1.
Years ago President Charles A. Callis, then a member of the Quorum
of the Twelve, but who previously was president of the Southern States mission
for twenty-five years, told me this story. He said that he had a missionary in
the southern states who came into get his release at the conclusion of his
mission. His mission president said to him, “Have you had a good mission?”
He said, “No.”
“How is that?”
“Well, I haven’t had any
results from my work. I have wasted my time and my father’s money. It’s been a
waste of time.”
Brother Callis said,
“Haven’t you baptized anyone?”
He said, “I baptized only
one person during the two years that I have been here. That was a
twelve-year-old boy up in the back hollows of Tennessee.”
He went home with a
sense of failure. Brother Callis said, “I decided to follow that boy who had
been baptized. I wanted to know what became of him. The next time I went up into
that area I looked him up. He had put on shoes (he’d never worn shoes before),
he’d put on a shirt (he’d never had a shirt before), he was the clerk of the
little branch Sunday School..”
Brother Callis said,
“I followed him through the years. He became the Sunday School Superintendent,
and he eventually became the branch president. He married. He moved off the
little tenant farm on which he and his parents before him had lived and got a
piece of ground of his own and made it fruitful. He became the district
president. He sold that piece of ground in Tennessee and moved to Idaho and
bought a farm along the Snake River and prospered there. His children grew.
They went on missions. They came home. They had children of their own who went
on missions.”
Brother Callis
continued, “I’ve just spent a week up in Idaho looking up every member of that
family that I could find and talking to them about their missionary service. I
discovered that, as the result of the baptism of that one little boy in the back
hollows of Tennessee by a missionary who thought he had failed, more than 1,100
people have come into the Church.”
Gordon
B. Hinckley, Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley (Salt Lake City: Deseret
Book Company, 1997), 360-61.
2.
In June of 1966, Mark E. Littman and Joel Izatt of the Hansen
Planetarium assist artists Sydney E. King and V. Russell Capson in their
efforts to place the stars in the heavens on a mural on the rotunda ceiling
above where the Christus will be placed in the North Visitors’ Center on
Temple Square. The stars are placed to appear as they would have on 6 April
1830, the day the Church was organized.
Richard
Neitzel Holzapfel et al., On This Day In The Church (Salt Lake City:
Eagle Gate, 2000), 114.
3.
I have seen pictures of the Hill Cumorah, taken at the turn of the
Century, with very few trees. When my family visited there in the early ‘70s it
was heavily wooded. I could never understand why the huge change. I now knew
why after reading “Witness of the Light.” Over 200,000 trees have been planted
on the Hill Cumorah.
Scot
Facer Proctor, Witness of the Light (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book
Company, 1991), 52.
4.
While touring the Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii, Elder David O. McKay
is impressed by the Spirit to move those with him away from a ledge overlooking
the volcano just before the ledge collapses into the volcano.
Richard
Neitzel Holzpfel et al., On This Day In The Church (Salt Lake City:
Eagle Gate, 2000), 31.
5.
Reed Smoot serve 30 of his 41 years as an Apostle as United States
Senator from Utah.
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, 1993), 468.
6.
In 1964, during a meeting with President David O. McKay, U.S.
president Lyndon B. Johnson asks the Church President for advice and indicates
that he has felt inspired during previous visits with President McKay.
Richard
Neitzel Holzpfel et al., On This Day In The Church (Salt Lake City:
Eagle Gate, 2000), 23.
7.
Elder Russell M. Nelson attends the Parliament of the World’s
Religions in Chicago, Illinois, on August 28, 1993; exactly 100 years after the
body rejected a Latter-day Saint delegation headed by Elder B.H. Roberts.
Richard
Neitzel Holzpfel et al., On This Day In The Church (Salt Lake City:
Eagle Gate, 2000), 167.
8.
The church had gone full circle after being rejected by Martin Van
Buren in 1839 to President George Albert Smith offering the prayer to open the
U.S. Senate session (20th May, 1947), the first Church leader to be so invited. President
Hugh B. Brown repeated this same honor on 20th May 1966 and then Elder
Gordon B. Hinckley gave the invocation at the U.S. Congress on September 12,
1974.
Richard
Neitzel Holzpfel et al., On This Day In The Church (Salt Lake City:
Eagle Gate, 2000), 100, 177.
9.
In June of 1960, Elder Bruce R. McConkie sets apart his son, Joseph
Fielding McConkie, a nineteen-year-old, for his mission. This begins the policy
of extending calls on a regular basis to nineteen-year-old young men as
full-time missionaries.
Richard
Neitzel Holzpfel et al., On This Day In The Church (Salt Lake City:
Eagle Gate, 2000), 129.
10.
George Q. Morris is ordained a member of the Quorum of the Twelve
Apostles at eighty years of age (April of 1954) making him the oldest man
ordained an Apostle in this dispensation, replacing Matthew Cowley, who had
died.
Richard
Neitzel Holzpfel et al., On This Day In The Church (Salt Lake City:
Eagle Gate, 2000), 70.
11.
Hugh B. Brown of the First Presidency dies in Salt Lake City on the same
day as Elder ElRay L. Christiansen, Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve
Apostles, dies. This is the first time two General Authorities have died on the
same day since the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum Smith (December 2, 1975).
Richard
Neitzel Holzpfel et al., On This Day In The Church (Salt Lake City:
Eagle Gate, 2000), 234.
12.
Lucy Gates Bowen, a grand-daughter of Brigham Young, christens the SS
Brigham Young, a U.S. liberty ship used during World War II to transport
troops, freight, and prisoners (August 1942).
Richard
Neitzel Holzpfel et al., On This Day In The Church (Salt Lake City:
Eagle Gate, 2000), 161.
13.
In May of 1943, Eugene W. Hilton, representing the Oakland Stake,
christens the SS Joseph Smith, a U.S. Liberty ship used during World War
II to transport troops, freight and prisoners.
Richard
Neitzel Holzpfel et al., On This Day In The Church (Salt Lake City:
Eagle Gate, 2000), 101.
14.
When U.S. president Warren G. Harding visited Utah, he and
President Heber J. Grant played a round of golf at the Salt Lake Country Club
against the club’s golf pros. According to Reed Smoot, who walked around with
the players, “The two presidents won.”
Michael
K. Winder, Presidents and Prophets (American Fork, Utah: Covenant
Communications, Inc., 2007.
15.
On August 27, 1938, L.D.S. pitcher, Monte Pearson, pitched the
first no-hitter in Yankee stadium history.
Frederick
Lieb, “Peason, Near 30-Mark, Improves with Age.” The Sporting News, July
1, 1939.
16.
April 19, 1938: A group of LDS missionaries, including future
Apostle Marvin J. Ashton, wins the Great Britain national basketball
championship.
Richard
Neitzel Holzapfel et. Al., On This Day in the Church (Salt Lake City:
Eagle Gate, 2000), 77.
17. BYU and San Diego State hold the record of
the highest-scoring tie in NCAA history. On Nov. 16, 1991, the Cougars and
Aztecs battled to a 52-52 tie. This record is expected to stand forever because
years later, the NCAA implemented overtime rules that prevent ties.
Jeff
Call, Roaring Back To Glory (Spring Creek Book Company: Provo, Utah,
2008), 188.
18.
BYU beat Pitt on Sept. 1, 1984 in the first live ESPN College Football
broadcast. The Cougars won 20-14, to kick off their national championship
season.
Jeff
Call, Roaring Back To Glory (Spring Creek Book Company: Provo, Utah,
2008), 191.
19.
The first time two temples were dedicated on the same day was 14
November 1999: the Halifax, Nova Scotia Temple and the Regina, Saskatchewan
Temple. This was also the first time since 1846 that a general authority not in
the First Presidency dedicated a temple. On the same day that President
Hinckley dedicated the Halifax, Nova Scotia Temple, President Boyd K. Packer,
acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, dedicated the Regina,
Saskatchewan Temple.
Chad
S. Hawkins, The First One Hundred Temples (Salt Lake City: Eagle Gate, 2001),
276
20.
The Church suspended construction of the Stockholm, Sweden Temple
for more than a year so that archaeological relics could be excavated from
ancient Viking graves, dating from 600 B.C. to A. D. 200, discovered on the
temple site. Stockholm’s mayor noted, “Had it not been for the temple, we would
never have discovered the relics.
Chad
S. Hawkins, The First One Hundred Temples (Salt Lake City: Eagle Gate, 2001),
pg. 271.
21.
The property that became the site of the Tokyo Temple was
devastated by two bombs during World War II.
Chad
S. Hawkins, The First One Hundred Temples (Salt Lake City: Eagle Gate, 2001),
pg. 273.
22.
A much-anticipated event occurs annually at the Sydney Australia
Temple when numerous plovers, beautiful gray and white birds with yellow head
cones and long legs, arrive to lay their eggs after flying thousands of miles.
The birds, which mate for life, nest directly on the lawn, each pair within
about two feet of its original spot, so a special effort is make to mow around
them. Fine screens have been installed over nearby storm drains to prevent
heavy rains from washing away the eggs or chicks.
Chad
S. Hawkins, The First One Hundred Temples (Salt Lake City: Eagle Gate, 2001),
pg. 274.
23. Four
temples have been commemorated on postal stamps or as postal cancellations: the
Salt Lake Temple (in 1980 and 1993), the Stockholm, Sweden Temple (in 1985),
the Apia, Samoa Temple (in 1988), and the Nuku’alofa, Tonga Temple (in 1991).
Chad
S. Hawkins, The First One Hundred Temples (Salt Lake City: Eagle Gate, 2001),
pg. 270.
24.
As the Baton Rouge, Louisiana Temple neared completion, a
last-minute decision was made to add three ceiling medallions to the interior.
When the medallions arrived, workers noticed that the one intended for the
celestial room was damaged. The project manager immediately began searching for
a replacement, only to find that the original supplier and all the other
dealers he could find were out of stock. Even the manufacturer was unable to
provide another one.
Finally, with the help of the
Internet, the project manager located a dealer in Atlanta, Georgia, who had one
left. The project manager gave him the address of the temple in Baton Rouge,
and the dealer remarked, “My church is getting ready to dedicate a building in
Baton Rouge.” The project manager quickly asked, “What church would that be?”
When the dealer responded, “The LDS Church,” the project manager was happy to
tell him that they were both referring to the very same building, adding that
the medallion would be placed in the celestial room. The project manager then
asked what the price of the medallion would be, and the dealer, the Latter-day
Saint who happened to have the only remaining one available, said he was
grateful to have the opportunity to donate the medallion to the temple.
Chad
S. Hawkins, The First One Hundred Temples (Salt Lake City: Eagle Gate, 2001),
pg. 252.
25.
The Oakland, California Temple is the only temple with five spires.
Chad
S. Hawkins, The First One Hundred Temples (Salt Lake City: Eagle Gate,
2001),270.
26.
The Bountiful, Utah Temple has the distinction of being the only
temple in which the entire First Presidency chose the site.
Chad
S. Hawkins, The First One Hundred Temples (Salt Lake City: Eagle Gate, 2001),
pg. 270.
27. Soon after the London
Temple site was purchased, President David O. McKay walked the temple grounds
and determined that the temple was to be constructed near a pond on the
property. The site engineers wanted another location chosen since they felt the
ground was too boggy to support the weight of the temple. President McKay
insisted that this is where they were to build. Upon further investigation,
workers discovered that beneath the boggy ground was solid shale at the proper
depth to support the temple.
Chad
S. Hawkins, The First One Hundred Temples (Salt Lake City: Eagle Gate, 2001),
pg. 40.
28.
In April of 1934, the church announces that the official
representative of the king of England has been allowed to visit the interior of
the Alberta Temple, even though it had been dedicated.
Richard
Neitzel Holzpfel et al., On This Day In The Church (Salt Lake City:
Eagle Gate, 2000), 83.
29.
Many great and spiritual experiences have taken place in the Alberta
Temple. Among them was one that resulted from the fervent prayers of the
parents of a young elder who drowned while on his way to a mission in South
America. His grieving father and mother could not be comforted.
One evening while the father was
in the Alberta Temple, he heard his son’s voice, although he did not see him.
The young elder told his father that the grieving of his parents was making it
impossible for him to fill the heavenly mission to which he had been called.
The boy promised that as a witness to the importance of the work he had been
called to do, the father would be asked to speak at a special meeting that day
in the temple.
Unexpectedly that afternoon the
temple president stopped the work of those in the temple and announced that
there would be a testimony meeting. He asked several people to participate, and
the father anxiously awaited his time.
When
another man was announced as the concluding speaker, the sorrowing father left
the meeting fearful that the visit with his son had been only his imagination.
Before the man left the building,
however, the temple president arose and announced that he had heard a voice
directing him to ask this man to speak to the group. Those in the room reported
that the father had left. “Then go and find him,” the president urged.
When the father returned to the
meeting, he told the group of his unusual experience, while tears of comfort
and joy glistened in his peace-filled eyes.
Lucile
C. Reading, Shining Moments Vol. 2 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book
Company, 1986), 123-124.
30.
An experience recorded by Earl W. and Beth Hemp
What a wonderful, spiritual
experience we had that day in the 1940’s in the sealing room of the Alberta
Temple with President E. J. Wood. There was a sister from Montana who was
sealed to her deceased husband and then the children of her large family were
placed around the altar. President Wood commenced sealing the children to their
parents. After naming about three of the children’s names President Wood
stopped and said, “Sister, are all your children here?” She answered, “Yes.”
President Wood started naming the children again and stopped at the same place.
“Sister, are all the children’s names on this sheet you gave me?” questioned
President Wood. Again she answered, “Yes.” The third time President Wood
commenced the sealing and again stopped at the same place and asked, “Sister,
didn’t you ever have any other children?” She began to cry and said, “President
Wood, I did have one baby who lived only a short time and that baby’s name is
not on the sheet.” “Yes, I know. Every time I came to that place while naming
the children a spirit in this room, right beside me kept telling me that it
belonged to this family and to please not leave him or her-(we don’t remember
which one it was)-without belonging to the family,” declared President Wood.
We didn’t hear the spirit speaking
to President Wood but we will never forget that sweet, peaceful, heavenly
feeling that was in that room. President Wood certainly was in tune with the
Spirit to hear the spirit of that child pleading with him.
Another person was chosen to be
the proxy for that deceased child and it was sealed along with the living
children to the parents. There must have been much rejoicing also in the
heavens that day.
V.A.Wood,
The Alberta Temple-Center and Symbol of Faith, pg. 172-173.
31.
In the early 1960s stake presidents in Utah Valley and nearby areas
were called to a meeting with the First Presidency, who spoke with them
confidentially about building a temple in Provo. Ben E. Lewis, one of those
stake presidents, was assigned to chair the site-selection committee and raise
funds from local Church members for a temple. President Lewis spoke privately
after the meeting with President N. Eldon Tanner about a site he knew was
available.
Some years before, a
German immigrant named Leathy, who owned several acres of land near Rock Canyon
on Provo’s east bench, had approached President Lewis after having a vivid
dream in which a beautiful temple was erected on his property. He had been so
moved by the dream that he offered the land to President Lewis for a temple
site. President Lewis, involved in BYU and Church land acquisition in Provo,
communicated the information to President Harold B. Lee, who declined the
offer. Instead, the property was purchased for BYU so that it would be
available for expansion or if circumstances changed a temple site.
Chad
S. Hawkins, The First 100 Temples (Salt Lake City: Eagle Gate, 2001),
49.
32.
A protest was planned by individuals from Wyoming to disrupt the
ground breaking ceremonies of the Billings, Montana Temple, however, due to
inclement and severe traveling and weather conditions the protestors were not
able to reach their destination.
Jim Pottenger.
Interview by Chad S. Hawkins, 20 April 2000.
33.
With the construction completed, the dedication of the Veracruz
temple was scheduled for 9 July 2000. Shortly before the dedication, Church
officials learned of a large all-terrain vehicle and motorcycle rally scheduled
to take place near the temple on the morning of the dedicatory services. That
event, with its crowds and loud engines, was planned for location less than
fifty yards from the temple grounds. Both it and the temple cornerstone ceremony
were to begin at 9 A.M. Dedication organizers were concerned and wondered how
to maintain the reverent feeling appropriate for placing he cornerstone of a
house of the Lord. But Sunday morning, the day of the dedication, arrived with
rain showers significant enough to cancel all the scheduled off-road vehicle
events. Ron Weekes, media specialist of the dedication. Observed, “I know that
the hand of the Lord was involved with what transpired.”
Chad
S. Hawkins, The First 100 Temples (Salt Lake City: Eagle Gate, 2001),
249.
34.
The Palmyra New York Temple was dedicated 6 April 2000, exactly one
hundred seventy years after the Church was organized on 6 April 1830. Never
before in this dispensation have so many members been able to witness the
dedication of a temple.
When the dates were
announced, it was also announced that the dedication would be broadcast from
the temple in Palmyra to the Salt Lake Tabernacle. The response was tremendous.
After ticket requests for the broadcast topped two hundred thousand, the First
Presidency decided to broadcast the dedication to all satellite-equipped stake
centers in North America. It was estimated that the total number of Latter-day
Saints in attendance at the dedication was 1.5 million.
Chad
S. Hawkins, The First 100 Temples (Salt Lake City: Eagle Gate, 2001),
211; Roger J. Adams, “Palmyra Temple History.” Unpublished. 19, 21, 26-7.
35.
The evacuation of the missionaries just prior to World War II,
particularly from the West German Mission, posed great challenges and provided
the setting for some remarkable examples of divine assistance.
The First Presidency’s telegram
arrived in Germany on Friday morning, 25 August. Elder Joseph Fielding Smith
and M. Douglas Wood, mission president, were conducting conferences in Hanover,
but President Wood and his wife immediately returned to mission headquarters in
Frankfurt. By Friday afternoon they had telegraphed all missionaries, directing
them to leave for Holland at once. On Saturday morning, a missionary called from
the border to tell them that the Netherlands had closed its borders to almost
all foreigners fearing that the influx of thousands of refugees would seriously
deplete the already short food supply. Meanwhile, bulletins on German radio
warned that by Sunday night all railroads would be under military control and
no further guarantees could be made for civilian travel.
When the Dutch closed their
border, the resulting crisis challenged the resourcefulness of President Wood
and his missionaries. Knowing that they could not take German currency out of
the country, almost all of the missionaries had used their excess funds to
purchase cameras or other goods that they could take with them. Therefore, they
did not have enough money to buy tickets to Copenhagen, Denmark, the alternate
point of evacuation leaving several groups of missionaries stranded at the
Netherlands border.
In Frankfurt President Wood gave
one of his missionaries, Elder Norman George Seibold, a former football player
from Idaho, a special assignment:
“I
said; ‘Elder, we have 31 missionaries lost somewhere between here and the Dutch
border. It will be your mission to find them and see that they get out.’. . .
“After four hours on the train he
arrived at Cologne, which is about half way to the Dutch border. We had told
him to follow his impressions entirely as we had no idea what towns these 31
Elders would be in. Cologne was not his destination, but he felt impressed to
get off the train there. It is a very large station, and was then filled with
thousands of people. . . . This Elder stepped into this station and whistled
our missionary whistle-‘Do What is Right, Let the Consequence Follow.’” Thereby
he located eight missionaries.
In some towns Elder Seibold
remained on board the train, but at others he was impressed to get off. In one
small community he recalled, “I had a premonition to go outside the station and
out into the town. It seemed silly to me at the time. But we had a short wait
and so I went. I passed a Gasthuas, a restaurant there, and I went inside and
there were two missionaries there. It was fantastic, in that they both knew me
and of course they were quite happy to see me. . . . As surely as if someone
had taken me by the hand, I was guided there.” In Copenhagen on Monday, 28
August, President Wood learned that fourteen of the thirty-one missing
missionaries had entered Holland safely. That afternoon he received a telegram
from Elder Seibold stating that the remaining seventeen would arrive in Denmark
that evening.
M.
Douglas Wood, in Conference Report, April 1940, pg. 79-80; David F. Boone, “The
Worldwide Evacuation of Latter-day Saint Missionaries at the Beginning of World
War II,” Master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1981, pg. 35-43.
