raw or
roasted; we used the tops for greens.
Autobiography of Mosiah Hancock, Typescript, BYU-S;
http://www.boap.org/
386.The following from the Journal of Eliza R. Snow:
March 13, 1846 Rained some in the night but colder before morning.
Quite windy. Our tent blew down and with other accidents upset a pail of potato
soup which was intended for breakfast, but instead thereof we had coffee, fried
Jole (fish heads) and Johnny cake.
See Eliza R. Snow, “Sketches of My Life,” a holograph
autobiography prepared for Hubert Howe Bancroft in the 1880’s, now in the
Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, California, microfilm of
holograph, Church Archives.
387. Jean Rio Griffiths Baker gives us some insight
into the menu on board the ship while sailing to America. Her diary entry of
Jan. 13, 1851 reads:
Provisions served out for a week. Laughed heartily at our supply
of oatmeal, 70 pounds.
Kenneth
W. Godfrey, Audrey M. Godfrey, and Jill Mulvay Derr, Women’s Voices-An
Untold History of The Latter-day Saints: 1830-1900 (Salt Lake City: Deseret
Book Company, 1982), 205.
Additional
interesting information:
It is interesting to note that the British Passenger Act of 1849
allowed for each individual on a ship to have three quarts of fresh water a day
and enough bread, flour, potatoes, rice, or oatmeal, and molasses, sugar and
tea to last ten weeks.
P.A.M. Taylor, Expectations Westward: The Mormons and the
Emigration of Their British Converts in the Nineteenth Century (Edinburgh
and London: Oliver & Boyd, 1965).
388. The following from the journal of Jean Rio
Griffiths Baker on February 25, 1851:
Fine weather.
Numerous schools of porpoises just ahead of us. One of the brethren struck one
and hauled it on board. It measured five feet in length. It was soon skinned
and cut up into pieces. A part of it was presented to me. I did not much admire
it—it was like very coarse beef and in color, very black.
Kenneth
W. Godfrey, Audrey M. Godfrey, and Jill Mulvay Derr, Women’s Voices-An
Untold History of The Latter-day Saints: 1830-1900 (Salt Lake City: Deseret
Book Company, 1982), 209.
389.
The following from the life of early pioneer James Ririe as told
by La Verna Burnett Newey:
“My friend Henry Devenish, who
treated me like a son, let me have eleven bushels of potatoes, and I was to
work for him sometime for them. The Walker War had just closed, and we could
not leave our tools because of the Indians. In carrying my spade home I had to
go through the sand ridge. There were sego lilies so I dug enough each night
for our supper. Less than a pint, when cleaned and boiled in milk, made a good
substitute for supper.
Chronicles
of Courage, Lesson Committee comp., (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah
Pioneers, 1991), 2:63.
390.
The following from the life of early pioneer James Ririe as told
by La Verna Burnett Newey:
“I went over to Camp Floyd (This
is where the soldiers of Johnston’s Army resided during their stay in Utah)
with a load of wheat and some watermelon pies with no sugar in them, that my
wife had baked. The pies went like hot cakes at fifty cents apiece, and I got
one dollar seventy-five cents a bushel for the wheat.”
Watermelon
pies?
Chronicles
of Courage, Lesson Committee comp., (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah
Pioneers, 1991), 2:64.
391.
In the Fall of 1872, William Lewis Allen and his brother John Rial
Lewis and friend Asa Dee Smith, moved their families north to become some of
the first homesteaders of Lewiston, Utah. Lewiston’s early nickname was Poverty
Flats because those pioneers really had to work hard to make a living.
Peace Like A River, The Historical and
Spiritual Journey of The Isaac M. Stewart Family, Compiled and Edited By David
H. Epperson (Salt Lake City, 2007), 121.
392. This
is at the time of Joseph Smith:
The township of Palmyra
had been settled for twenty-five years and had a population of almost three
thousand people.
James
B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day Saints (Salt
Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1992), 25.
393. When Brigham Young sent First Counselor George A.
Smith, Elder Lorenzo Snow, and Albert Carrington to Palestine to rededicate the
Holy Land it was also to explore the prospect of a Mormon colony.
Anthon
H. Lund, Danish Apostle: The Diaries of Anthon H. Lund, 1890-1921, ed.
John P. Hatch (Salt Lake City: Signature Books in association with the
Smith-Pettit Foundation, 2006), 40-41.