36.
Green Flake, later one of three African-Americans to enter the Salt
Lake Valley with the first company of Saints, is born on the Jordan Flake
plantation in Anson County, North Carolina. There are no known birth records
for Hark Lay and Oscar Crosby, the two other African-Americans in the party.
Green Flake was born in Anson
County, North Carolina, ca. 1828. In 1841 he traveled with his owners, James
Madison and Agnes Love Flake, to Kemper County, Mississippi, where the family
cleared land for a farm. During the winter of 1843-44 Madison and Agnes were
baptized as members of the Mormon Church and so was their servant Green. When
the Flakes decided to join the main body of the church in Nauvoo, Green
accompanied them. For a time he served as a bodyguard for Joseph Smith.
Leonard
J. Arrington, "Black Pioneer Was Union Fort Settler," The Pioneer
(SUP), September-October 1981; Ronald G. Coleman, "A History of Blacks in
Utah, 1825-1910" (Ph.D. diss., University of Utah, 1980).
37.
At the time Box Elder was first settled, it was regarded as
dangerous Indian territory, but Bishop Davis followed William Penn’s advice of
feeding the Indians instead of fighting them—a policy taught and impressed also
by the wisdom of President Brigham Young, and by following this maxim Bishop
Davis won the hearts of the red men and they were ever his friends. They
used to call him “The Captain” and he was always able to get along with them
except when they were on the warpath.
The following history of WILLIAM
DAVIS was taken from a manuscript on file in the Brigham City, UT, city
library; htpp://www.boap.org/
38.
Elijah Abel, an early black convert, pioneer, and missionary, was
ordained an Elder on March 3, 1836. Zebedee Coltrin ordained Elijah a Seventy
on December 20 that same year. In 1908, Joseph F. Smith stated his
understanding that Joseph Smith himself declared Abel’s ordination “null and
void.” President Smith offered no basis for that assertion. Abel did not
believe that his ordination had ever been nullified. And twenty-nine years
earlier, in 1879, Joseph F. Smith noted that Elijah Abel had two certificates
identifying him as a seventy, one of them issued in Utah.
Jessie
L. Embry, Black Saints in a White Church: Contemporary African American
Mormons (Midvale, Utah: Signature Books, 1994), 39; Excerpts from Council
minutes August 26, 1908, Kimball Papers; Edward L. Kimball, “Spencer W. Kimball
and the Revelation on Priesthood, BYU Studies, Vol. 47, no. 2 (2008), 8.
39.
The following from the autobiography of August Adrainus Hjorth:
I
helped in many ways during the Black Hawk War in Cache Valley. At one time I
was sent out with two men to recover some workhorses the Indians had stolen.
After a long ride, we went down into a gulch and made a fire and cooked our
last bit of food. As we were wondering where to look next, a group of Indians
surrounded us. One of our men was an old trapper and could speak their
language. The Indians asked what we were doing there and were told we had come
to find the horses they had stolen. They seemed very unfriendly. They started
dragging dry timber and piled it up. They also put a long pole on the ground.
We imagined they were going to burn us at the stake. However they tied a turkey
buzzard on the end of the pole and began dancing around the pole after lighting
their bonfire.
While
all these preparations were going on, the chief and two other Indians came down
in front of us and wanted us to talk to them. The interpreter talked to them a
few minutes but they wanted us to “talk Brigham.” (They wanted to hear about
the Church.) I knew possibly half a dozen words in their language. I had never
preached a sermon in my life; but when I stood upon my feet, the Spirit of the
Lord came upon me with great power. I spoke for over an hour to those Indians
in their language. When I sat down, the interpreter said, “Where did you learn
to talk Indian?” What I had said seemed to please them, and they gave us some
food; and we joined in their dance around the campfire and slept among them all
night unmolested. In the morning we were told that our horses were down the
canyon a little way. We gathered them together and returned home. After I
talked to the Indians, the Chief, Curley Bull, shook hands with me and called
me “Topeke,” which means pointed I had talked to the point about the gospel.
Many years later these same
Indians were given seats of honor in the Tabernacle at a conference session.
Chief Curley Bull, then an old man, was among them. His grandson Frank, who
spoke English, was their spokesman. Being especially interested in the Indians,
I talked to them and told them some of my experiences in Cache Valley among the
Indians and was informed by two or three of them that some of their relatives
were killed in the Bear River Massacre (January 29, 1863). This Frank was only
a small boy when I spoke to them in their own language years ago, but he
remembered the incident and informed me that many of them were converted that
night around the campfire. Although a young and inexperienced man, I, with the
aid of my Heavenly Father, had planted the seed of righteousness in the hearts
of these Indians.
Chronicles
of Courage, Compiled by Lesson Committee (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah
Pioneers, 1991), 192-3.
40.
Brigham Young was the father-in-law to Kanosh. Kanosh married
Sally the adopted Paiute daughter of Brigham Young.
Paul
Pailla, “Kanosh.” Utah History Encyclopedia. Edited by Allan Kent Powell
(Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994), 297-98.
41.
Walker Lewis [an African-American man] was ordained an elder by
the Prophet Joseph Smith’s brother, William Smith in 1843 or 1844 in Lowell,
Massachusetts.
Connell
O’Donovan, “The Mormon Priesthood Ban and Elder Q. Walker Lewis,” John
Whitmer Historical Association Journal 26 (2006), 48 and
particularly pages 82-95.
42.
Frank Warner: His parents
are Sagawitch and Tan-tapai-cci of the Northwestern Shoshone. Frank's actual
name was Pisappih Timbimboo and was a two year old at the time of the Bear
River Massacre on January 29, 1863. His body was riddled with seven bullet
wounds but yet he survived. A few years later he was adopted by the Amos Warner
family and renamed Frank W. Warner. President John Taylor called him on a
mission in 1880 to work among his own people. He served a second mission in
1914-15 working among the Sioux and Assiniboine Indians at Fort Peck, Montana.
Scott
R. Christensen, Sagawitch: Shoshone Chieftain, Mormon Elder, 1822-1887 (Logan,
Utah: Utah State University Press, 1999; Frank W. Warner, “Missionary journal,
November 1914-January 1915.” Manuscript. LDS Church Archives, Salt Lake City.
43.
In 1848 a group of Saints
from Mississippi, 56 whites and 34 African-Americans entered Winter Quarters on
their way to the Salt Lake Valley.
Mormon
Historical Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1, Spring 2000, p. 44.
44.
On June 6, 1848, just west of Winter Quarters, where the Elkhorn
River flows into the Platte, the Heber C. Kimball Company engaged in a battle
with the attacking Omaha Indians. Four natives were killed and two of the
Saints badly wounded. After the engagement the natives found a Dr. Jesse
Brailey alone on the wrong side of the Elkhorn River. Immediately one of the
Indians raised and pointed his rifle at Dr. Brailey. All Jesse Brailey could do
was raise his umbrella as if in the act of returning fire. Luckily, it worked.
He was able to scare off the Omaha brave and buy enough time for himself to
join himself in the safety of the main body of the Saints.
Mormon
Historical Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1, Spring 2000, 44.
45.
Arapeen eventually baptized into the Church and donated all his
possessions plus the Ute tribal holdings totaling over $155,000 to the Church.
As much as the Church appreciated this act of faith the property was never
formally transferred.
Feramorz
Y. Fox, “The Consecration Movement of the Middle ‘fifties,’” Improvement
Era, February, 1944, No. 2.
46.
Most of the barley grain near the city was saved by immense flocks
of seagulls which came and devoured the crickets. This was considered a God
send and many escaped what might have been a severe famine. A fine of five
dollars was placed upon the head of anyone that killed a seagull. One thing
singular, the oldest mountaineers and trappers said that they never saw a
seagull until after the Mormons settled this country.
Journal
of Arocet Lucious Hale, Typescript, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young
University; htpp://www.boap.org/
47.
The first potatoes and turnips planted on the same day that the
saints entered the valley in 1847 was established at the present day
intersection of Third South and State Street in Salt Lake City. These were
planted immediately when Brigham Young entered the valley at 11:45 in the
morning. The plowing of the land actually was the day previous, July 23, 1847.
The
Church News, March 10, 1990; http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/pioneers_and_cowboys/index.html
48.
In consequence of the scanty harvest of 1848, bread stuff and
other provisions became very scarce. Many had to eat raw hides, dig segos and
thistle roots for months. I was one of that number. The last of June, just
before harvest, was the hardest time of 1849.
I will relate a little incident to
show to our children and the rising generation how their parents suffered in
the early days of 1847, 1848 and 1849. Lucas Hoagland moved my sister Rachel
Lavory Hale late in the fall of 1848. Our families then consisted of five in
number, Lucas and wife, my brother, Alma Helaman Hale, age ten, my brother
Solomon Elephlet Hale, age seven and myself. After Lucas married my sister
Rachel, of course I had more help to sustain the family. It fell to my lot to
attend to watering the wheat. We had two cows, luckily both giving milk. When I
went to the field to water the wheat and fight the crickets, I used to drive
one cow to the field with me at night, milk the cow, and strain the milk. As
soon as it was cool, I would stir in two or three spoonfuls of moldy corn meal,
set it over the campfire, make my porridge and go to bed. I did the same in the
morning. This was better with the blessing of the Lord on it than boiled
rawhide and thistle roots. For dinner, I would take my shovel and go out on the
bench land and dig segos which were plentiful, thank the Lord.
While I was tending the wheat,
Lucas was working around where he could get a little provisions for the family.
He used to go to the Provo River with fishing parties, catch fish, salt and dry
them. They were very good and considered a rarity.
I will relate a little incident to
show how hard it was to get bread stuff. My wheat was heading out and commenced
turning a little yellow. I thought I could glean a little out that would do to
thresh and grind in a hand mill, which many did. I saw several going to Neff's
Mill with small grists of corn that were rare in 1848. The thought struck me
that I might be able to trade for some. I had a fine little saddle horse that
Lucus Hoagland had told me to trade for bread stuff or edibles of any kind. I
saddled up, went to the mill, and saw several there begging or trying to (some
widows with families). I spoke to Neff and told him my situation. I offered him
the horse, saddle and bridle (a new California Macheir [?] saddle for three
pecks of corn meal, one peck to take home with me, one peck the next week, the
third peck, the third week. Now for the answer. Said he, "You great booby,
here trying to get three pecks of meal. There are women here begging for two
quarts to take home with them to feed their little children." This anger
hurt my feelings very badly. I thought of the situation I had left the family
in in the morning, without a spoonful of anything to eat of bread stuff kind.
Then I cried like a baby to be called a booby for trying to make an honest
trade with the miller.
I continued fighting crickets
until nearly night, when I heard a noise towards the mouth of Emigration
Canyon, a little north of me. I looked and to my surprise, I saw a train of
four- and six-horse wagons coming out of Emigration Canyon. This proved to be a
company of the gold emigration, the first that arrived in the valley. I sprung
to my horse and went across the bench into their camp. I was the first Mormon
boy in their camp. They appeared to be very much excited over gold and the mines
and asked many questions. What news from the gold Mines? Is there any more of
the battalion boys come in? What news do they bring? Have you seen any? Have
you got any gold? I had very little that Hoagland had given me to try and get a
little bread stuff with. I let them see what gold I had. They were all excited
in a minute and all had to see the gold dust. While they were looking at the
gold dust, an old gentleman touched me on the shoulder and beckoned me to one
side. Said he, "I have a span of young American colts, four years old.
They have been worked on lead, and have pulled themselves down very poor."
Said he, "I will give you that span of young horses, their harness and
lead bars for your pony, saddle and bridle." I told him that I would go
with him and see the horses. We went, and he showed me the horses. They were as
he reckoned them to me. I thought of the trade I had offered the Miller Neff a
few hours before. I thought of my sister and the little boys at home without
anything to eat but a little milk and segos for supper.
Said I, "Could you spare me a
few pounds of flour, a small piece of bacon, a quart of beans or any kind of
vegetables?" "Come to the wagon and I will see what I can find."
He got into the wagon, threw out a sack with eight or ten pounds of flour, ten
pounds of bacon and by that time the boys had gotten supper. They invited me
into the tent. There I ate the best supper that I ever ate, or relished the
best. I had not tasted nice white bread and fried bacon for months. I led my horse
to the city. When my sister Rachel saw tour and bacon, she wept for joy.
Gold emigration continued to come
and they were willing to trade their poor stock for those that were in better
condition. The gray horses that I got for the saddle pony brought me two yoke
of oxen and wagons and a nice suit of clothes. This reminds me of a prophecy of
President Heber C. Kimball two months before the gold emigration came into the
valley. He prophesied that clothing would be cheaper in Salt Lake City than it was
in New York City. We saw this prophecy come to pass. They were loaded too heavy
to continue their journey and all had something to sell or trade, horses,
harnesses or wagons, clothing, provisions, cooking utensils, stoves, tents,
guns and ammunitions. This was considered a God send.
Journal of Arocet Lucious Hale,
Typescript, HBLL; htpp://www.boap.org/
49.
Due to the remoteness of the Hawaiian Island, construction often
came to a standstill waiting on material. On one such occasion, Ralph Woolley,
the temple contractor, knelt in prayer and supplicated his Heavenly Father for
the needed material to continue construction on the Hawaii Temple. A few days
later a severe storm hit causing a freight ship to become lodge on the coral
reef. The captain of the ship, realizing his dilemma offered the load of lumber
in his ship if the Saints helped him to get it off. This blessing resulted in
the continuation of the temple construction.
Pope,
Hyrum C., About the Temple in Hawaii (Hawaii, 1919), 149-150.
50.
I [Jacob Hamblin] labored with the company of pioneers to prepare
the way for the Saints through Iowa, after which I had the privilege of
returning to Nauvoo for my family, which consisted of my wife and three
children I moved them out into Iowa, 200 miles, where I left them, and returned
100 miles to settlements, in order to obtain food and other necessaries.
I was taken sick, and sent for my
family to return to me. My wife and two children were taken sick the day after
their arrival. We found shelter in a miserable hut, some distance from water.
One day I made an effort to get some
water for my suffering family, but failed through weakness. Night came on and
my family were burning with fever and calling for water.
These very trying circumstances called
up some bitter feelings within me. It seemed as though in this, my terrible
extremity, the Lord permitted the devil to try me for just then a Methodist
class leader came along, and remarked that I was in a very bad situation. He
assured me that he had a comfortable house that I could move into, and that he
had plenty of everything, and would assist me if I would renounce “Mormonism.”
I refused and he passed on.
I afterwards knelt down and asked
the Lord to pity us in our miserable condition, and to soften the heart of
someone to administer to us in our affliction.
About an hour after this, a man by
the name of William Johnson came with a three gallon jug full of water, set it
down and said: “I came home this evening, weary, having been working with a
threshing machine during the day, but, when I lay down I could not sleep;
something told me that you were suffering for water. I took this jug, went over
to Custer’s well and got this for you. I feel now as thought I could go home
and sleep. I have plenty of chickens and other things at my house that are good
for sick people. When you need anything I will let you have it.” I knew this
was from the Lord in answer to my prayer.
The following day the quails came
out of the thickets, and were so easily caught that I picked up what I needed
without difficulty. I afterwards learned that the camps of the Saints had been
supplied with food in the same way.
James
A. Little, Jacob Hamblin in Three Mormon Classics, Preston Nibley, comp.
(Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1988), 215-216.
51.
Member John Horner tells
the success of his crop in the California gold fields:
He
arrived home safely in the fall and in time to take the place he had left in
the firm of J. M. Horner & Co., to sell our large crop now ready for
market. We continued our energetic and prosperous career buying more lands and
farming them ourselves, or letting them to tenants until our potato crop
reached the enormous quantity of twenty two million pounds in 1853. We had also
in that year fifteen hundred acres of wheat and barley, besides cabbages,
tomatoes and onions in quantities. California had not only supplied herself
with vegetables this (1853) year, for the first time, but she produced a large
surplus which could not be sold, and was never sent to market.
52.
This from a Chicago Times interview with David Whitmer:
“Three times
has he [David Whitmer] been at the Hill Cumorah and seen the casket that
contained the tablets and the seer-stone. Eventually the casket had been washed
down to the foot of the hill, but it was to be seen when he last visited the
historic place.”
Cook, Lyndon W. ed., David Whitmer Interviews: A Restoration
Witness (Orem, Utah: Grandin Book Company, 1993), 7.
53.
Brother [Martin] Harris then turned himself as though he had no
more to say and we made ready to go. He then spoke again and said, "I will
tell you a wonderful thing that happened after Joseph had found the plates:
three of us took a notion to take some tools and go to the hill and hunt for
some more boxes or gold or something, and indeed we found a stone box; we got
quite excited about it; and dug quite carefully around it. We were ready to
take it up, but behold, by some unseen power, it slipped back into the hill. We
stood there and looked at it. One of us took a crowbar and tried to drive it
through the lid to hold it; but it glanced and only broke one corner off of the
box."
Ole
A. Jensen, "Testimony of Martin Harris (One of the Witnesses of the Book
of Mormon)," pp. 1-6, BYU.
54.
“At this time, strong attempts are making to take the Twelve. It
seems as though earth and hell are made to see the work of the priesthood
proceeding so rapidly. The United States Marshall has been here for some time
searching and laying in wait for the Twelve and some others. He searched the
[Nauvoo] temple through but in vain. The brethren have had to disguise
themselves and conceal themselves to escape them. The charge is treason. You
may see the Twelve, etc. wherever they go with six shooter pistols in their
pockets, but thus far they have been preserved and are ministering in the
[Nauvoo] temple and teaching the way of life and salvation.”
Joseph
Fielding, Diary (1843-1846), Church Archives in "They Might Have Known
That He Was Not a Fallen Prophet"--The Nauvoo Journal of Joseph
Fielding," transcribed and edited by Andrew F. Ehat, BYU Studies 19
(Winter 1979).
55.
The
following took place in the Nauvoo Temple
December
11, 1845. Thursday: At 1 o’clock Elder Orson Pratt came up into the rooms while
we were attending to washing and anointing [Nauvoo]. He had just returned from
his mission to the east and brought with him $400 worth of six shooters.
An
Intimate Chronicle: The Journal of William Clayton, edited by George D. Smith
(Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995).
56.
Joseph [Smith] kept the Urim and Thummim constantly about his
person, by the use of which he could in a moment tell whether the plates were
in any danger.
Lucy
Mack Smith, History of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1979),
142.
57.
The public press indicated that two of the mummies that Joseph
Smith purchased in 1835 were the mummified bodies of Joseph and Abraham. It was
necessary for Joseph Smith to put that rumor down since neither Abraham nor
Joseph was left buried in Egypt.
Commercial
Bulletin and Missouri Literary Register, St. Louis, Missouri, October 12,
1835.
58.
The following story is in reference to the re-building of the
Nauvoo Temple:
Only a couple of photographs exist
of the original building; none gave a view of all sides of the temple. For the
architects, reconstruction was boosted by access to the original William Weeks
plans, which had been given to the Church in an unusual turn of events. Vern
Thacker, an LDS Missionary in the California Mission in 1946, came across the
William Weeks architectural plans:
“While we were tracting on the
outskirts of town one day, we both felt inspired to stop at a small home. A man
named Leslie M. Griffin invited us in and told us that he was a descendant of
William Weeks, the architect for the Nauvoo LDS Temple.” The missionaries
visited him several times to discuss the gospel, Nearing the end of his
mission, Elder Thacker made one last visit to Mr. Griffin who “excused himself
for a few minutes and went into the back part of his house. He soon returned
with a roll of what looked like poster paper about three feet long, ten inches
in diameter, and secured with a rubber band. He explained that these were the
original plans for the Nauvoo Temple and that they had been handed down in his
family from his grandfather, William Weeks. He opened the bundle and showed the
plans to us. The largest of the papers was a side view of the Temple exterior.
Rolled inside of this pieced were several other smaller drawings showing
various views of the Temple.” He asked Elder Thacker if on his way home he
would carry “these plans to the headquarters of the Church in Salt Lake.” The
plans were delivered to the Church Historian's Office 28 September 1948,
photographed and secured in “a steel-locked safe.”
Vern
C. Thacker, “The Nauvoo Temple Architect’s Drawings Lost and Found,” 20 January
2000;
Heidi
S. Swinton, Sacred Stone (American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications,
Inc., 2002), 144.
59.
In September of 1917, U.S. president Woodrow Wilson appoints James
H. Moyle, the first Latter-day Saint to serve in a subcabinet position in the
United States, as assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury.
Richard Neitzel Holzapfel et al., On This Day In The Church
(Salt Lake City: Eagle Gate, 2000), 183.
60.
The pioneer odometer was invented by two men who made the initial
trek to Utah in 1847 and was used by Brigham Young on one wagon to measure the
distance from the Missouri River to the Great Salt Lake Valley. The difference
between the measurements of this crude instrument and those made by government
surveyors who later passed over the same route with more sophisticated
instruments was only 60 feet!
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), 129.
61.
The following is in relation to the Egyptian scrolls that Joseph
Smith had purchased during the Kirtland years of the Church:
After the Prophet’s death they,
along with the mummies, were sold to non-Mormons and exhibited in various
places, including Wood’s Museum in Chicago. For years it was assumed that they
all were destroyed in the great Chicago fire of 1871, but in 1967 eleven
fragments were discovered in a New York museum and presented to the Church.
James
B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day Saints (Salt
Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1992), 77.
62.
In 1959 Virginia Ryder Watters, great-great-granddaughter of
Symonds Ryder, donated an original rough draft of the Articles and Covenants
[Sections 20 and 22 of the Doctrine and Covenants] to the Historical Department
via a Latter-day Saint high school student her husband knew. The document is
titled “A commandment from God unto Oliver how he should build up his Church
& the manner thereof.” It concludes “A true copy of the Articles of the
Church of Christ. O.C. [Oliver Cowdery]” (“Historical,” 287, 290).
Arnold
K. Garr, Donald Q. Cannon, and Richard O. Cowan, Encyclopedia of Latter-day
Saint History (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2000), 51-52.
63.
The most people attending a baptism could very well be Sunday 23
July 1837 when Elder Heber C. Kimball baptized nine individuals in the River
Ribble in Preston, England, but viewed by 8,000 curious bystanders.
V.
Ben Bloxham, James R. Moss, and Larry C. Porter, eds. Truth Will Prevail:
The Rise of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the British
Isles, 1837-1997 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
64.
In reference to the practice of re-baptism: It ended at October
conference in 1897 when George Q. Cannon preached that too many Saints saw this
as an easy way to repent.
James
B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day Saints, 2d ed.
(Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992), 430-431.
65.
George Reynolds was a member of the First Council of the Seventy
and secretary to five presidents of the Church. While being raised in England
he became friends with a member of the Church. At age nine he desired baptism
but because of his young age he had to have his parents’ consent which they
refused to give. George continued to attend church for a few years when he
became fearful that the Savior’s Second Coming would take place before he could
be baptized. Therefore, at the age of 14 (1856), he went to a branch where he
was unknown and was baptized the following Sunday.
Bruce
A. Van Orden, George Reynolds: Prisoner for Conscience’ Sake (Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book, 1992).
66.
The following is in reference to Gilbert Belnap being chased by
the mob from Carthage to Nauvoo after it was discovered that he was a spy for
the Prophet Joseph.
I
afterward sat in council with delegates from different parts of the country and
secured the resolutions passed by that assembly. I then returned in safety to
Nauvoo, but not without a close pursuit by those demons in human shape,
uttering the most awful imprecations, and bawling out to meet almost every jump
to stop or they would shoot. My greatest fear was that my horse would fall
under me. I thought of the instance of David Patton [Patten] administering to a
mule which he was riding when fleeing before a similar band of ruffians. I
placed my hands on either side of the animal and as fervently as I ever did, I
prayed to God that his strength might hold out in order that I might bear the
information which I had obtained to the Prophet. There were no signs of failure
in accomplishing this purpose until just opposite the tomb. My horse fell on
his side in the mud. This seemed to be a rebuke for me for urging him on to
such a tremendous speed. We were entirely out of danger and covered with mud by
reason of the fall. I rushed into the presence of the Prophet and gave him a
minute detail of all that had come under my observation during that short
mission. . . .
Autobiography
of Gilbert Belnap, Typescript, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University;
http://www.boap.org/
67.
As told by
early Church member Philo Dibble:
“I
will here observe that about the time of which I write, there were many signs
and wonders seen in the heavens above and in the earth beneath in the region of
Kirtland, both by Saints and strangers. A pillar of light was seen every
evening for more than a month hovering over the place where we did our
baptizing. One evening also, as Brother William Blakesley and I were returning
home from meeting, we observed that it was unusually light, even for moonlight;
but, on reflection, we found the moon was not to be seen that night. Although
it was cloudy, it was as light as noonday, and we could seemingly see a tree
farther that night than we could in the day time.”
“Early
Scenes in Church History,” Four Faith Promoting Classics, Philo Dibble
Autobiography (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1968), 74-96.
68.
“In Kirtland Temple, I [Zebedee Coltrin] have seen the power of
God as it was in the day of Pentecost! and cloven tongues as of fire have
rested on the brethren and they have spoken with other tongues as the spirit
gave them utterance. I saw the Lord high and lifted up and frequently throng
the solemn assemblies, the angels of God rested on the temple, and we heard
their voices singing heavenly music. At another time when consecrating some
oil, we saw visibly the finger of God enter the mouth of the bottle.”
Minutes
of High Priest Meeting, Spanish Fork, Utah, February 5, 1870.
69.
The following from the autobiography of Jesse Crosby while living
on his father’s farm in western New York:
“Many others followed the example, and a branch of the Church was
organized [1838]. The Holy Ghost was poured out insomuch that many were healed
of their infirmities, and prophesied, some saw visions, others spoke in
different languages by the gift and power of God as on the day of Pentecost.
The language or dialect of various tribes of the American Indians was spoken,
and that too by persons who had never spoken with an Indian in their lives. I
will own, that though I believed, I was astonished, but will add that I have
since traveled among various tribes of Indians in the central and uncultivated
parts of America and have recognized not only the language, but the gesture and
very manner in which it was spoken.
“One may inquire why it was that the spirit of God dictated these
individuals to speak in the language of these wandering outcasts. Oh! here is
the mystery that the world hath not seen. These are a remnant of Israel, the
descendants of Joseph, and heirs to the promises made to their fathers; see
Book of Mormon.”
Autobiography of Jesse W. Crosby, Typescript, Harold B. Lee
Library, Brigham Young University; http://www.boap.org/
70.
“I [John Corrill] attended several meetings, one of which was the
laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, which, I thought, would give
me a good opportunity to detect their hypocrisy. The meeting lasted all night,
and such a meeting I never attended before. They administered the sacrament,
and laid on hands, after which I heard them prophesy and speak in tongues unknown
to me. Persons in the room, who took no part with them, declared, from the
knowledge they had of the Indian languages, that the tongues spoken were
regular Indian dialects, which I was also informed, on inquiry, the persons who
spoke had never learned. I watched closely and examined carefully, every
movement of the meeting, and after exhausting all my powers to find the
deception, I was obliged to acknowledge, in my own mind that the meeting had
been inspired by some supernatural agency. The next day I returned home,
satisfied that the evil reports were not true, and spent about six weeks more
in the further investigation of the subject.”
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).
71.
The following is from Benjamin Brown who lived during the Nauvoo
years of the Church.
“The
oil arriving, we administered some to her internally, in the name of the Lord,
when she arouse without assistance. . . .”
Autobiography
of Benjamin Brown; htpp://www.boap.org/
72.
From the autobiography of
Levi Hancock: “Spring has come. I go to the West, I went through
Cleveland, Ohio holding meetings along the way. Went through Elina into
Brownhelm where we held meetings and baptized and confirmed seventy-one (71) at
one meeting from under my own hand. I felt so happy and blessed. We then
returned to Rome.”
Autobiography
of Levi Hancock, Typescript, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University;
http://www.boap.org/
73.
The following from the autobiography of Philo Dibble: When Joseph
came to Kirtland his fame spread far and wide. There was a woman [Elsa Johnson]
living in the town of Hiram, forty miles from Kirtland, who had a crooked arm,
which she had not been able to use for a long period. She persuaded her
husband, whose name was [John] Johnson, to take her to Kirtland to get her arm
healed.
I saw them as
they passed my house on their way. She went to Joseph and requested him to heal
her. Joseph asked her if she believed the Lord was able to make him an
instrument in healing her arm. She said she believed the Lord was able to heal
her arm.
Joseph put her
off till the next morning, when he met her at Brother [Newel K.] Whitney's
house. There were eight persons present, one a Methodist preacher [Ezra Booth],
and one a doctor. Joseph took her [Elsa Johnson] by the hand, prayed in silence
a moment, pronounced her arm whole, in the name of Jesus Christ, and turned and
left the room.
The preacher
asked her if her arm was whole, and she straightened it out and replied:
"It is as good as the other." The question was then asked if it would
remain whole. Joseph hearing this, answered and said: "It is as good as
the other, and as liable to accident as the other."
The doctor who
witnessed this miracle came to my house the next morning and related the
circumstance to me. He attempted to account for it by his false philosophy,
saying that Joseph took her by the hand, and seemed to be in prayer, and
pronounced her arm whole in the name of Jesus Christ, which excited her and
started perspiration, and that relaxed the cords of her arm.
“Early
Scenes in Church History, Four Faith Promoting Classics, Philo Dibble
Autobiography (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1968), 74-96.
74.
Even before missionaries first visited the Maori people of New
Zealand, their king (King Tawhiao), in 1879 prophesied that men from the true
church will come and visit them. He said, “They will not come to you and return
to European accommodations, but they will stay with you, talk with you, eat
with you, and abide with you.” Paora Potangaroa, a spiritual leader among the
Maori elaborated by explaining that these ministers of the true religion would
travel in pairs and always raise their right arm to the square while perform
holy ordinances. It’s interesting to note that the first missionaries to the
Maori’s began teaching in 1881 with the first branch being established in 1883.
Hunt,
Brian W. Zion in New Zealand, 1854-1977 (Temple View, New Zealand:
Church College of New Zealand, 1977), 9; Cowley, Matthew. “Maori Chief Predicts
Coming of L.D.S. Missionaries.” Improvement Era, September 1950, 696.
75.
From the journal of Arocet Lucious Hale: I will here relate a
prophecy of President Kimball upon my head. I was taken sick before my father,
with the ague and fever shook about two hours in the forenoon and a burning
fever in the afternoon. I was not able to take care of myself. Brother Kimball
came into the tent where I was laying on the bed. He said, "Aroet, where
are your cattle that your father moved into this camp with?" Father nor me
has seen an ox or cow for two weeks. Says he, "Aroet, if you will get up
tomorrow morning and go and hunt cattle enough to move your wagons out of this
camp, up to Winter Quarters, you never shall have another ague shake as long as
you live." I tried to make some excuse but no good. Some of the brethren
and sisters had gathered around the tent door, hearing them talk to me. Said
he, "Will you go?" I said, "I will try to go." Brother
Kimball spoke to Uncle James Allred [written above line: then administered to
me]. Said he, "Brother Allred, you have a horse, saddle and bridle here
tomorrow by eight o'clock. Brother Hale is going to get cattle enough to take
his wagons up to Winter Quarters, at my camp, a distance of twelve miles."
In the morning,
Brother Allred was there with the riding animals which were a little white
mules which belonged to some of the brethren that had come from Texas that
year. I started according to agreement. They watched me as far as they could
see me. Some of the women said that I would never return alive. Some found
fault with Brother Kimball to sending a boy as sick as I was alone to hunt
cattle. I rode to Mosquito Creek, five miles. I was nearly checked for water. I
corralled my mule to the creek and had a good drink of water, laid back on the
bank to rest me, and fell asleep. I did not wake up until after dark. I found
my mules a short distance below on the creek. I caught the mules and was
thinking what to do. I had not seen any camps as yet on the creek. While
thinking what course to pursue, I heard a dog bark up the creek. I crawled on
to the mule and started up the creek. I soon found a camp and told them who I
was and what I was after. The man was a little acquainted with father. They
took me in and took care of me and in the morning sent a boy with me. The third
day I found three oxen and one cow. I returned to camp. Some were surprised to
see me. Others were soon inquiring about Brother Kimball. Previously I told
them I had not had an ague shake once I left them. I then and there bore my
testimony that if there ever was a prophet of God on this earth, that President
Heber C. Kimball was one.
Journal of Arocet Lucious Hale, Typescript, HBLL;
htpp://www.boap.org/
76.
The Prophet Joseph predicted a curse on John C. Bennett. He told
him if he did not repent of his sins and sin no more, the curse of God Almighty
would rest upon him, that he would die a vagabond upon the face of the earth,
without friends to buy him. He told him that he stunk of women. In the year
1850, President Young was speaking about the matter. He said that he had
watched the life of John C. Bennett. Bennett went to California in the great
gold fever excitement, that Bennett died in one of the lowest slums of
California, that he was dragged out with his boots on, put into a cart, hauled
off, and dumped into a hole, a rotten mass of corruption. This prediction or
prophecy came to pass as well as many others that I heard the Prophet Joseph
make.
Journal
of Arocet Lucious Hale, Typescript, HBLL; htpp://www.boap.org/
77.
The following story is in reference to the revelation received by
President John Taylor on October 13, 1882 calling George Teasdale and Heber J.
Grant to the Apostleship.
An experience of Elder Heber J.
Grant a few months later gives some background to this revelation. Heber
reported that for the first few months of his apostleship he felt that he was
not qualified to be a special witness of the Savior. While traveling on the
Navajo reservation in northern Arizona in February 1883, helping establish the
Church among the Indians, Elder Grant told his companions he wanted some time
by himself and took a different route to their destination. He later recounted
what happened as he rode:
“I seemed to see, and I seemed to
hear, what to me is one of the most real things in all my life, I seemed to see
a Council in heaven. I seemed to hear the words that were spoken. . . . In this
Council the Savior was present, my father [Jedediah M. Grant] was there, and
the Prophet Joseph Smith was there. They discussed the question that a mistake
had been made in not filling those two vacancies and that in all probability it
would be another six months before the Quorum would be completed, and they
discussed as to whom they wanted to occupy those positions, and decided that
the way to remedy the mistake that had been made in not filling these vacancies
was to send a revelation. It was given to me that the Prophet Joseph Smith and
my father mentioned me and requested that I be called to that position. I sat
there and wept for joy. . . .
“. . . From that day I have never
bothered, night or day, with the idea that I was not worthy to stand as an
Apostle.”
B.H.
Roberts, Life of John Taylor (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1963), 349-351.
In
Conference Report, 4 Apr. 1941, pp. 4-5.
78.
Because of concerns that his first baptism, which took place in
the family bathtub, might not have been performed appropriately, Spencer W.
Kimball is baptized a second time, in the Union Canal in Thatcher, Arizona.
Richard
Neitzel Holzapfel et al., On This Day In The Church (Salt Lake City:
Eagle Gate, 2000), 194.
79.
Heber J. Grant is baptized in City Creek in Salt Lake City, the
second of four future Presidents of the Church to be baptized in the same
location.
Richard
Neitzel Holzapfel et al., On This Day In The Church (Salt Lake City:
Eagle Gate, 2000), 108.
80.
In April of 1919, Gordon B. Hinckley is baptized at eight years of
age, location unknown. Of the site he states: “It’s the only secret I have
left! It was done by proper authority in a proper place.”
Richard
Neitzel Holzapfel et al., On This Day In The Church (Salt Lake City:
Eagle Gate, 2000), 83.
81.
The following from Zebedee Coltrin:
In reference to
the School of the Prophet: The salutation as written in the Doctrine and
Covenants [D&C 88:136-141] was carried out at that time, and at every
meeting, and the washing of feet was attended to, the sacrament was also
administered at times when Joseph appointed, after the ancient order; that is,
warm bread to break easy was provided and broken into pieces as large as my
fist and each person had a glass of wine and sat and ate the bread and drank
the wine; and Joseph said that was the way that Jesus and his disciples partook
of the bread and wine. And this was the order of the church anciently and until
the church went into darkness. Every time we were called together to attend to
any business, we came together in the morning about sunrise, fasting and
partook of the sacrament each time, and before going to school we washed
ourselves and put on clean linen.
Minutes, Salt Lake City School of the Prophets, October 3, 1883.
82.
The following from the autobiography of Cordelia Morley Cox
While I am on earth and able to write with the pen in my own hand,
I will give to my children and my children's children, a testimony that I know
that God lives and will bless all those who wish to do his will. I was baptized
when eight years old. I always tried to bear a good name and follow the
teachings of my parents and those whose right it was to rule over me. In the
spring of forty-four [1844], plural marriage was introduced to me by my parents
from Joseph Smith, asking their consent and a request to me to be his wife.
Imagine if you can my feelings, to be a plural wife, something I never thought
I ever could. I knew nothing of such religion and could not accept it. Neither
did I.
In June 1844,
Joseph Smith was martyred and it was a time of mourning for all. After Joseph
Smith's death, I was visited by some of his most intimate friends who knew his
request and explained to me this religion, counseling me to accept his wishes
for he now was gone and could do no more for himself. I accepted Joseph Smith's
desire and in 1846, January 27, was married to your father in the Nauvoo
Temple. While still kneeling upon the altar, my hand clasped in his, now his
wife, he gave his consent and I was sealed to Joseph Smith for eternity. I
lived with your father and loved him. I was satisfied with the course I had
taken. I had three little girls with him. I took comfort [they were] born under
the new and everlasting covenant. I had not doubted. I thought if one principle
taught by Joseph Smith was true, all he taught must be true. I was sincere in
my belief and had never doubted the truth of what I had accepted. Still, I had
no testimony for myself of the truth of such a principle and became acquainted
with the trials and hardships of such a life but was satisfied and contented in
the course I had taken. I had three little girls born under the new and
everlasting covenant. I loved them and took good care of them.
The Latter-day
Saints were preparing to leave and come to Utah. We lived in a settlement where
as the Mormons moved away, the Gentiles would buy the improvements until our
family was left quite alone with the outside world. Then they began to
persecute us. Your father was taken into a Gentile court and tried for breaking
laws of the land by living with more than one wife. I had a true companion; her
husband was mine also. We were driven from our home in the dead of winter. They
told us our religion was false and we had been deceived. I had no one to go to
for knowledge or for comfort. I began to worry and to wonder if I had in these
ears been so deceived. I longed for a testimony from my Father in Heaven, to
know for myself whether I was right or wrong. I was called a fallen woman. The
finger of scorn was pointed at me. I felt that it was more than I could endure
and in the humility of my soul, I prayed that I might have a testimony from him
who knows the hearts of all. One night I dreamed. I thought I was in the midst
of a multitude of people. President Young arose and spoke to the people. He
then said there would be a spirit go around to whisper comfort in the ear of
everyone. All was silent as death as I sat. Then the spirit came to me and
whispered in my ear these words, "Don't ever change your condition or wish
it otherwise," for I was better off than thousands and thousands of
others. This brought peace to my mind and I have felt satisfied ever since. The
Lord has been my guide; in Him I put my trust. I am thankful that I have been
true to the covenants I have made with my Father in Heaven. I am thankful for
my children that have been given to me. I pray that God will accept us all, and
blessed to come forth through a glorious resurrection and receive a crown of
eternal life in His kingdom.
Cordelia Cox
Autobiography (1823-1909),Holograph, HBLL
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CORDELIA MORLEY COX
83.
Savalla Bishop Melville, daughter of William Henry Bishop wrote
the following:
Grandfather
followed his trade of smithing, was delegated by the Church to do work for the
Indians for tithing.
84.
March 15, 1887: Attended Theological class. Restoration was spoken
upon. Bishop gave us to understand that no more tithing would be received. The
name must be changed to donations. Wondered if the changing of the name would
affect many.