394. The
plat of the City of Zion that was revealed to Joseph Smith also had some street
names listed. Two of the more interesting street names were Jerusalem Street
and Bethlehem Street.
Ronald
E. Romig and John H. Siebert, “Jackson County, 1831-1833: A Look at the
Development of Zion,” Restoration Studies 3 (1986), 286-304.
395.
The main intersection in the village of Palmyra is unique, being
the only city with four different churches on each of the four corners of the
intersection.
Douglas
Powell, Near Cumorah’s Hill (American Fork, Utah: Covenant
Communications, Inc., 2000), 22.
396.
The following is from the life of George Albert Goodrich during
the 1860’s:
George and one other man sawed
enough lumber with a whipsaw to complete an adobe meetinghouse. Scarcely had
they completed their arduous task when it was determined by the state boundary
survey that they were located in Nevada. Taxes were so high there that they
couldn’t pay them, so the state seized many of their horses and cattle and sold
them for taxes.
Chronicles
of Courage, Lesson Committee comp., (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah
Pioneers, 1991), 2:53.
397. In the
early 1970s, the Church purchased a Presbyterian chapel in Kane, Pennsylvania,
which Colonel Thomas L. Kane had constructed in the late 1870s and where he is
buried.
Matthew J. Grow, “Thomas L. Kane and Nineteenth-Century American Culture,”
BYU Studies, Volume 48, Number 4, 2009, 15.
398. On May 14, 1890, fifty-nine citizens of Moab
petitioned the court of Grand County to change Moab’s name to Vina. The
petition was accompanied by the following letter, in part:
To the Honorable County Court of
Grand County, Utah:
Dear Sirs:
We the undersigned legal voters of Grand
County, Utah, respectfully represent the name of “Moab”, county seat of Grand
County, being so unfavorable commemorative of the character of an incestuous
and idolatrous community existing 1897 years before the Christian era, we . . .
therefore respectfully petition and ask your Honorable Body to change the name
of said County Seat to one more appropriate, significant, or expressive of
moral decency and manly dignity and in harmony with the progressive civilization
of the present age.
We respectfully suggest the name of:
VINA.
At the court’s meeting in June,
1890, the petition was not officially recognized for want of a sufficient
number of signatures.
Grand
Memories, DUP, Grand County, 1972, 49-51.
399.
When Spanish Fork, Utah was first being settled, most families
lived in dugouts; in fact, these dugouts were so commonly used in those early
days that Spanish Fork was sometimes called “Gopher Town.”
Chronicles
of Courage, Lesson Committee comp., (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah
Pioneers, 1991), 2:62.
400.
On Saturday, August 6, 1842, the Prophet Joseph Smith wrote in his
journal, “Passed over the river to Montrose, Iowa . . . where . . . I
prophesized that the saints would continue to suffer much affliction and would
be driven to the Rocky Mountains, many would apostatize, others would be put to
death by our persecutors or lose their lives in consequence of exposure or
disease, and some of you will live to go and assist in making settlements and
build cities and see the saints become a mighty people in the midst of the
Rocky Mountains.”
Anson
Call, a Church member who was present, described this prophesy. “I had before
seen him in a vision, and now saw while he was talking his countenance change
to white; not the deadly white of a bloodless face—but a living, brilliant
white. He seemed absorbed in gazing at something at a great distance and said;
‘I am gazing upon the valleys of those mountains. Oh, the beauty of those
snowcapped mountains; the cool refreshing streams that are running down those
mountain gorges.’ Then gazing in another direction, as if there were a change
of locality; ‘Oh the scenes that this people will pass through. The dead that
will lay between here and there.’ Then gazing in another direction, as if the
scene had again changed; ‘Oh the apostasy that will take place before my
brethren reach that land.’ But he continues, ‘The Priesthood shall prevail over
its enemies, triumph over the devil and established upon the earth, never more
to be thrown down.’ Then turning to some of the men present he said; ‘There are
some men here who shall do a great work in that land—so that the nations of the
earth shall be astonished, and many of them will be gathered in that land and
assist in building cities and temples, and Israel shall be made to rejoice.’”
Peace
Like A River, The Historical and Spiritual Journey of The Isaac M. Stewart
Family, Compiled and Edited By David H. Epperson (Salt Lake City, 2007), 33.
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