Excerpts
from the Journal of Douglas M. Todd, Sr.
The
next entry from Brother Todd’s Journal may explain why his bishop wanted to
change the name of tithing to donations:
January
29, 1888: Pres. Smoot and counselor spoke to us today. Bro. S. said that no
more than 25% of the tithing was paid. We will eventually rule the nations if
but 12 men remain true.
Excerpts
from the Journal of Douglas M. Todd, Sr.
85.
Green Flake was one of three African/Americans to enter the Salt
Lake Valley with the first group of Saints in 1847. He might also be the first
human being to be used as a means of paying tithing. Green Flakes owners joined
the Church during the winter of 1843-1844 in North Carolina. At the time of the
Flakes coming into the Church they gave all their slaves freedom if they so
desired. Green Flake chose to stay with them. After Brother Flake passed away,
his wife chose to leave the Salt Lake Valley and move to California. Before
leaving she settled her tithing, using Green Flake as partial payment.
Benefitting from his services for a short time, Brigham Young soon gave him his
freedom.
Van
Wagoner, Richard S. And Steven C. Walker, A Book of Mormons (Salt Lake
City: Signature Books, 1982).
86.
Christina Ericka Forsgren converted to the Gospel in a remarkable
manner. Born in Gefle, Sweden, she had been trained in the faith of the
Lutheran Church from infancy. As she grew to womanhood, however, she
became dissatisfied with this church and prayed the Lord would show her the
true path of salvation. One Sabbath Day in church, she had an open vision
in which it was made known to her that the Lutheran, or State church, was a
man-made church without divine authority, and that God did not acknowledge it.
In the same vision she was shown that on a certain day a man would come
to her with three books and that all who believed and accepted the things
written in those books would be saved.
In fulfillment of this vision on the fifth day of July, 1850, Elder John
Eric Forsgren, a long lost brother visited her as a missionary of the Mormon
Church and preached the gospel to her, making her acquainted with the three
books—the Bible, the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants!
Among other visions, she
saw in her native land of Gefle, Sweden, a vision of her future husband, and
that she would enter into the sacred principle of plural marriage. This
had its fulfillment when she met Bishop Davis in the year 1853, for she
recognized in him at once, the man shown to her in vision as her husband.
The
following history of WILLIAM DAVIS was taken from a manuscript on file in the
Brigham City, UT, city library.
87.
The following is related by Harrison Burgess
On the third Sabbath
in May while speaking to a congregation I declared that I knew that the Book of
Mormon and the work of God were true. The next day while laboring in the field
something seemed to whisper to me, “Do you know the book [Book] of Mormon is
true?” My mind became perplexed and darkened, and I was so tormented in spirit
that I left my work and retired into the woods. The misery and distress that I
there experienced cannot be described. The tempter all the while seemed to say,
“Do you know that the Book of Mormon is true?”
I remained in this
situation about two hours. Finally I resolved to know, by exercising faith
similar to that which the Brother of Jared possessed, whether I had proclaimed
the truth or not, and commenced praying to the God of Heaven for a testimony of
these things. Suddenly a glorious personage clothed in white stood before me
and exhibited to my view the plates from which the Book of Mormon was taken.
Harrison
Burgess, “Labor in the Vineyard,” Twelfth Book of the Faith Promoting
Series, p. 65-6.
88.
The following vision is recorded by Harrison Burgess.
The Lord blessed His
people abundantly in that Temple [i.e. the Kirtland Temple] with the Spirit of prophecy,
the ministering of angels, visions, etc. I will here relate a vision which was
shown to me. It was near the close of the endowments. I was in a meeting for
instruction in the upper part of the Temple, with about a hundred of the High
Priests, Seventies and Elders. The Saints felt to shout “Hosannah!” and the
Spirit of God rested upon me in mighty power and I behold the room lighted up
with a peculiar light such as I had never seen before. It was soft and clear
and the room looked to me as though it had neither roof nor floor to the
building and I beheld the Prophet Joseph and Hyrum Smith and Roger Orton
enveloped in the light: Joseph exclaimed aloud, “behold the Savior, the Son of
God.” Hyrum said, “I behold the angels of heaven.” Brother Orton exclaimed, “I
behold the chariots of Israel.”
All who were in the
room felt the power of God to that degree that many prophesied, and the power
of God was made manifest, the remembrance of which will remain with me while I
live upon the earth.
Harrison
Burgess, “Labors in the Vineyard,” Twelfth Book of the Faith Promoting
Series, p. 67.
89.
The following from Brigham Young: We look around today
and behold our city clothed with verdure and beautified with trees and flowers,
with streams of water running in almost every direction, and the question is
frequently asked: “How did you ever find this place?” I answered; we were led
to it by the inspiration of God. After the death of Joseph Smith, when it
seemed as if every trouble and calamity had come upon the Saints, Brigham
Young, who was President of the Twelve, then the presiding Quorum of the
Church, sought the Lord to know what they should do, and where they should lead
the people for safety, and while they were fasting and praying daily on this
subject, President Young had a vision of Joseph Smith, who showed him the
mountain that we now call Ensign Peak, immediately north of Salt Lake City, and
there was an ensign fell upon that peak, and Joseph Said, “Build under the
point where the colors fall and you will prosper and have peace.” The pioneers
had no pilot or guide, none among them had never been in the country or knew
anything about it. However, they travelled under the direction of President
Young until they reached this valley. When they entered it President Young
pointed to that peak, and, said he, “I want to go there.” He went up to the
point and said, “This is Ensign Peak. Now, brethren, organize your exploring
parties, so as to be safe from Indians; go and explore where you will, and you
will come back every time and say this is the best place.” They accordingly
started out exploring companies and visited what we now call Cache, Malad,
Tooele, and Utah valleys, and other parts of the country in various directions,
but all came back and declared this was the best spot.
Journal
of Discourses, 26 vols. (Liverpool: Latter-day Saint’s Book Depot, 1854-86),
13:85-6.
90.
The following is an experience as recorded by Philo Dibble turning
the tumultuous Missouri years.
On my return
home, when I got to Liberty, midway between Lexington and Far West, I concluded
I would travel from there home by night, as it was very warm during the day.
The road led through a strip of timber for four miles, and after that across a
prairie for twenty miles.
When I had traveled about two-thirds of the way across the
prairie, riding on horseback, I heard the cooing of the prairie hens. I looked
northward and saw, apparently with my natural vision, a beautiful city, the
streets of which ran north and south. I also knew there were streets running
east and west, but could not trace them with my eye for the buildings. The
walks on each side of the streets were as white as marble, and the trees on the
outer side of the marble walks had the appearance of locust trees in autumn.
This city was in view for about one hour-and-a-half, as near as I could judge,
as I traveled along. When I began to descend towards the Crooked River the
timber through which I passed hid the city from my view. Every block in this
mighty city had sixteen spires, four on each corner, each block being built in
the form of a hollow square, within which I seemed to know that the gardens of
the inhabitants were situated. The corner buildings on which the spires rested
were larger and higher than the others, and the several blocks were uniformly
alike. The beauty and grandeur of the scene I cannot describe. While viewing
the city the buildings appeared to be transparent. I could not discern the
inmates, but I appeared to understand that they could discern whatever passed outside.
Whether this was a city that has been or is to be I cannot tell.
It extended as far north as Adam-ondi-Ahman, a distance of about twenty-eight
miles. Whatever is revealed to us by the Holy Ghost will never be forgotten.
“Early Scenes in Church History, Four Faith Promoting Classics,
Philo Dibble Autobiography, (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1968), 74-96.
91.
The following is an incident that William Clayton’s wife
experienced:
16 July 1845, Wednesday: Evening I
went to see Diantha. We walked out some together. She seemed to feel very bad
about something which passed during her visit this afternoon. When we returned
to her home I saw that her mind was affected and she was likely to have another
fit of mental derangement. I tried to persuade her to go to bed but she was
unwilling, but I finally got her mother to make her a bed down stairs and we
put her to bed by force. Soon as she got laid down she began to toss about and
rave as if in great pain which seemed to increase until she was perfectly out
of her mind and raging. She tore her hair and I then held her which required
all the force I had got to hold her hands. She continued about three quarters
of an hour in this distressing situation and about half past 10 Sister Farr
went and called Brother Farr. He came down and laid hands on her and rebuked
the evil spirit and commanded it to leave her in the name of the Lord. She
immediately calmed down and seemed to fall into a mild asleep. Soon after she
commenced talking or rather answering questions. She seemed to be in the world
of spirits on a visit, and about the first she conversed with was Brother
Joseph (Smith) and the conversation seemed to be on the subject of the massacre.
She then appeared to go and visit a number of her dead relatives who invariably
enquired about their relatives on the earth. The answers she gave were
literally facts as they exist. She then enquired for William Smith's wife
Caroline. She was soon taken to her and entered into conversation. Caroline
asked about William, how he acted, how he felt towards the Twelve, what was his
course, how her two girls were and whether he had got married. To all these
interrogatories she answered in the nicest manner, avoiding carefully anything
which would wound Caroline’s feelings. She then enquired for Sister Richards
and soon met with her. It seemed by her answers that Sister Richards asked how
the Doctor felt when she left him, how his children were, and whether Lucy lived
with him, all which she answered correctly. She then visited Wm. Snows first
wife and conversed about Wm. and his daughter and father. She then appeared to
go back to Brother Joseph and Hyrum Smith and father Smith. Joseph asked about
Emma and the children and how the Twelve and Emma felt towards each other and
all which she answered wisely but truly. He also asked about Lydia and gave her
some instructions for Lydia. He asked about me and told her I was a good man.
When she parted with her friends she always bid the “good-bye” but when she
parted with Joseph she said, “I am not in the habit of kissing men but I want
to kiss you” which she appeared to do and then said “farewell.” She then
seemed to start back for home. She appeared all the time in a hurry to get
back. She said she would like to tarry but she could not leave father and
mother and another, but she would soon return and bring them with her and then
she would tarry with them. She conversed about two hours in this manner and
seemed overjoyed all the time. A pleasant smile sat on her countenance which
continued after she awoke. It was one of the most interesting and sweet
interviews I ever witnessed, and a very good spirit seemed to prevail all the
time. I left about 1 o'clock apparently much composed and comparatively free
from pain.
92.
President of the Manti Temple, Anthon H. Lund, relates the
following story:
“I remember one day in the temple
at Manti, a brother from Mount Pleasant rode down to the temple to take part in
the work, and as he passed the cemetery in Ephraim, he looked ahead (it was
early in the morning), and there was a large multitude all dressed in white,
and he wondered how that could be. Why should there be so many up here; it was
too early for a funeral, he thought; but he drove up and several of them
stepped out in front of him and they talked to him. They said, ‘Are you going
to the temple?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, these that you see here are your relatives and
they want you to do work for them.’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but I am going down today
to finish my work. I have no more names and I do not know the names of those
who you say are related to me.’ ‘But when you go down to the temple today you
will find there a record that give our names.’ He was surprised. He looked
until they all disappeared, and drove on. As he came into the temple, Recorder
Farnsworth came up to him and said, ‘I have just received records from England
and they all belong to you.’ And there were hundreds of names that had just
arrived, and what was told him by these persons that he saw was fulfilled. You
can imagine what joy came to his heart, and what testimony it was to him that
the Lord wants this work done.
Lundwall,
N.B., comp. Temples to the Most High (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1966),
116.
93.
From the life of Chapman Duncan: Born in the state of
New Hampshire, Grafton Co. town of Bath July 1st, 1812. Being decided that I
was in consumptive state of health, I designed to travel by the way of
Louisville, Kentucky, and New Orleans to Demerara, South America, left home
September 1832 to recover my health. I took passage at Louisville for New
Orleans on the steamboat Warrior. The day before she left the ward, while
laying in my state room, the following sentence was spoken to me in an audible
voice. I was not asleep. "If you proceed your journey you contemplate, you
will surely die, but if you will go to the western border of the state Missouri
by the border of the Lamanites you shall live there and you shall find my
Church ." I looked around to see who spoke to me. An audible voice
answered, "The Holy Ghost." The confirmation which I experienced of
the fact that it was the Holy Ghost, I cannot here describe, only that it was I
felt a perfect assurance of the spirit of God which affected my whole system. I
had not fear or doubt of the heavenly message.
94.
The story of Drusilla Hendricks is typical of the Quincy
experience. Her husband, James, had been shot in the neck in the Battle of
Crooked River and had to be carried about on a stretcher. The family arrived in
Quincy on 1 April and secured a room “partly underground and partly on top of
the ground.” Within two weeks they were on the verge of starving, having only
one spoonful of sugar and a saucerful of corn meal to eat. Drusilla made mush
out of it. Thinking they would eventually starve, she washed everything,
cleaned their little room thoroughly, and waited for the worst. That afternoon
Rubin Allred came by and told her he had had a feeling they were out of food,
so on his way into town he had a sack of grain ground into meal for them. Two
weeks later they were again without food. Drusilla remembered, “I felt awful,
but the same voice that gave me comfort before was there to comfort me again
and it said, hold on, the Lord will provide for his Saints.” This time
Alexander Williams arrived at the back door with two bushels of meal on his
shoulder. He told her he had been extremely busy but the Spirit had whispered
to him that “Brother Hendricks’ family is suffering, so I dropped everything
and came by.”
Drusilla
Doris Hendricks, “Historical Sketch of James Hendricks and Drusilla Dorris
Hendricks,” typescript, LDS Historical Department, Salt Lake City, 22-23.
95.
From the life of Lucy Mack Smith: “I had for a long time braced
every nerve, roused every energy of my soul and called upon God to strengthen
me,” said Mother Smith, “but when I entered the room and saw my murdered sons
extended both at once before my eyes and heard the sobs and groans of my family
and the cries of ‘Father! Husbands! Brothers!’ from the lips of their wives,
children, brothers, and sisters, it was too much; I sank back, crying to the
Lord in the agony of my soul. ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken this
family!’” In reply Mother Smith heard a voice say to her, “I have taken them to
myself, that they might have rest.”
Lucy
Mack Smith, History of Joseph Smith by His Mother. Ed. Preston Nibley
(Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1956), 324.
96.
The following from the life of Jacob Hamblin:
In February, 1842, a neighbor
called at my house and told me that he had heard a “Mormon” Elder preach. He
asserted that he preached more Bible doctrine than any other man he had ever
listened to, and that he knew what he preached was true. He claimed that the
gospel had been restored to the earth, and that it was the privilege of all who
heard it to know and understand it for themselves.
What this neighbor told me so
influenced my mind, that I could scarcely attend to my ordinary business.
The Elder had left an appointment
to preach again at the same place, and I went to hear him. When I entered the
house he had already commenced his discourse. I shall never forget the feeling
that came over me when I saw his face and heard his voice. He preached that
which I had long been seeking for; I felt that it was indeed the gospel.
The principles he taught appeared
so plain and natural, that I thought it would be easy to convince any one of
their truth. In closing his remarks, the Elder bore testimony to the truth of
the gospel.
The query came to my mind: How
shall I know whether or not these things are so, and be satisfied? As if the
Spirit prompted him to answer my inquiry, he again arose to his feet and said:
“If there is anyone in the congregation who wishes to know how he can satisfy
himself of the truth of these things, I can assure him that if he will be
baptized, and have hands laid upon him for the gift of the Holy Ghost, he shall
have an assurance of their truth.”
This so fired up my mind, that I
at once determined to be baptized, and that too, if necessary, at the sacrifice
of the friendship of my kindred and of every earthly tie.
I immediately went home and
informed my wife of my intentions.
She told me that if I was baptized
into the “Mormon” Church, I need not expect her to live with me anymore.
The evening after the Elder had
preached I went in search of him, and found him quite late at night. I told him
my purpose, and requested him to give me a “Mormon Bible.” He handed me the Old
and New Testaments.
I said, “I thought you had a new
Bible. He then explained about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, and
handed me a copy of it.
The impressions I received at the
time cannot be forgotten. The spirit rested upon me and bore testimony of its
truth, and I felt like opening my mouth and declaring it to be a revelation
from God.
On the 3rd of March, 1842, as soon
as it was light in the morning, I started for a pool of water where had
arranged to meet with the Elder, to attend to the ordinance of Baptism. On the
way, the thought of the sacrifice I was making of wife, of father, mother,
brothers, sister and numerous other connections, caused my resolution to waver.
As my pace slackened, some person
appeared to come from above, who, I thought, was my grandfather. He seemed to
say to me, “Go on, my son; your heart cannot conceive, neither has it entered
into your mind to imagine the blessings that are in store for you, if you go on
and continue in this work.”
I lagged no more, but hurried to
the pool, where I was baptized by Elder Lyman Stoddard.
It was said in my confirmation,
that the spirits in prison greatly rejoiced over what I had done. I told Elder
Stoddard my experience on my way to the water.
He then explained to me the work
there was for me to do for my fathers, if I was faithful, all of which I
believed and greatly rejoiced in.
On my way home, I called at the
house of one of my neighbors. The family asked me if I had not been baptized by
the “Mormon” Elder. I replied that I had. They stated that they believed what
he preached to be the truth, and hoped they might have the opportunity of being
baptized.
The following day Elder Stoddard
came to my house, and told me that he had intended to leave the country, but
could not go without coming to see me. For what purpose he had come, he knew
not.
I related to him what my neighbors
had said. He held more meetings in the place, and organized a branch before
leaving.
When my father learned that I had
joined the “Mormons,” he said he thought he had brought up his children so that
none of them would ever be deceived by priestcraft; at the same time he turned
from my gate, and refused to enter my house.
Other relatives said that my
father knew better than to be deceived as I had been. I answered them by
predicting that, much as he knew, I would baptize him into the Church before I
was two years older.
All my relatives, except one
brother, turned against me, and seemed to take pleasure in speaking all manner
of evil against me. I felt that I was hated by all my former acquaintances.
This was a great mystery to me.
I prayed to the Lord and was
comforted. I knew that I had found the valuable treasure spoken of by our
Savior, and I was willing to sacrifice all things for it.
My wife’s father took great pains
to abuse and insult me with his tongue. Without having any conception how my
prediction would be fulfilled, I said to him one day, “You will not have the
privilege of abusing me much more.” A few days after he was taken sick, and
died.
Soon after the death of her
father, my wife asked me, good-naturedly, why I did not pray in the house or
with her. I replied that I felt better to pray by myself than I did before
unbelievers. She said that she was a believer; that her father had appeared to
her in a dream and told her not to oppose me anymore as she had done; and that
he was in trouble on account of the way he had used me. Soon after this she was
baptized, which was a great comfort to me.
In the autumn of 1842, Elder
Stoddard returned to the country where I lived, to labor in the ministry, and
ordained me an Elder.
About the same time my wife was
taken very sick. By her request, I administered to her, and she was immediately
healed. I visited my father and told him that signs followed the believer, as
in the days of the apostles; that I was a believer, and had been ordained an
Elder in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and that the signs
followed my ministrations.
He ordered me out of his house for
believing such nonsense. I went out, reflecting as to whether or not I had done
wrong in predicting that I would baptize him in less than two years.
Sometime after this he was taken
sick, and I went to see him. My mother told me he had the spotted fever, and
that there was no hope of his recovery. She believed he was dying, and so it
appeared to me; but I thought that God could and would save him if I prayed for
him.
I retired to a private place, and
prayed to the God of Abraham to have mercy on my father and heal him, that he
might have an opportunity of obeying the gospel, and said:
It was a moonlight night, and when
I returned to the house my mother stood at the door. She spoke to me very
kindly, and said:
“Jacob, the fever has left your
father; he has spoken and wants to see you.”
As I approached him he said, “The
fever has left me, and your mother says that you came to me and went away
again. What has made such a sudden change? Do you know?”
I answered that I had prayed for
him, that I was a believer in the gospel of the Son of God, and in the signs
following those that believe.
“Well,” said he, “if it is the
gospel, I would like to know it; but if it is priestcraft, I want nothing to do
with it.”
Soon after the sickness of my
father, I sold my home, gathered up my effects and started for Nauvoo, Hancock
Co., Illinois.
In passing my father’s house I
found him quite well, and he desired me to remain overnight. He showed much
interest in the principles of the gospel, and, when I left his house in the
morning, the Spirit manifested to me that my father and his household would yet
accept the truth. . . .
. . . .The following winter I
assisted in guarding the Saints in and around the city of Nauvoo. My brother
Obed lived about thirty miles out in the country. He was taken sick, and sent
for me to come and see him.
On arriving at his house, I found
that he had been sick nearly three months, and that doubts were entertained of
his recovery. I anointed him with holy oil in the name of the Lord Jesus, laid
on hands, and prayed for him, and told him that he should recover, which he did
immediately.
This occurrence had much influence
on my parents. They both attended the following April conference. At its close,
my father asked me if I did not wish to baptize him and my mother. As they were
both desirous that I should do so, I baptized them in the Mississippi river, on
April 11th, 1845.
My father told me that it was not
any man’s preaching that had convinced him of the truth of the gospel, but the
Lord had shown it to him in night visions. Said he, “It is your privilege to
baptize your parents, for you have prayed for them in secret and in public; you
never gave them up; you will be a Joseph to your father’s house.”
Three
Mormon Classics, Jacob Hamblin, James A. Little comp., (Salt Lake
City: Bookcraft, 1988), 203-211, 214.
97.
From the journal of Wilford Woodruff: While returning to
Utah in 1850, with a large company of Saints from Boston and the east, on my
arrival at Pittsburg, I engaged a passage for myself and company on a steamer
to St. Louis. But no sooner had I engaged the passage than the Spirit said to
me, “Go not on board of that steamer, neither you nor your company.”
I obeyed the revelation to me, and
I did not go on board, but took another steamer.
The first steamer started at dark,
with two hundred passengers on board. When five miles down the Ohio River it
took fire and burned the tiller ropes, so that the vessel could not reach the
shore, and the lives of nearly all on board were lost either by fire or water.
We arrived in safety at our destination, by obeying the revelation of the
Spirit of God to us.
Leaves
From My Journal, Preston Nibley, comp. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1988), 102-103.
98.
The following story is from Jacob Hamblin’s mission to
Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland:
The way appeared to be opening up
for a good work to be done in that country, when, about the 4th of July, news reached me
that the Prophet, about whom I had preached so much, had been shot by a mob
when confined in jail. I did not believe the report until I offered to preach
to those who were gathered around me in the small town of Mechanicsburg. They
manifested a spirit of exultation, and a feeling of deep gloom passed over me.
I felt more like weeping than preaching.
I concluded to hunt up my companion,
from whom I was then separated. For this purpose I started for Hagerstown,
where I hoped to find him, or learn of his whereabouts.
I had traveled about a mile when I
came to a cross road, and the Spirit whispered to me, “Stop here, and Brother
Myers will soon be along.” I remained on the spot about ten minutes, when I saw
him coming, with his hat in one hand and his valise in the other. He did not
believe that the Prophet was killed.
We journeyed together to
Lightersburg. After meeting and passing many people, the Spirit indicated to us
that a man on the opposite side of the street was an Elder in Israel. It proved
to be a Latter-day Saint Elder, who had reliable information of the murder of
the Prophet Joseph and the Patriarch Hyrum Smith. He also informed us that the
Elders who were abroad were all called home.
James
A. Little, Jacob Hamblin in Three Mormon Classics, Preston Nibley, comp.
(Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1988), 210.
99.
From the life of Jacob Hamblin: I settled, with my
father and brothers, in Tooele Valley, thirty-five miles west of Salt Lake
City. The people built their houses in the form of a fort, to protect
themselves from the Indians, who frequently stole their horses and cattle. Men
were sent against them from Salt Lake City, but all to no purpose. The Indians
would watch them during the day, and steal from them at night.
This kind of warfare was carried
on for about three years, during which time there was no safety for our horses
or cattle. We had a military company, of which I was first lieutenant. I went
with the captain on several expeditions against the thieves, but without
accomplishing much good. They would watch our movements in the canyons, and
continually annoy us.
At one time, I took my wife three
miles up a canyon, to gather wild fruit while I got down timber from the
mountain. We had intended to remain over night, but while preparing a place to
sleep, a feeling came over me that the Indians were watching with the intention
of killing us during the night.
I at once yoked my oxen, put my
wife and her babe on the wagon, and went home in the evening. My wife expressed
surprise at my movements, and I told her that the Indians were watching us. She
wished to know how I knew this, and asked if I had seen or heard them. I
replied that I knew it on the same principle that I knew that the gospel was
true.
The following day I returned to
the canyon. Three Indians had come down on the road during the night, and
robbed a wagon of a gun, ammunition and other valuables. One of them, from the
size of the track, must have been an Indian known as “Old Big Foot.” I thanked
the Lord that He had warned me in time to save my wife and child, as well as
myself.
I’ll now fast forward to
a year later. . .
Afterwards, when trying to make
peace with these Indians, “Big Foot” told me, that himself and party had laid
their plans to kill me and my wife and child, the summer before when in Pine
Canyon, had we remained there over night.
James
A. Little, Jacob Hamblin in Three Mormon Classics, Preston Nibley, comp.
(Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1988), 220-221, 224.
100.
The following from Mosiah Hancock: When we got to Cash
Cave we met father and Brother David Pettigrew going back to the bluff for us.
So father returned with us to the valley. While we were going down East Canyon
Creek mother's foot got caught in between the box and wagon tongue and broke
the toe at the upper joint; but the skin was not broken. So father anointed her
foot there and administered to her and it was healed quite soon.
101.
The following is a blessing that Dwight Harding, a bodyguard to
the Prophet Joseph Smith received:
Dwight took seriously ill and his
life was despaired of, but Phebe [his wife] prayed that his life might be
spared, and sent for the elders. In the blessing, they asked the Lord to be
mindful of Dwight, and he was promised that he would recover and take his
family to the Salt Lake Valley to be among the Saints. He was also promised
that he would live another twenty years. He lived twenty years and a few days
after that blessing.
Kathryn
H. Burrell, “Pioneers of Faith, Courage, and Endurance.” Chronicles of
Courage: Daughters of Utah Pioneers (Salt Lake City: Utah Printing Company,
1991), 2:80.
102.
Most Latter-day Saints are aware of the early church practice of
adoptions to general authorities. Many converts did not always have parents
that were receptive to the church and since it is important that individuals
are sealed into a family unit this then was the catalyst to perform the adoption.
What may not be quite so familiar is the reasoning why this practice was ended.
Gradually
the practice of adoption gave way to the more natural principle of being sealed
to one’s own family—for several reasons. It was seldom convenient for Church leaders
to be in attendance, as required, for temple adoptions. Furthermore, some
leaders fell away from the Church, leaving confusion and dismay in the minds of
their adopted families. More important, the emerging understanding of the
doctrine that “all who have died without a knowledge of this gospel, who would
have received it if they had been permitted to tarry, shall be heirs of the
celestial kingdom” (D&C 137:7) gave renewed hope for all ancestors,
regardless of their faith and condition in this life.
Arnold
K. Garr, Donald Q. Cannon, and Richard O. Cowan, Encyclopedia of Latter-day
Saint History (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2000), 10.
103.
Sarah Delight Stocking Woodruff, fifth wife of Wilford Woodruff,
shares this experience shortly after the Stocking family left Nauvoo on route
to Winter Quarters:
During the journey Sarah’s mother
became ill with cholera and died. Wrapped in a sheet and covered with a thick
bark from a nearby tree, her body was placed in the earth and covered with dirt
and rock. The cholera epidemic was increasing, and the sick were not
recovering. Sarah was very ill, and pleaded with her father to baptize her in
the river, explaining that she knew if he would do so she would be made well,
but if he did not, she would die. Her father decided to do so as she asked,
although he was fearful her death might be hastened as a result of the baptism.
He carried the child in a chair to the riverbank. News spread through the camp,
and many of the company gathered to witness the ceremony. Some remonstrated
with him, but he explained Sarah’s faith was strong, and he must comply with
her wishes. She was taken in his arms into the water where he baptized her
three times. After the third immersion she was healed and walked from the water
unaided.
Daughters
of Utah Pioneers, Chronicles of Courage (Salt Lake City: Utah Printing
Company, 1991), 2:143.
104.
In this dispensation the first public mention of baptism for the
dead was, according to the Prophet Joseph Smith’s own declaration, made during
the Prophet’s sermon at the funeral of Seymour Brunson on 15 August 1840. (It
seems apparent that he had been contemplating the subject for a time.) After
the funeral service, a widow named Jane Neyman, too whom the Prophet had
referred in his sermon, was baptized vicariously for her deceased son in the
Mississippi River—the first occasion of the performance of the ordinance in
modern times. In early days proxies were baptized for individuals regardless of
gender (JD, 5:85), but now females stand as proxies only for females,
and males only for males.
Arnold K. Garr, Donald Q.
Cannon, and Richard O. Cowan, Encyclopedia of Latter-day Saint History (Salt
Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2000), 76.
105.
The Salt Lake Temple is the first temple to be graced with an angel
identified as Moroni. Cyrus Dallin was solicited by President Woodruff to
design a statue that could be placed on the 210-foot central east spire of the
temple. What is interesting in this situation is that Cyrus was not a member of
the Church and at first refused the offer saying he “didn’t believe in angels.”
Undaunted, President Woodruff told Cyrus before he finalized his decision that
he consult with his L.D.S mother. Dallin’s mother was able to convince him to
do the work by stating, “Why do you say that? [not believe in angels] You call
me your ‘angel mother.’ ” She encouraged him to study LDS scripture for
inspiration. This study led to the formation of a neoclassical angel in robe
and cap, standing upright with a trumpet in hand. The original 40-inch plaster
model was completed by 4 October 1891 and exhibited at the Salt Lake Fair. A
full-size model (12 feet 5 inches) was sent to Salem, Ohio, where the statue
was hammered out of copper and covered with 22-karat gold leaf.
J.
Michael Hunter, “I Saw Another Angel Fly.” Ensign, Jan. 2000, 30.
106.
Emma and her new husband, Lewis Bidamon profited handsomely from
tours of Nauvoo. Nevertheless, once the temple burned in 1848 the couple’s
salary was drastically cut to what Lewis describes as, “one-fourth the custom
(this refers to business) it previously had.” It’s also interesting to note
that at the time of the Nauvoo Temple fire that Lewis worked hard at trying to
put it out, but to no avail.
Berrett,
William E. and Alma P. Burton, Readings in L.D.S. Church History 3 vols.
(Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1955), 2:87.
107.
The shaft stone for the Joseph Smith Memorial in Sharon, Vermont
is 38 ½ feet long and was cut from a sixty ton block. To move the shaft stone
the six miles from the railhead to the site took twenty days.
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, 1993), 476.
108.
As the Saints willingly sacrificed time and money to build the
temple [Logan Temple], God’s power was witnessed in the preservation of many
lives, including that of nineteen-year-old Brother James, who, in the words of
Nolan P. Olsen, “had loaded up about two tons of lumber and headed down stream
toward the temple. . . . All went well for a short distance, until the wagon
wheel hit a soft spot. The river bank caved in, dropping the two wheels and
throwing Brother James on the bottom of the stream, with his big load upside
down on top of him. It took the workmen nearly a half hour to break the binding
and to roll the wagon and lumber from the river. Brother James had been under
water for this full length of time. They laid his body on the bank, covered it
with a blanket and told one of the boys to get on a horse and come to Logan to
tell the parents what had happened to their son.
“Before the horse
could be bridled, the blanket began to move and Brother James was up on his
feet. Evidently his wind had been knocked out as his load went over, and he had
not breathed for thirty minutes, and had no water in his lungs. The ice cold
water had slowed his body processes, and he had no brain or bodily damage of
any kind. He was none the worse for the experience, and reloaded his wagon and
brought it on down to the temple.”
Chad
S. Hawkins, The First 100 Temples (Salt Lake City: Eagle Gate, 2001),
10; Nolan P. Olsen, Logan Temple: The First 100 Years (Logan, Utah:
Watkins and Sons, 1978), 73.
109.
Just as the Lord protected the workers as they built the temple
[Logan], he protected the completed temple from the desecration and abuse of
those who would harm the structure or enter in unworthily. One such example of
divine intervention took place at the dedication of the temple in May 1884. As
President John Taylor watched the large numbers of people enter the temple, he
suddenly turned to President Charles O. Card and said that a certain woman
coming through the doorway was not worthy to enter the temple. It was
discovered that this woman was not a member, and she was asked to leave. She
had purchased the recommend from a member for a dollar. President Taylor had
never seen this woman before, but the Spirit had whispered that of all the
people in attendance, she was not worthy to be there.
Olsen,
Nolan P., Logan Temple: The First 100 Years (Logan, Utah: Watkins and
Sons, 1978), 152-153.
110.
President Heber C. Kimball prophesied the following in 1854 when
referring to the Manti Temple: “The rock will be quarried from that hill to
build it with and some of the stone from that quarry will be taken to help
complete the Salt Lake Temple.” This was literally fulfilled as the decorative
tablets on both the west and east ends of the Salt Lake Temple are constructed
of rock quarried from the Manti Temple quarry.
“Spiritual
Manifestations in the Manti Temple.” Millennial Star, 13 August 1888,
521.
111.
The Salt Lake Temple foundation was originally constructed of red
sandstone. It was this foundation that was found to be cracked when uncovered
after the Utah War. Due to the fact that the Saints had to rip the old
foundation out and replace with the much stronger granite, the walls of the
temple did not actually hit ground level until 1867, a good fourteen years after
the corner stone had been laid.
Hawkins,
Chad S., The First 100 Temples (Salt Lake City: Eagle Gate, 2001), 16.
112.
In 1850 the Salt Lake Musical and Dramatic Association was formed
in Salt Lake City for the purpose of promoting drama and encouraging music. The
association included the old Nauvoo Brass Band and the members of the dramatic
club. In 1850 there was located on Temple Square the Bowery, where the people
met for worship on the Sabbath Day. The place was a general meetinghouse for
civic gatherings as well as for religious meetings, and it also became the
first theater. Here, in the early part of the year, “Robert Macaire” was played
to crowded houses, and upon one occasion a number of Ute Indians witnessed the
play.
Chronicles
of Courage, Daughters of Utah Pioneers (Salt Lake City; Utah Printing Company,
1990) 1:176.
113.
The following from Joseph Fielding: 1846, January 4. Since the
death of Joseph and Hyrum, the building of the [Nauvoo] temple has gone on
rapidly and contrary to the expectation and prophecy of Sidney Rigdon and
others. The roof has been put on, the spire put up and beautifully ornamented.
The temple is indeed a noble structure, and I suppose the architects of our day
know not of what order to call it, Gothic, Doric, Corinthian or what. I call it
heavenly.
Joseph
Fielding, Diary (1843-1846), Church Archives in "They Might Have Known
That He Was Not a Fallen Prophet"--The Nauvoo Journal of Joseph
Fielding," transcribed and edited by Andrew F. Ehat, BYU Studies 19
(Winter 1979).
114.
At a conference in Kirtland the following was resolved, that the
recorder of licenses and patriarchal blessings receive, for each one hundred
words, ten cents.
Joseph
Smith Jr., History of the Church (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company,
1950), 2:528.
115.
Heber C. Kimball records the following in his journal:
I had retired
to bed, when John P. Greene. . . . who was living within a hundred steps of my
house, came and waked me up, calling upon me to come out and behold the scenery
in the heavens. I woke up and called my wife and Sister Fanny Young . . . who
was living with us, and we went out-of-doors.
It was one of
the most beautiful starlight nights, so clear that we could see to pick up a
pin. We looked to the eastern horizon, and beheld a white smoke arise toward
the heavens; as it ascended, it formed itself into a belt, and made a noise
like the sound of the mighty wind, and continued southwest, forming a regular
bow dipping in the western horizon. After the bow had formed, it began to
widden out and grow clear and transparent, . . . . it grew wide enough to
contain twelve men abreast.
In this bow an
army moved, commencing from the east and marching to the west; they continued
marching until they reached the western horizon. They moved in platoons, and
walked so close that the rear ranks trod in the steps of their file leaders,
until the whole bow was literally crowded with soldiers. We could distinctly
see the muskets, bayonets and knapsacks of the men, who wore caps and feathers
like those used by the American soldiers in the last war with Britain; and also
saw their officers with their swords and equipage, and the clashing and
jingling of their implements of war, and could discover the forms and features
of the men. The most profound order existed through out the entire army; when
the foremost man stepped every man stepped at the same time; I could hear the steps.
When the front rank reached the western horizon a battle ensued, as we could
distinctly hear the report of arms and the rush.
No man could
judge of my feelings when I beheld that army of men, as plenty as ever I saw
armies of men in the flesh; it seemed as though every hair of my head was
alive.
This scenery we gazed upon for hours, until it began to disappear.
After I became
acquainted with Mormonism, I learned that this took place the same evening that
Joseph Smith received the records of the Book of Mormon from the angel Moroni
who has held those records in this possession. My wife, being frightened at
what she saw said, “Father Young, what does all this mean?” “Why it’s one of
the signs of the coming of the Son to Man,” he replied, in a lively, pleased
manner.
Orson F. Whitney, The Life of Heber C. Kimball (Salt Lake
City: Bookcraft, 1945), 15-17.
116.
After his trial of the attempted assassination of Missouri’s
ex-governor Lilburn W. Boggs, Porter Rockwell was found not guilty by the jury,
nevertheless, the same jury found him guilty of jailbreak. The judge sentenced
him to 5 minutes in jail.
The
Church News, November 10, 1962.
117.
In reference to the Salt Lake Theater: The theater was managed by
Hyrum B. Clawson and John T. Caine, and during their years of management there
appeared some of the noted actors of England and America. The local members of
the dramatic association played without remuneration, but those who were
brought from the eastern states were given good compensation, for it was a long
journey over the Plains from the Missouri River by stagecoach to Utah. Among
these were Thomas S. Lyne, Sir George Pauncefort, John McCullough, Julia Dean
Hayne, Annie Adams, and Sarah Alexander. In 1867, C. W. Couldock came with his
daughter from Rawlins, Wyoming, by stagecoach.
Chronicles of Courage, Daughters of Utah Pioneers
(Salt Lake City; Utah Printing Company, 1990) 1:180.
118.
Between 1816 and 1845 the
cost for sending a single sheet letter less than thirty miles was six cents;
not over 80 miles, ten cents; not over 150 miles, 12 ½ cents; and not over 400
miles, 18 ¾ cents. Greater distances cost 25 cents. Letters of two or more
sheets required additional postage in proportion. If a letter weighed more than
an ounce, the postage quadrupled. For many, postal communication was a luxury.
Prior to 1847 when postage stamps were authorized, the collection of postage
from the addressee had led to may abuses, including the payment by the
addressee of letters containing offensive and insulting messages.
Arthur
E. Summerfield, U.S. Mail: The Story of the United States Postal Service (New
York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960), 45-46; Clyde Kelly, United States
Postal Policy (New York and London: D. Appleton and Co., 1932), 57-58.
119.
The Pony Express was organized in 1859-60 making huge improvements
time wise on the speed of the mail, but not cost. The Express drivers were
expected to do three laps between stations (usually twenty-four miles apart) at
an average of 8 miles an hour. At this rate, a letter from New York to San
Francisco could arrive in 13 days. In fact George A. Smith wrote in April of
1861:
“The Pony Express proved to be
quite an institution. The news of the surrender of Fort Sumter reached here
(Salt Lake City) in seven days.”
Letter
to John L. Smith, Brigham Young, History of Brigham Young. Ms. 1858.
(1844-1877) Church Historian’s Library, Salt Lake City., 165.
120.
What was the cost per ounce for a letter on the Pony Express
System?
Five
dollars! Ouch! So, if you feel the need to complain, don’t.
Berrett,
William Edwin, The Restored Church (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book
Company, 1973), 310.
121.
In 1841, a threat of war between the United States and England
caused the majority of the brethren to be called home to Nauvoo.
Berrett, William Edwin, The
Restored Church (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1973), 153.
122.
When the Word of Wisdom [D&C 89] was first presented by the
Prophet Joseph (as he came out of the translating room) and was read to the
School, there were twenty out of the twenty-one who used tobacco and they all
immediately threw their tobacco and pipes into the fire.
REMARKS
OF ZEBEDEE COLTRIN on KIRTLAND, OHIO HISTORY OF THE CHURCH
Source:
Minutes, Salt Lake City School of the Prophets, October 3, 1883.
123.
The next spring most of the
Elders were called to volunteer to go and redeem Jackson County. Albert Miner
told Mr. Dennis Lake he would draw cuts, to see who would go and who would stay
and take care of both families. It fell on Albert Miner to stay and take care
of the families. Dennis Lake went with the company to redeem Jackson County and
when he got back he apostatized and sued Joseph Smith for three months work,
$60.00.
Autobiography
of Tamma Durfee, Typescript, HBLL; htpp://www.boap.org/
124.
During the years 1829-1845 the Aaronic Priesthood was composed
primarily of adults with the exception of a few outstanding youth. Their
primary duty was to visit members in their homes. Their quorums were stake
quorums. This situation resulted primarily to the fact that the endowment
ceremony was not in place yet and therefore fewer men were called to the
Melchizedek Priesthood.
From the years 1846-1877 more men now held the
Melchizedek Priesthood since one had to be an elder to have their endowment,
but men were also called to serve in an acting position in the Aaronic
Priesthood. During this time period very few young men held the Aaronic
Priesthood.
In 1877 the First Presidency
instructed that every worthy young man receive priesthood ordination. Soon boys
from ages 11 to 18 received the priesthood; most became deacons and stayed such
until becoming elders. Few boys blessed or passed the sacrament or did what is
now called home teaching.
In 1908 the First Presidency
restructured the Aaronic Priesthood to be a priesthood for boys. They approved
that worthy boys be ordained at set ages and advance through each office: deacons
at age 12, teachers at 15, priests at 18, and elders at 21. . .
In 1928 the ages of 12, 15, and 18
were changed to 12, 15, 17, respectively, with the elders’ age set at 20. That
age was reduced to 18 in October 1934, but by December it was raised to 19. In
1954 the teachers’ age became 14, and the priest’s age was changed to 16, so
the ages became 12, 14, and 16, and elders were ordained at age 20 (now 18).
Arnold
K. Garr, Donald Q. Cannon, and Richard O. Cowan, Encyclopedia of Latter-day
Saint History (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2000), 1-2.
125.
The total weight of gold leaf required to cover a seven-foot
statue of the angel Moroni is 1.5 ounces.
Chad
S. Hawkins, The First 100 Temples (Salt Lake City: Eagle Gate, 2001),
274.
126.
The Beehive Class, a program developed for young women ages 12 to
13, was organized in 1913 to replace the Junior Class in the Young Lady’s
Mutual Improvement Association. Established guidelines required the “Young
ladies” to accomplish goals to “sleep outside or with wide open window; refrain
from candy, chewing gum, sundaes, and sodas for at least two months; and, know
the proper use of hot and cold baths.”
Arnold
K. Garr, Donald Q. Cannon, and Richard O. Cowan, Encyclopedia of Latter-day
Saint History (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2000), 80.
127.
The Prophet Joseph Smith started up the School of the Prophets in
Kirtland, Ohio, which was the first organized school for adult education in
America. This school was to instruct the brethren in the gospel and academics.
The school was put on hold when the Saints left Nauvoo. More than twenty years
later, Brigham Young reorganized the School of the Prophets in 1867. Again,
academics and spiritual classes were stressed in addition to activities such as
raising funds for the Perpetual Emigrating Fund, instituting a mercantile
boycott of merchants who opposed the Church, establishing the Provo Woolen
Mills, reducing wages for Utah workers to make the prices of Utah manufactured
goods more competitive with goods that would now be shipped from the east, and
finally promoting the construction of the railroad from Salt Lake City to
Ogden.
Leonard J. Arrington, Great
Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press), 245-251.
128.
In 1850, the University of the State of Deseret (the forerunner to
the University of Utah) was commonly known as the Parents School and was held
in the parlor of John Packs home. Dr. Collins taught and tuition was eight
dollars per quarter. Since money was scarce, food could be used to pay for
school.
Spencer,
Clarissa Young and Mable Harmer, Brigham Young at Home (Salt Lake City:
Deseret Book, 1947), 132.
129.
From the life of Caroline
Frances Angell Davis Holbrook: I was very sick with chills and
fever. I was immediately healed after being baptized and confirmed. I was
thirteen years old in October before I taught school the next following summer.
I had about 25 pupils. I learned them what was taught in common schools, the
girls to knit and sew. This was in Missouri.
130.
As a youth, Brigham
Young attended only eleven days of formal schooling. He later said:
Brother Heber and I never went to
school until we got into Mormonism. That was the first of our schooling. We
never had the opportunity of letters in our youth, but we had the privilege of
picking up brush, chopping down trees, rolling logs and working amongst the
roots, and of getting our shins, feet and toes bruised. I learned how to make
bread, wash the dishes, milk the cows and make butter; and can beat most of the
women in this community at housekeeping. Those are about all the advantages I
gained in my youth. I know how to economize, for my father had to do it.
Journal
of Discourses, 26 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1974), 5:97.
131.
Susa Young Gates, daughter
of Brigham Young, was attending the University of Deseret (the fore runner to
the University of Utah) at the ripe old age of thirteen.
Carolyn
w. D. Person, “Susa Young Gates,” in Bushman, ed., Mormon Sisters, 201-223;
Rebecca Foster Cornwall, “Susa Y. Gates,” Burgess-Olsen ed., Sister Saints, 63-93.
132.
The first Thanksgiving
Dinner of the Saints in the Salt Lake Valley was on August 10, 1848 to
celebrate a bounteous harvest. Interestingly, a second Thanksgiving Dinner was
celebrated just days prior to the October General Conference the same year.
This celebration was for the safe return of the Mormon Battalion.
The Church News, November 24, 1948
133.
February 9, 1919: The U.S.
Congress awards Private Thomas C. Neibur the Medal of Honor, making him the
first Latter-day Saint and the first private in the U.S. Army to receive the
award.
Richard
Neitzel Holzapfel et al., On This Day In The Church (Salt Lake City:
Eagle Gate, 2000), 30.
A
little more information to the story:
In
May of 1898, Thomas C. Neibaur, later a World War I army private awarded the
U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor for defending fellow soldiers from attack and
taking eleven enemy soldiers as prisoners, all after being wounded in battle,
is born in Sharon Idaho.
Richard
Neitzel Holzapfel et al., On This Day In The Church (Salt Lake City:
Eagle Gate, 2000), 98.
134.
In Kirtland, Joseph Smith
develops the first Egyptian grammar book in America. This was never published
and most likely used only by the Prophet Joseph Smith.
Berrett, William Edwin, The
Restored Church (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1973), 99.
135.
Samuel Brannan was an energetic Elder for the Church in the New
York City area. He is the individual who chartered the ship “Brooklyn” to
transport 238 Saints to California. He became California’s first millionaire,
although lost his fortune through unwise business investments and lived the
last few years of his life in poverty. This wealth was obtained through fraud.
Pretending to be Brigham Young’s representative in California, he stole the
Church’s tithing for a period of time before he was caught.
Berrett,
William Edwin, The Restored Church (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book
Company, 1973), 231; Van Wagoner, Richard S. and Steven C. Walker, A Book of
Mormons (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1982), 22.
136.
The first mercantile store in the Salt Lake Valley was established
in the home of John and Julia Pack in the year 1850. It was in a room across
from the parlor where the first University classes were in session (forerunner
to the University of Utah).
Spencer,
Clarissa Young and Mable Harmer, Brigham Young at Home (Salt Lake City:
Deseret Book, 1947), 132.
137.
It’s interesting to note that the first Territorial Prison Warden
in Utah was actually a prisoner first. Daniel Garn was imprisoned in Richmond
Missouri during the dark Missouri years of the church. His crime? Being a
Mormon.
The
Church News, August 19, 1967
138.
In 1917, Clint Larsen set a world record high jump of 6 feet 3
inches. This is the first time a Latter-day Saint has set a world record.
Skousen,
Paul B., The Skousen Book of Mormon World Records (Springville, Utah:
Cedar Fort Inc., 2004), 376.
139.
The first running world record set by a Latter-day Saint was Creed
Haymond in 1919 during the 220-yard dash. His time was 21.0 seconds. This time
stood until Jesse Owen broke the record at the 1936 Olympics.
The
Church News, June 19, 1999.
140.
The first attempt at illustrating the Book of Mormon was in 1888,
with the publication of The Story of the Book of Mormon by George
Reynolds.
Noel
A. Carmack, “A Picturesque and Dramatic History,” BYU Studies, Vol. 47,
no. 2 (2008), 115.
141.
The first scene painted
about the Book of Mormon:
George
M. Ottinger painted the Baptism of Limhi, which was a scene depicting
Alma the elder baptizing at the Waters of Mormon. He painted this picture in
1872 and measures a very huge seven and a half feet by five feet.
Noel
A. Carmack, “A Picturesque and Dramatic History,” BYU Studies, Vol. 47,
no. 2 (2008), 115.
142.
The Mormon Battalion of
1846 is not the first time that the government has asked the Mormons to supply
men in a cause. In October of 1837, Edward Partridge wrote a letter to his
brother stating that the government required 1000 natives and approximately 150
to 200 white men to help put down the Seminoles in Florida. Only a few of the
Saints responded to this call from the government.
Jennings, Warren A., “What
Crime Have I Been Guilty of?” BYU Studies, Summer, 1978, p. 521-522.
John P. Greene comments on the above situation (the Government
asking for troops in October of 1837) and states that many volunteers came
forward. He says:
“And here we
wish particularly to call attention to the fact, that the Mormons in Caldwell
were the regular state militia for that county, and were at this time acting
under the legal authorities of the county. To prove that they were distinctly
regarded by the executive as the state militia, we relate the fact, that,
sometime in September last, Gen. Parks being ordered to collect a body of
troops out of his brigade, which should be ready to march to the frontier in
case of aggression from Indians, called for a company of 60 men from Caldwell
County; whereupon, 300 volunteers, (all Mormons,) presented themselves, from
whom he selected his company of minute-men.”
“Facts Relative to the Expulsion
of the Mormons or Latter-day Saints, From the State of Missouri, Under the
Exterminating Order,’” John P. Greene (Cincinnati: R. P. Brooks, 1839).
143.
It is doubtful if Joseph
Smith, after the expulsion from Missouri, seriously expected to be reinstated
in that land at that time or even to receive compensation for the losses
incurred. That hope had not died out, however, among the Saints. Sidney Rigdon
even proposed a scheme to oust Missouri from the Union of States and worked up
considerable feeling over it.
Berrett,
William Edwin, The Restored Church (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book
Company, 1973), 164.
144.
President Taft broke the record of visits to Utah by a U.S.
President (six times), having the Church president visit the White House
(Joseph F. Smith was the first to do so since Joseph Smith called on Van
Buren); involving the Tabernacle Choir as a tool of goodwill (they had their
first performance in the White House); and utilizing prominent Mormon
politicians to build the Church’s reputation with the President (Reed Smoot and
J. Reuben Clark).
Michael
K. Winder, Presidents and Prophets (American Fork, Utah: Covenant
Communications, Inc., 2007), 211.
145.
James A. Garfield is sworn into office and becomes the only
President to utter the phrase “Mormon Church” in an inaugural address.
Michael
K. Winder, Presidents and Prophets (American Fork, Utah: Covenant
Communications, Inc., 2007), 143.
146.
Having just suffered a major stroke, Woodrow Wilson becomes the
only President blessed by name in a temple dedicatory prayer. In Hawaii,
President Heber J. Grant prays, “We pray Thee to bless Woodrow Wilson, the
president of these United States. Touch him with the healing power of Thy Holy
Spirit and make him whole. We pray that his life maybe precious in Thy sight,
and may the inspiration that comes from Thee ever abide with him.”
N.B.
Lundwall, Temples of the Most High (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1962),
148.
147.
Teddy Roosevelt visits Utah
and becomes the first U.S. President to speak in the Tabernacle.
Michael
K. Winder, Presidents and Prophets (American Fork, Utah: Covenant
Communications, Inc., 2007), 184.
148.
When Stephen A. Douglas
spoke out against the Church in speeches from 1857 to 1860, Lincoln responded
by pointing out the inconsistency between Douglas’s idea of popular sovereignty
and his denunciation of the Mormons as “alien enemies and outlaws.” Lincoln
also saw Douglas’s advocating the repeal of Utah’s territorial status as a way
of trying to destroy Mormonism.
Hubbard, George U. “Abraham Lincoln As
seen by the Mormons.” Utah Historical
Quarterly 31 (Spring 1963), 91-108.
149.
The first General
Conference held on a river boat occurred in April of 1833. This meeting was
held on the Big Blue River in Jackson County, Missouri.
Skousen,
Paul B., The Skousen Book of Mormon World Records (Springville, Utah:
Cedar Fort Inc., 2004), 271.
150. During
the April 1844 General Conference of the Church, Joseph Smith was officially
nominated for President of the United States.
Skousen,
Paul B., The Skousen Book of Mormon World Records (Springville, Utah:
Cedar Fort Inc., 2004), 272.
151. During
the 19th century, Home Teachers
were referred to as teachers, acting teachers, or block teachers. In 1908 they
became ward teachers and it wasn’t until the 1960’s that they became Home
teachers. What’s interesting is that teachers, priest, or Melchizedek
Priesthood holders were called with the assistance of the deacons.
Rex
A. Anderson, “A Documentary History of the Lord’s Way of Watching over the
Church by the Priesthood through the Ages.” Master’s thesis, Brigham Young
University, 1974; Gary L. Phelps, “Home Teaching—Attempts by the Latter-day
Saints to Establish an Effective Program during the Nineteenth Century.”
Master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1975.
152.
“I heard Joseph once talk and preach for five hours to a
congregation, and no one was tired.” (This was in Kirtland before they built
the first Temple.)
Autobiography
of Tamma Durfee, Typescript, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University;
http://www.boap.org/
153.
Utah’s non-Mormons in fact were partly responsible for reviving
the ward’s appetite for meetings. The problem came not so much from the
unsavory Gentile, but from “those of Educated and refined manners [who] are
able to exercise great influence. These, with the children of “apostates and
traitors.”
To defuse this new
Gentile threat, church leaders turned to the Thirteenth Ward. Brigham Young,
George A. Smith, Daniel H. Wells, George Q. Cannon, and other prominent
churchmen met with ward officers on 30 March 1867 and resolved to form a Sunday
school. During the organizational spate of the 1850s, several congregations had
begun short-lived Sabbath schools, and the middle 1860s brought several more.
But Woolley’s (Bishop Woolley) proposed school was the first since the city’s
bishops had agreed, in a major policy decision, to counter the denominational
academies with LDS Sabbath schools. Woolley had moved with untypical
dispatch-probably at the nudging of his priesthood leaders, who hoped to make
the Thirteenth Ward’s school an example for other wards to follow.
The project began
impressively. On 7 April 1867 leading churchmen George A. Smith and George Q.
Cannon called a “large assembly of children” to order and named A. Milton
Musser as superintendent. Also present was Bishop Woolley, most ward officers,
and even Mormondom’s “first lady” Eliza R. Snow, who penned for the occasion a
poem, “In Our Lovely Deseret.” The succeeding weeks were as notable. The school
soon acquired a library of 150 books and, more importantly, the services of
such leading LDS intellectuals as William S. Godbe, William H. Shearman, E.L.T.
Harrison, and Eli Kelsey. In addition, Mormon general authorities Ezra T.
Benson, Orson Hyde, George A. Smith, and President Brigham Young himself
periodically taught the “scholars.” Such talent quickly attracted an average
attendance of over two hundred youth and produced a model that other wards
copied. Before a year had expired, President Young was acknowledging the
happy results arising from our Sabbath schools.”
Minutes
of the Bishops’ Meetings, 30 November 1865 and 7 March 1867, Presiding
Bishopric Papers. Thomas Edgar Lyon, “Evangelical Protestant Missionary
Activities in Mormon Dominated Areas,” (PH.D. diss., University of Utah, 1962);
Thirteenth Ward General Minutes, 30 March 1867; “Minutes of the Thirteenth Ward
Sunday School Jubilee,” Thirteenth Ward Teachers’ Report Meetings, 1891-1907,
17 December 1899, LDS Archives; Earlier Schools: Seventeenth Ward bishop’s
Record, January 1854, p. 51, LDS Archives; Arrington, From Quaker to
Latter-day Saint: Bishop Edwin D. Woolley (Salt Lake City, Deseret Book
Company, 1976), 459; Minutes of the Bishops’ Meetings, 8 March 1866 and
7 March 1867. Sabbath School Decision: ibid., 7 March 1867; New Views of
Mormon History, Edited by Davis Bitton and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher (Salt
Lake City, University of Utah Press, 1987), 149-50.
154.
At first, without didactic teaching materials, some wards taught
academic subjects during Sunday school such as astronomy.
New
Views on Mormon History, Edited by Davis Bitton and Maureen Usenbach Beecher
(Salt Lake City, University of Utah Press, 1987), 150.
155. This story is from the mission of Jacob Hamblin
after he received word to return home to Nauvoo subsequent to the death of
Joseph and Hyrum.
“After,
starting I began to reflect on my situation. I must travel on the river
steamers from Pittsburg to Nauvoo, via Cincinnati and St. Louis, and I had only
two dollars in my pocket. I had been often surprised, when traveling on foot at
the pains people would take to invite me to ride or to step into a grocery and
take a lunch, and I had considerable faith that the Lord would soften the heart
of someone to assist me, when I was in need.
“When I arrived
in Pittsburg, I had one dollar left. There were two steamers at the landing
about to start for St. Louis. They offered to take passengers very cheap. I
told the captain of one of them, that I would give all the money I had for a
passage to St. Louis. He took my money and gave me a ticket, but appeared
rather cross.
“I was soon on
my way down the river, but still a long way from home, and without money or
anything to eat. I began to feel the want of food.
“Nothing
special occurred with me until evening, when the lamps were lit in the
passenger’s cabin. I was then asked by a young married lady, if I was not a
‘Mormon’ Elder. I replied that I was; and she told me that her little child was
dying with the scarlet fever, and she wished me to lay hands on it and heal it.
“I replied that
I could administer to it, and I presumed that the Lord would heal it. I asked
her if she believed in such things. She said that she did, and that she
belonged to the Church, but her husband did not. I was puzzled in my mind to
know what to do, for the boat was crowded with passengers, and all unbelievers
excepting the mother of the sick child and myself. It seemed like a special
providence that, just then the lamp in the cabin should fall from its hangings,
and leave us all in the dark.
“Before
another lamp could be lit, I had administered to the child, and rebuked the
fever in the name of the Lord Jesus, unobserved by those around. The Lord
blessed the administration, and the child was healed.
“The mother
called her husband, and said to him, ‘Little Mary is healed; now do not say
anything against ‘Mormonism.’ The man looked at his child, and said to me, ‘I
am not a believer in any kind of religion, but I am on my way to Iowa, opposite
to Nauvoo, where I presume you are going. You are welcome to board with me all
the way, and if you want any money I will let you have it.’”
James A. Little, Jacob Hamblin in Three Mormon Classics, Preston
Nibley, comp. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1988), 211-212.
156. Willard Bean, a former boxer from Utah, and
Rebecca, his bride of less than a year, were sent in 1915 to take care of the
farm (Joseph Smith Sr. farm) after the former owner moved. They were challenged
to preach the gospel and make friends for the Church in that area. They became
the first Latter-day Saints to live in Manchester in eighty-four years. Their
call is equally as interesting. Brother Bean and Rebecca attended a conference
in Richfield, Utah, presided over by President Joseph F. Smith. President Smith
was looking for the right man to represent the Church and run the Joseph Smith
farm in Manchester, New York. President Smith later said that when Willard
walked in, “The impression was so strong-it was just like a voice said to me,
‘There’s your man.’”
Despite severe anti-Mormon
prejudice, the Beans persevered and eventually won the respect of the people in
the nearby village of Palmyra. Willard was instrumental in helping the church
purchase several other important historical sites in the area. What was
expected to be “five years or more” of service in Palmyra turned out to be
twenty-five. When the Beans returned to Salt Lake City, they were grandparents.
Willard
Bean: Palmyra’s Fighting Parson, Ensign, June 1985, pg. 26-27.
157.
At his graduation ceremony, Spencer (Spencer W. Kimball) was
stunned to hear his father announce over the podium that instead of going to
college, Spencer would be serving a mission. He hadn’t really given it much
immediate thought, since most missionaries at that time were older men, but he
embraced the formal call when it arrived from Salt Lake City. To finance his
mission he sold his horse, and spent the summer working at a dairy near Globe,
Arizona. The eighteen-hour days were grueling, but at the end of the summer the
cigar-smoking non-Mormon dairy owner threw a party for Spencer and gave him a
gold watch to take on his mission.
“The
Life and Ministry of Spencer W. Kimball,” Teachings of Presidents of the
Church: Spencer W. Kimball, (2006), xiv-xxxvii.
158.
Two others who enjoyed success were Zebedee Coltrin and Levi
Hancock. After leaving Kirtland, they headed south and west along the National
road toward Indianapolis, Indiana. Baptisms came slowly at first, but when they
reached Winchester, Indiana, they found ready listeners. Levi wrote, “We
continued to preach here and in the regions round about until we had raised a
large branch of the Church.” They enjoyed similar results in Ward township, and
“in a short time we had in both places about one hundred members.” Their
presence aroused a group of local men who accosted them and ordered them to
leave the area by ten o’clock the next morning.
The elders decided to stay and
keep an eleven o’clock appointment. Some of the men who appeared for the
meeting were among the ones who had threatened the missionaries. In his sermon
Levi said that his father had fought in the Revolutionary war for the freedom
his listeners then enjoyed and that his relative, John Hancock, was the first
signer of the Declaration of Independence. Levi recorded, “After the meeting we
went to the water and baptized seventeen out of those who the day before were
going to mob us.”
“The Life of Levi
Hancock,” unpublished manuscript, Brigham Young University, Special
Collections, Provo, pp. 54-64.
159.
During 1852 the Church made a concerted effort at having as many
emigrants arrive in the Salt Lake Valley as possible. It’s the year with the
fewest missionaries, but also the year with the largest number of emigrants.
James
A. Little, From Kirtland to Salt Lake City (Salt Lake City, 1890) as
quoted in Larsen, Prelude to the Kingdom, 112.
160.
In 1883, German-born Thomas Biesinger, who was living in Lehi,
Utah, received a call to serve in the European mission. He and Paul Hammer were
sent to Prague, Czechoslovakia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The
missionaries were forbidden by law to proselyte and so initiated casual
conversations with people they met. These conversations often turned to the
subject of religion. After working in this way for only a month, Elder
Biesinger was arrested and held in prison for two months. When he gained his
freedom, he had the blessing of baptizing Antonin Just, whose accusation had
led to this arrest. Brother Just became the first Latter-day Saint residing in
Czechoslovakia.
Kahlile
Mehr, “Enduring Believers: Czechoslovakia and the LDS Church, 1884-1990,” Journal
of Mormon History (Fall 1992,), 112-13; Our Heritage, The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints, 1996), 95.
161.
February 4, 1902: The
First Presidency announces the policy that full-time missionaries need not pay
tithing.
Ric Richard Neitzel
Holzapfel et al., On This Day In The Church (Salt Lake City: Eagle Gate,
2000), 26.
162.
The following is a mission experience of John Lowe Butler being
sent to the Sioux Indians on a mission by the Prophet Joseph Smith:
“We had but little success among
the Indians this time; they did not like us at all. They stole our horses and
shot our cattle and came very near shooting us. We started our folks toward
home, my family numbering my wife and five children. Well, as I say, we started
them from home, and Brother Emmett and myself were to stay and find our horses.
We stayed and found them, but the Indians took them from us again; then we had
to fly for our lives. Now we started to go right between two lakes and the
Indians tried to head us to waylay us and kill us. We had then not tasted one
bit for eight or nine days. I prayed to the Lord to look down in mercy upon us
and strengthen us and enable us to endure the trials and sufferings of hunger
that we had to pass through. We got to the point between the lakes and headed
them without interruption from the Indians. I could not tell the reason only
that the Lord was our friend and changed the mind of the Indians so that they
turned from their bloody design for they meant to kill us if they only could
catch us.
“After we had passed the point of
the lakes, there was a stream of water running into the lake, running on our
right hand and the spirit of the Lord told me that if I will turn aside and go
down to the river I should find something to eat. I told Brother Emmett and we
turned aside and went down to the stream. We had our rifles with us, but we had
not seen any game at all; everything seemed to be far away when we wanted them
close. Well, as we were going down, I had several thoughts come into my head; I
could fancy seeing a fat deer standing on the bank of the stream, cooling this
thirsty tongue. Then I thought I could see a good fat elk grazing on the bank
of the stream, but we had gotten there and I could see no deer nor any elk. My
mind was darkened, and I felt to murmur and called upon God and asked him why
he had caused us to come so far out of our road and then not find anything to
eat. I cast my eyes upon the stream, not knowing which way to go or what to do
for we were weak and could hardly walk. I had not my eyes long in that
direction when all of a sudden I saw thousands of fish in the water and fine
large ones they were, too. I looked with wonder and astonishment and I thanked
the Lord for his mercy and loving kindness unto us and I asked his forgiveness
for doubting him and prayed for his holy spirit to enable me to put my trust in
him more than I had hitherto done. We then caught fish and fed our hungry
appetites, and then starting on our journey, thanked God for his watchfulness
over us and his blessings unto us, and the Lord did continue to pour down his
blessings upon us, so that he did deliver us from the bloodthirsty savages and
enabled us to arrive home safely without any harm to ourselves.
“We arrived about twelve miles
from Nauvoo on the night of the fifth of October (1842?). I wanted to get to
conference, it being the next day, so I got up the next morning and got on a
horse and went to Nauvoo to conference, and I got there just as it commenced, I
then went back after my family and brought them home, and Brother Joseph asked
me if we all got back safe and well. I told him that we had gotten home safe,
but it was by the blessings of God. He said that he was glad that we had gotten
home safe, and he said, ‘Now go and try it without your family and you shall
not be hurt,’ so I left my family in Nauvoo; they were all pretty well at that
time, although they had seen much hardship. They had to live on crabapples and
honey for nine weeks and nothing else to eat only what game we could kill once
in a while. Well, I started back again with Brother Emmett to the Sioux nation
but we had but little success for they did or could not understand the
principles of the gospel, so we had to return home again on the fourteenth of
February and my wife bore me a daughter and we named her Sarah Adaline. . . .”
Autobiography
of John Lowe Butler, Typescript, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young
University; http://www.boap.org/
163.
Nineteen, the number of full-time missions that Orson Pratt
served.
By
the way, this is a record.
The
Church News, June 13, 1948.
164.
“During our first day's travel we came to a bad slue crossing in
the road, and we got stuck fast so that we were compelled to unload in order to
get out, but even then our team was not able to pull the empty wagon out. But
just then, a large, fine yoke of oxen came along the road behind us overtaking
us, unattended by any person, and which we considered very providential aid. So
I hitched them on the wagon with my own team, and pulled out easily. I then
turned the strange oxen loose again, loaded in the things we had taken out, and
traveled on. We looked upon that aid and help as being directly from our
Heavenly Father. After that, we got stuck in bad places several times, and had
to unload in order to pull out but only a few days passed, and Brother Ezra
Clark with a small company overtook us, and then we had no more trouble. When
we came to bad places, we were in duty bound to help each other.”
Autobiography of Jonathan
Crosby, typescript, Utah State Historical Society. Holograph is also located in
the Utah State Historical Society; http://www.boap.org/
165.
It took the saints 131 days to cross the 310 miles of Iowa to
Winter Quarters, but only 111 days to trek the 1100 miles from Winter Quarters
to the Salt Lake Valley.
Our
Heritage, The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1996), 71.
166.
When we got to within about two days travel of Laramie, we just
about got into some trouble with a large company of Sioux Indians. John Alger
started in fun to trade a 16 year old girl to a young Chief for a horse. But
the Chief was in earnest! We got the thing settled, however, and were permitted
to go without the loss of Lovina.
Autobiography
of Mosiah Hancock, Typescript, BYU-S; http://www.boap.org/
167.
The following from the journal of
Patience Loader Rozsa Archer who was a member of the ill fated Martin Handcart
Company:
I will say we traveled on all day
in the snow but the weather was fine and in the middle of the day the sun was
quite warm. Sometime in the afternoon a strange man appeared to me as we was
resting as we got up the hill. He came and looked in my face. He said is you
Patience. I said yes. He said again I thought it was you. Travel on. There is
help for you. You will come to a good place. There is plenty. With this he was
gone. He disappeared. I looked but never saw where he went. This seemed very
strange to me. I took this as someone sent to encourage us and give us
strength.
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), 231.
168.
The following from the Journal of John Parry:
Indians
met us some times and helped us to pull our Carts, which was a great fun for
them.
Parry,
Reminiscences and diary; David Roberts, Devils Gate-Brigham Young and The
Great Mormon Handcart Tragedy (New York City: Simon and Schuster, 2008),
124.
169.
We have all heard the story
of the four young men who carried the members of the Martin Handcart Company
across the ice filled Sweet Water River. Patience Loader sheds some more light
on this story. The following from her journal:
We traveled on for some few miles.
Then we came to the Sweet Water. There we had to cross. We thought we would
have to wade the water as the cattle had been crossing with the wagons with the
tents and what little flour we had and had broken the ice so we could not go
over on the ice. But there was three brave men [actually there were four] there
in the water packing the women and children over on their backs. Names William
Kimball, Ephraim Hanks, and I think the other was James Furgeson [Either this
is another incident or else she recorded the names wrong. The four young men
were George W. Grant, C. A. Huntington, David P. Kimball, and Stephen W.
Taylor]. Those poor brethren was in the water nearly all day. We wanted to
thank them but they would not listen to us. My dear Mother felt in her heart to
bless them for their kindness. She said God bless you for taking me over this
water and in such an awful rough way. They said oh d--- that I don’t want any
of that. You are welcome. We have come to help you. Mother turned to me saying
what do think of that man. He is a rough fellow. I told her that is Brother
William Kimball. I am told they are all good men but I daresay that they are
all rather rough in their manners. But we found that they all had kind good
hearts. This poor Brother Kimball stayed so long in the water that he had to be
taken out and packed to camp and he was a long time before he recovered as he
was chilled through and in after life he was always afflicted with rheumatism.
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), 236.
170.
Mary
Powell Sabin, a young twelve-year old Welsh girl traveling in the Ellsworth
hand-cart company states that at the celebration of their companies arrival
into Salt Lake City that the first food they were offered was watermelons.
Brigham Young instructed the emigrants to just eat the pink and not to go into
the green of the melon.
David
Roberts, Devils Gate-Brigham Young and the The Great Mormon Handcart Tragedy
(New York City: Simon and Schuster, 2008), 113.
171.
The following from Sarah James, a member of the Willie Handcart
Company:
Father told us one night that the
flour was gone. . . . Father was white and drawn. I knew that mother was
worried about him, for he was getting weaker all the time and seemed to feel that
there was no use in all the struggle.” Captain Willie announced one morning
that all the animals in the company would be killed for fresh meat. “We were so
hungry that we didn’t stop to think what it would do for our wagons. How good
the soup tasted made from the bones of those cows, although there wasn’t any
fat on them. The hides we used to roast after taking all the hair off of them.
I even decided to cook the tatters of my shoes and make soup of them. I brought
a smile to my father’s sad face when I made the suggestion, but mother was a
bit impatient with me and told me that I’d have to eat the muddy things
myself.”
Heidi
Swinton and Lee Groberg, SweetWater Rescue: The Willie and Martin Handcart
Story (American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications Inc., 2006), 71.
172.
John Bond, a twelve-year-old in the Hodgett Wagon Train with his
family, latter recorded, “Day after day passes and still no tidings of help
coming from westward. The bugle is sounded again . . . to call all the Saints
together for prayers to ask the infinite Father to bring food, medicines, and
other things necessary for the sick and needy.” Bond had seen a woman cooking a
pot of dumplings before evening prayer and then watched her hide them. He did
not go to prayer. “I stood back and looked for the dumplings, found them, and
being so hungry I could not resist the temptation, sat down and ate them all.”
Heidi
Swinton and Lee Groberg, SweetWater Rescue: The Willie and Martin Handcart
Story (American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications Inc., 2006), 78.
173.
As they came to rivers, the
captain would go through on horseback, then they would all hold hands and pass
through to the other side. No one could ride except the sick and the small
children.
Della
Henderson Holladay, “Pioneers of Faith, Courage, and Endurance.” Chronicles
of Courage: Daughters of Utah Pioneers (Salt Lake City: Utah Printing
Company, 1991), 2:75
174.
My brother Levi was born the 28th of February--8 1/2 months after
my father left for the Battalion. We had a cow that freshened this spring, but
she was up to the bottoms, 40 miles away. We tried to get some of the brethren
to bring her down, and they said they would. But mother dreamed that Bill
Hickman got the cow and calf, and she wished me to see if I could get a horse
and saddle. I dreamed, however, that thieves got away with the horse and
saddle, so I took my gun, and mother made me three skillets of corn dodger, and
the next morning I started out on foot. Mother also gave me three matches so
that I could have a fire when I camped. Our bedding being scarce, I did not
take a quilt, even though the season wasn't very warm. The first day was so
muddy that I got only about 20 miles; but I came to a grove of trees--mostly
slippery elm and basswood. I soon had a good fire for the wood was plentiful. I
had my knife along, and I got some elmbark which seemed to go well with my corn
bread. I made me a bed with some dry leaves at the foot of a clump of trees,
and was soon in a sound sleep. But, a dismal noise awakened me! I grabbed my
gun and corn dodger, and up a tree I went, for wolves were in force! I threw
some wood on the fire so that the blaze would keep back those "clamoring
varmits", as David Crocket would say. Oh, how the cold wind did pierce me!
By daylight the wolves were gone, and I left my perch. I soon got warm by the
good fire, and I tried to do some praying--for the music in the wolves choir
seemed to introduce in me a desire to feel a little religious. I went on and
inquired for our cow, but no one seemed to know anything about her. I soon got
my eye on her, and started back that evening. I got to a nice wood where I
built a fire, and tied the cow with a rope I had found. The calf had been
considerable trouble, so I tied it to the cow! Oh, but the wolves were so
thick! I had the calf tied to the cow and the cow tied to a tree--then I made a
fire close to the cow, then scraped some leaves together for my bed. I got a
great pile of wood so I could keep fire through the night. Then I saw a rabbit
run up the hollow tree where I intended to lay my head; I reached it with my
arm and soon had it skinned and cooked. I had a supper fit for a king with the
rabbit, some of the dodger I had left, and some milk I milked into my mouth!
The third day of my trip, I arose early and ate the rest of my rabbit and
dodger. I found the cow had eaten the pile of straw I carried on my head, which
was supposed to be my hat, so I went forth bare headed. However, the day was
cloudy, so I didn't suffer with heat. Although the snow was nearly gone, except
in the gulches, there was much mud; but I made it to the Perkins settlement,
where I and my "companions" fell into good hands. The goodly company
seemed to suppose me to be somewhat of a hero. I had a good supper and slept
soundly, never once thinking of the wolf choir. The next morning I ate a hearty
breakfast, and my kind friends sent me forth with a good lunch. At noon I shot
a large grey wolf that got too close, and while going down the Mosquite, a
panther to put up a sneak job on me and my company--however, I saw it's
movements as it crouched near the path. I put a ball between its eyes and it
quivered without making much of a spring. I then began to cast about for
another place to sleep, supposing it would be late before I got the thing
skinned; when all at once, Jack Reddin rode up on horseback. He saw the
situation and gave me $2.50 for the panther, so I traveled on towards home,
reaching it about 12 o'clock midnight, much to the joy of my mother who was
waiting and worrying for me. I can assure all, I rested sweetly that night!
Autobiography of Mosiah Hancock, Typescript, BYU-S;
htpp://www.boap.org/
175.
The Lord compared Sidney
Rigdon to John the Baptist.
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), 82.
176.
Once after returning from a mission, he [Zebedee Coltrin] met
Brother Joseph in Kirtland, who asked him if he did not wish to go with him to
a conference at New Portage. The party consisted of Presidents Joseph Smith,
Sidney Rigdon, Oliver Cowdery and myself [Zebedee Coltrin]. Next morning at New
Portage, he noticed that Joseph seemed to have a far off look in his eyes, or
was looking at a distance and presently he, Joseph, stepped between Brothers
Cowdery and Coltrin and taking them by the arm, said, ‘Let's take a walk.’ They
went to a place where there was some beautiful grass and grapevines and
swampbeech interlaced. President Joseph Smith then said, ‘Let us pray.’ They
all three prayed in turn--Joseph, Oliver, and Zebedee. Brother Joseph then
said, ‘Now brethren, we will see some visions.’ Joseph lay down on the ground
on his back and stretched out his arms and the two brethren lay on them. The
heavens gradually opened, and they saw a golden throne, on a circular
foundation, something like a light house, and on the throne were two aged
personages, having white hair, and clothed in white garments. They were the two
most beautiful and perfect specimens of mankind he ever saw. Joseph said, ‘They
are our first parents, Adam and Eve.’ Adam was a large, broad-shouldered man,
and Eve as a woman, was as large in proportion.”
Minutes, Salt Lake City School of the Prophets, October 11, 1883.
177.
Ziba Peterson was one of
four missionaries (Oliver Cowdery, Peter Whitmer Jr., and Parley P. Pratt were
the other three) sent on a mission to the Delaware Indians in 1830-1831. When
the Saints were driven out of Jackson County in 1833, Ziba stayed separating
himself from the Church. In 1848 he and his family moved to California where he
became the sheriff of Dry Diggins, later known as Hangtown because of the
hanging of two thieves that Peterson supervised. He died at “Hangtown” (known
today as Placerville, California) in 1849.
Dean
H. Garrett, “Ziba Peterson: From Missionary to Hanging Sheriff.” Nauvoo
Journal 19 (Spring 1997), 24-32.
178.
Elder Orson Hyde taught
something interesting pertaining to Moroni. He referred to Moroni as the
“Prince of America” and said that he “presides over the destinies of America,
and feels a lively interest in all our doings.” Elder Hyde goes on to say that
Moroni help guide Christopher Columbus through dreams and visions, was in the
camp of George Washington directing affairs by an invisible hand, and led our
founding fathers on to victory, “and all this to open and prepare the way for
the Church and kingdom of God to be established on the western hemisphere, for
the redemption of Israel and the salvation of the world.”
Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. (London:
Latter-day Saints’ Book Depot, 1854-86), 6:368.
179.
A Dr. Sampson Avard organized the Danites. This group of avenger’s
purpose was to plunder and murder the enemies of the Church in Missouri. The
original name of this group of outlaws was “The Daughter of Zion.” When this
was discovered by the Prophet Joseph Smith he cut Dr. Avard off from the
Church.
Berrett, William Edwin, The Restored
Church (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1973), 146.
180.
The following is related by Wilford Woodruff:
“On May 6th, I met with the
Seventies, and we ordained sixty men into the quorums of Elders and Seventies.
Brother Joseph met with the Twelve, Bishops and Elders, at Bishop Partridge’s
house; and there were a number with us who were wounded at Haun’s Mill. Among
them was Isaac Laney, who had been in company with about twenty others, at the
mill, when a large armed mob fired among them with rifles and other weapons,
and shot down seventeen of the brethren, and wounded more. Brother Laney fled
from the scene, but they poured a shower of lead after him, which pierced his
body through and through. He showed me eleven bullet holes in his body. There
were twenty-seven in his shirt, seven in his pantaloons, and his coat was
literally cut to pieces. One ball entered one armpit and came out at the other.
Another entered his back and came
out at the breast. A ball passed through each hip, each leg and each arm. All
these shots were received while he was running for life, and, strange as it may
appear, thought he had also one of his ribs broken, he was able to outrun his
enemies, and his life was saved. We can only acknowledge this deliverance to be
by the power and mercy of God.
“President Brigham Young was also
among the number. He also fled, and although the balls flew around him like
hail he was not wounded. How mysterious are the ways of the Lord!”
Leaves
of My Journal, Preston Nibley comp., (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1988), 74.
181.
It has been said that only men were killed at Haun’s Mill.
According to John P. Greene, at least one female also died.
“Miss
Mary Stedwell while fleeing was shot through the hand, and fainting, fell over
a log, into which they shot upwards of twenty balls.”
“Facts
Relative to the Expulsion of the Mormons or Latter-day Saints, From the State
of Missouri, Under the Exterminating Order,’” John P. Greene
(Cincinnati: R. P. Brooks, 1839).
182.
The following is a story from the journal of John Lowe Butler.
“When the mob came to Far West
there [was a man] by the name of Nathan and [I was] well acquainted with him.
He would not volunteer to come and fight the Mormons so they drafted him and
made him come and just before they got to Far West the captain told the men to
cut a whole lot of switches to hang them on their saddle so that if the Mormons
should whip them out they would have something to make the horses faster, but
Nathan did not get any switches and they said, ‘Why do you not get some,
Nathan?’ His answer was, ‘I have no cause for any for I have never done
the Mormons any harm and they will not do me any harm.’ So when they got to
camp and the baggage wagon had come up, Nathan said that he was going over to
the city to see an old friend of his and they told him that the Mormons would
kill him if he did. He told them that he was not afraid, so he started over to
my house, and when he got there he told my mother that he had come to have some
supper and stay all night. She asked him who all the men were that had come
down on the city. He told her that they were a mob come to kill all the
Mormons. ‘Well,’ said the old lady, ‘You have come with them, have you not?’
Nathan said he had, but not to kill the Mormons; they had forced him to come to
fight them, but they could not force him to shoot and he was going home in the
morning.
Well, about three or four hours
later there came five or six men to fetch him away. They said that the captain
had sent them after him. Nathan told them that he should not go for he could
sleep in a house. So he said that they could go and tell their captain so.
Well, they went back and Nathan slept. He had his breakfast in the morning and
told the folks that if the mob drove the Mormons away, his house would be a
home for them as long as they had a mind to stay. Well, he wished them good
luck and started, but not back to the camp, but back home. Now the captain sent
over in the day to see where he was, they inquired of my mother where he was
and she told them that he had gone home, so they had to go back without him.”
Autobiography
of John Lowe Butler, Typescript, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young
University; http://www.boap.org/
183.
The following from the journal of William Draper
“I will here
relate a short conversation that took place between a little boy about twelve
years old by the name of Buduas Dustin and a Methodist preacher; and captain of
a company and chaplain for the army by the name of [Samuel] Bogard, which took
place as follows:
“One evening
when the little boy was present the army was called to order to attend evening
services and a solemn prayer and thanks to their unknown God for the glorious
works that he was permitting and assisting them to perform, and when the prayer
was finished the boy stood as if in deep meditation and said, ‘Mr. Bogard can I
ask you one question?’ ‘Yes boy’, was the answer, and the boy proceeded by
saying, ‘Mr. Bogard, sir, which way do you think is right for a person to have
their eyes closed or open when they pray?’ Well my boy I suppose either would
be acceptable if done in humility but it looks more humiliating to have our
eyes closed against the transitory objects around us and from the world.’
‘Well,’ said the boy, ‘I think if I was engaged in such a work as you are I
should want my eyes open.’ ‘Why my boy,’ was the inquiry. ‘Because I should
fear the devil would carry me off if they were shut.’
“They then
threatened his life for a young Mormon; but he said, ‘I am no Mormon,’ and he
was not and so he escaped but subsequently joined the church.”
Autobiography of William Draper, Typescript, Harold B. Lee
Library, Brigham Young University; http://www.boap.org/
184.
I find it of interest that on all occasions when Joseph visited
the Angel Moroni at the Hill Cumorah that he ventured alone with the exception
of September 22, 1827, that day Joseph brought Emma, his young wife with him.
The answer of why he did this can be found in the previous year tutorial between
Moroni and Joseph. Moroni told Joseph on this occasion: That the plates would
be given to him if he “brought the right person.” Moroni also told Joseph that
he would know who that person would be.
Baught, Alexander L., “Parting the Veil: The Visions of Joseph
Smith.” BYU Studies, Vol. 38, No. 1, p. 31.
185.
“In the following June, I met with an accident, which I shall here
mention: The Prophet and myself, after looking at his horses, and admiring
them, that were just across the road from his house, we started thither, the
Prophet at this same time put his arm over my shoulder. When we had reached
about the middle of the road, he stopped and remarked, ‘Brother Coray, I wish
you were a little larger, I would like to have some fun with you.’ I replied,
‘Perhaps you can as it is,’ not realizing what I was saying, Joseph a man of
over 200 pounds weight, while I scarcely 130 pounds, made it not a little
ridiculous for me to think of engaging with him in anything like a scuffle.
However, as soon as I made this reply, he began to trip me; he took some kind
of a lock on my right leg, from which I was unable to extricate it, and
throwing me around, broke it some three inches above the ankle joint. He
immediately carried me into the house, pulled off my boot, and found at once
that my leg was decidedly broken; then he got some splinters and bandaged it. A
number of times that day did he came in to see me, endeavoring to console me as
much as possible. The next day when he happened in to see me after a little
conversation, I said, ‘Brother Joseph, when Jacob wrestled with the angel and
was lamed by him, the angel blessed him; now I think I am also entitled to a
blessing.’ To that he replied, ‘I am not the patriarch, but my father is, and
when you get up and around, I'll have him bless you.’ He said no more for a
minute or so, meanwhile looking very earnestly at me, then said, ‘Brother
Coray, you will soon find a companion, one that will be suited to your
condition and whom you will be satisfied with. She will cling to you, like to
cords of death, and you will have a good many children.’ He also said some
other things, which I can't so distinctly remember.
“In nine days
after my leg was broken, I was able to get up and hobble about the house by the
aid of a crutch and in two weeks thereafter, I was about recovered, nearly as
well as ever, so much so that I went to meeting on foot, a distance of a mile.
I considered this no less than a case of miraculous healing. For nothing short
of three months did I think it would be ere I should be around again, on my
feet, able to resume work.”
Autobiography
of Martha Jane Coray, Typescript, Harold B. Lee
Library,
Brigham Young University; LDS Church Archives;
186.
Engaging
in activities such as snowball fights, pulling sticks, fishing, and playing
ball, Joseph often interrupted what Jesse W. Crosby, an acquaintance of the
Prophet, called his “important work” to spend time with children and help
around the home. “Some of the home habits of the Prophet-building kitchen
fires, carrying out ashes, carrying in wood and water, assisting in the care of
the children,” wrote Crosby in disgust, “were not in accord with my idea of a
great man’s self-respect.”
Susan Easton Black, They Knew the Prophet (Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book Company, 1998), 1.
187.
Thomas Ford, Governor of the State of Illinois, at the time
of the martyrdom had this to say:
“The
murder of the Smiths, instead of putting an end to . . . the Mormons and
dispersing them, as many believed it would, only bound them together closer
than ever, gave them new confidence in their faith.” He then stated, “Some
gifted man like Paul, some splendid orator who will be able by his eloquence to
attract crowds of the thousands . . . may succeed in breathing a new life
into [the Mormon Church] and make the name of the martyred Joseph ring . . .
loud and stir the souls of men.” It was Governor Ford’s greatest fear that his
name would become a Pilate or Herod, forever mentioned in history as a villain
of the innocent, “dragged down to posterity.” Needless to say this was all
fulfilled due to his own merits.
Thomas Ford, A History of Illinois, ed. Milo Milton
Quaife, 2 vols. (1946), 2:217, 221-223.
188.
When the trouble with the mob commenced, Colonel Robinson took
about one-half of the force to Adam-ondi-Ahman to defend that place. Joseph,
Hyrum and Sidney also went with them, leaving me in command at Far West. The
detachment returned in about four days.
A few days
afterwards Joseph Smith and I took a walk out upon the prairie, and in the
course of our conversation I suggested to him to send for General [David R.]
Atchison to defend him in the suit then brought against him, as he was in
command of the third division of the militia of the State of Missouri, and was
a lawyer and a friend to law. Joseph made no reply, but turned back immediately
to Far West, and a man was selected, with the best horse to be found, to go to
Liberty for General Atchison.
The next day General
Atchison came to Far West with a hundred men and camped a little north of the
town.
On consulting
with Joseph Smith, Atchison told him that he did not want anyone to go with
them to his trial, which was to take place midway between Far West and
Adam-ondi-Ahman. Joseph at first hesitated about agreeing to this, but Atchison
reassured him by saying: "My life for yours!"
When they
arrived at the place of trial quite a number of the mob had gathered, and on
seeing Joseph commenced to curse and swear. Atchison, however, checked them by
saying: "Hold on boys, if you fire the first gun there will not be one of
you left!"
Joseph was
cleared and came away unmolested. Soon afterwards the governor, thinking
Atchison was too friendly towards the Saints, took his command from him and
placed General [John B.] Clark in command of the militia.
Shortly before
Far West was besieged, I was taken sick, and Colonel [George M.] Hinkle came
into military command under his old commission. I gave up my horse, saddle and
bridle, and also my rifle and sword for Brother Lysander Gee to use in defense
of our city. When General Clark's army came up against Far West, Colonel Hinkle
betrayed the First Presidency of the Church into their hands for seven hundred
and fifty dollars. Then Joseph and Hyrum [Smith], Sidney [Rigdon], and Lyman
Wight were taken by the mob, who held a court-martial over them and sentenced
them to be shot the next morning at eight o'clock on the public square. Lyman
Wight told them to "shoot and be damned." Generals Atchison and
[Alexander W.] Doniphan immediately rebelled against the decision, and Doniphan
said, if men were to be murdered in cold blood, he would withdraw his troops,
which he did. General Atchison then went to Liberty and gave a public dinner,
and delivered a speech, in which he said, "If the governor does not
restore my commission to me, I will kill him, so help me God!" On
hearing this the audience became so enthusiastic that they took him upon their
shoulders and carried him around the public square.
“Early
Scenes in Church History, Four Faith Promoting Classics (Salt Lake City:
Bookcraft, 1968), 74-96.
189.
The following is from the autobiography of Harvey Harris Cluff:
“Twenty-five years of missionary
labors and travelling over one hundred thousand miles by land and sea.”
190.
The following is Warren Foote’s description of the inhabitants of
Missouri:
“The
inhabitants of Missouri came from the southern states. The most of them are
very ignorant, being unable to read, and write. Although the soil is so
exceedingly rich, they raise but little grain; a patch of corn, and a drove of
hogs running wild in the woods, is the height of their ambition. The corn makes
their corndodger, and the hogs their bacon. Corndodger, bacon, and buttermilk,
or clabber, constitutes the chief food of the lower classes, and in fact the
upper classes do not live much better. Sometimes they have a little wheat
flour, but they do not know how to make bread of it, being unacquainted with
yeast, or saleratus. They appear to be the offscourings of the southern states.
Their clothes are ragged dirty and filthy, and one would hardly know them from
the savages of the forest, by their appearance. There are some of a better
class who dress well and appear neat and clean. They are all very kind, and
hospitable to strangers, and will set before them the best they have. They salt
their pork in a corner of their house until it gets salt enough to make bacon,
they then hang it in a smoke house, and smoke it a very little, but during the
summer it often gets full of life, but they do not mind that. Wild bees being
very plentiful, they generally have more or less honey. They have a dislike to
eastern, and northern people, they call them all Yankees. “
Autobiography
of Warren Foote, Typescript, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University; http://www.boap.org/
191.
Gutzon Borglum, the man who directed the carving of Mt. Rushmore,
is the son of Danish immigrants who entered Salt Lake City in 1864.
Skousen, Paul B., The
Skousen Book of Mormon World Records (Springville, Utah: Cedar Fort Inc.,
2004), 195.
192.
During the Nauvoo period of the Church, Jonathan Browning (famous
gun manufacturer) became a member and set up shop. In 1852 he moved west with
the Saints and settled in Ogden. In 1855 his first child born after their arrival,
in the Ogden area, was world famous gunmaker John Moses Browning The following
from John
M. Browning, American Gunmaker:
His accomplishments
are remarkable, whether they are measured by their innovations, their number,
their duration, or their popularity. During those forty-seven inventive years,
John M. Browning was issued 128 different patents, to cover a total of some
eighty complete and distinct firearm models. They include practically every
caliber from the .22-short cartridge through the 37-mm. projectile; they
embrace automatic actions, semi-automatic actions, lever actions, and pump
actions; they include guns that operate by gas pressure, by both the short and
long recoil principle, and by the blowback principle; they include models
utilizing sliding locks, rotating locks and vertical locks. Included among them
are most of the successful sporting arms which appeared during this period, as
well as many of the military arms. It is estimated that well over thirty
million Browning designed guns have been produce to date (1979), by Browning,
Winchester, Colt, Fabrique Nationale, Remington, Savage, and others.
Paul
A. Curtis, John M. Browning, American Gunmaker (Garden City, New York:
Doubleday and Company, 1964), 219.
193.
The ship Brooklyn, which sailed from New York City to
California, in 1847, carried 70 men, 68 women, and 100 children. During the
17,000 mile journey there were 12 deaths and two births. The names of the two
children born were Atlantic and Pacific.
Our
Heritage, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City:
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1996), 74.
194.
The first child born to the Saints shortly after they entered the
valley was a girl born to John and Catherine Steele who they named Young Elizabeth.
The little girl was named after Brigham Young and Queen Elizabeth.
Tullidge,
Edward W., The Women of Mormondom (New York: Tullidge and Crandall,
1877), 443.
195.
Now that Wilford Woodruff had passed away the burden of leading
the church fell on the shoulders of the senior Apostle in the Quorum of the
Twelve, Lorenzo Snow. One day while praying in the temple, pouring out his
heart about his concerns and what he felt were his inadequacies, he waited for
a manifestation, but none came. As he arose and walked through the Celestial
room towards his office, the Savior appeared to Lorenzo Snow and told him to
reorganize the First Presidency immediately.
Gibbons,
Francis M. Dynamic Disciples: Prophets of God (Salt Lake City: Deseret
Book Company, 1996), 127-28; Snow, LeRoi C. “Remarkable Manifestations to
Lorenzo Snow.” Deseret News, 2 April 1938, 8.
196.
The following from the journal of Parley P. Pratt:
After
some days of prayer and fasting, and seeking the Lord on the subject, I retired
to my bed in my lonely chamber at an early hour, and while the other prisoners
and the guard were chatting and beguiling the lonesome hours in the upper
apartment of the prison, I lay in silence, seeking and expecting an answer to
my prayer, when suddenly I seemed carried away in the spirit, and no longer
sensible to our ward objects with which I was surrounded. A heaven of peace and
calmness pervaded my bosom; a personage from the world of spirits stood before
me with a smile of compassion in every look, and pity mingled with the
tenderest love and sympathy in every expression of the countenance. A soft hand
seemed placed within my own, and a glowing cheek was laid in tenderness and
warmth upon mine. A well known voice saluted me, which I readily recognized as
that of the wife of my youth, who had for near two years been sweetly sleeping
where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. I was made to
realize that she was sent to commune with me, and answer my question.
Knowing this, I said to her in a
most earnest and inquiring tone: Shall I ever be at liberty again in this life
and enjoy the society of my family and the Saints, and Preach the gospel as I
have done? She answered definitely and unhesitatingly: ‘YES!” I then
recollected that I had agreed to be satisfied with the knowledge of that one
fact, but now I wanted more.
Said I” Can you tell me how, or by
what means, or when I shall escape? She replied: “THAT THING IS NOT MADE KNOWN
TO ME YET.” I instantly felt that I had gone beyond my agreement and my faith
in asking this last question, and that I must be content at present with the
answer to the first.
Her gentle spirit then saluted me
and withdrew. I came to myself. The doleful noise of the guards, and the
wrangling and angry words of the old apostate again grated on my ears, but
Heaven and hope were in my soul.
Scot
Facer Proctor and Maurine Jensen Proctor, The Autobiography of Parley P.
Pratt (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2000), 295-297.
197.
In October 1903, George Albert Smith is ordained an Apostle, replacing
Brigham Young Jr., who had died. He becomes the first son to serve concurrently
with his father (Elder John Henry Smith) in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
Richard
Neitzel Holzapfel et al., On This Day In The Church (Salt Lake City:
Eagle Gate, 2000), 196.
198.
Joseph Smith set up a dramatic company in Nauvoo, and among those
who took part in the plays were Brigham Young, Erastus Snow, and George A.
Smith.
Chronicles
of Courage, Daughters of Utah Pioneers (Salt Lake City; Utah Printing Company,
1990) 1:158
199.
The following from Anson Call:
While passing up the Missouri River there was a gentleman who came to
our room and said that he had learned there were Mormons on the boat. Brother
Smith spoke: “Yes, we are Mormons. . . .” The gentleman said, “Where are you
going?” “To Far West, sir,” was the reply. The man then remarked, “I am sorry
to see so respectable a looking company journeying to that place.” Brother
Smith said, “Why so?” He replied, “Because you will be driven from there before
six months.” “By whom?” “By the Missourians, gentlemen,” said he. My father
spoke and said, “Are there not human beings in that country as well as others?”
He said, “Gentlemen, I presume you are not aware of the gentleman you are
talking to.” The reply was, “A Missourian, I presume.” The gentleman again
spoke, “Yes, gentlemen, I am Colonel Wilson of Jackson County. I was one of the
principal actors in driving the Mormons from that county and expect to be soon
engaged in driving them from Caldwell County.”
He advised us to stop in some
other place, for if we went to Far West we were surely to be butchered. We told
him we were no better than our brethren and if they died, we were willing to
die with them. “Gentlemen,” he said, “You appear to be very determined in your
minds. Mormonism must and shall be put down.” He read to us a letter which he
had just received form Newell, which consisted of a bundle of falsehoods
concerning our people in Kirtland. “Thrice as false, Joe’s career must and
shall be stopped.”: He then started for the door. I then remarked, “If you will
stop a moment or two, I will tell you the way it can be done, for there is but
one way of accomplishing it.” “What is that, Sir?” he said. I answered,
“Dethrone the Almighty and Joes’ career is ended and never until then.” He left
us very abruptly.
Autobiography
of Anson Call, Typescript, HBLL; htpp://www.boap.org/
200.
Mark Twain had the following to say about the Book of Mormon and
Joseph Smith in Chapter 16 of his book “Roughing It.”
“All men have heard of the Mormon
Bible, but few except the ‘elect’ have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble
to read it. I brought away a copy from Salt Lake. The book is a curiosity to
me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so ‘slow,’ so sleepy; such an
insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith
composed this book, the act was a miracle—keeping awake while he did it was, at
any rate, if he, according to tradition, merely translated it from certain ancient
and mysteriously engraved plates of copper, which he declares he found under a
stone, in an out-of-the-way locality, the work of translating was equally a
miracle, for the same reason. ….Whenever he found his speech growing too
modern-which was about every sentence of two—he ladled in a few such scriptural
phases as ‘exceeding sore,’ ‘and it came to pass,’ etc., and made things
satisfactory again. ‘And it came to pass’ was his pet. If he had left that out,
his Bible would have been only a pamphlet.”
Twain,
Mark (Samuel Clemens), Roughing It (Hartford, Connecticut: American
Publishing Company, 1891), 128-129.
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