Joseph Smith was a polygamist. Over the course of his life he married multiple women; many, if not most or all, of these relationships were sexually consummated, though a handful of these marriages may have been only sealings without a physical relationship. However it went, Joseph’s polygamy is a fact and, to be admitted, a difficult one to accept for many members of the Church who have grown up not knowing about it. However, the LDS Church is now quite public about it (you can even see some of the marriages at the LDS genealogy site, FamilySearch.org) and it is mentioned in manuals and CES courses. It’s even discussed quite bluntly and openly in the popular historical fictions series The Work and the Glory. The youth of the Church are exposed to it from high school and onward. Give it a few more years and it will be common knowledge for most members of the church if it isn’t already.

However, there is another aspect of Joseph’s polygamy that is even more disturbing to people that I find intriguing: polyandry (meaning “many men”). While polygamy in the church is usually understood to mean one man married to multiple women (technically “polygyny”, or “many women”), polyandry means one woman married to multiple men, and this actually occurred in Nauvoo. Basically put, it has been clearly evidenced that some of the women whom Joseph married were already married to other men; three of these are on FamilySearch.org: Zina Huntington Jacobs, Prescendia Huntington Buell (Zina’s sister), and Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner (famous for saving, along with her sister, pages of the Book of Commandments as a young girl from a violent mob in the early 1830s; I’m sure you’ve heard the story multiple times in Church – she was an amazing woman). There were possibly as many as nine in total who were married to the Prophet Joseph Smith (and, after his death remarried to Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and other church leaders) as well as being simultaneously married (not sealed, however) to other men.

Many people find this fact to be insurmountable. I’ve heard of many people who have had their rock-solid faith dashed upon this information. Heck, it was seriously disturbing to myself when I first read about it in Dr. Richard Bushman’s Rough Stone Rolling (partially because it was too difficult to mentally reject Dr. Bushman’s book because I had obtained a copy of it at Deseret Book). However, there are two things that I now find very interesting and intriguing about people’s responses to this information. First, I find it interesting that it bothers people more than regular polygamy does, and second, I find it interesting that there is intense debate among historians as to whether Joseph had sexual relations with these polyandrous wives. Why are these such overwhelming issues? I’d argue that it is because the culture that is looking at the issue of polyandry is limited by a non-feminist viewpoint; or, to put it another way, a powerful tool available to Mormons (but not used by most of them) for studying this issue is a feminist and egalitarian perspective.

Basically put, simply ask yourself (if you’re having or have had trouble with this issue) WHY is this issue affecting me so strongly? While most modern Mormons have trouble with the idea of polygamy they’ve developed ways to either put it on the shelf or understand it as a doctrine of the Church’s past. Finding out that Joseph practiced polygamy can be difficult, but chances are that you’ve already encountered it and have dealt with it in some way. Why would finding out about polyandry be any different? Well, I can’t really argue for you (dear reader) because I don’t know you, but I can explain it for myself: the problem was how the issue framed itself in my own mind. I was used to Joseph marrying multiple women, but it was troubling when I found out that some of those women belonged to other men. I’m embarrassed to say it, but that was how I looked at the issue deep inside my own head. Joseph was taking what already had been promised to someone else; he was stealing! But then I stopped and turned the situation around in my head. What about women in a regular polygynous relationship? They were married to a man who already belonged to another woman, right? To be fair I should have been thinking that they were taking what had already been promised to someone else; they were stealing? But that was not how I looked at polygyny. Why?

Probably because I was used to the patriarchal system; the man is to preside over the household. The man is in charge. While the best marriage is an equal one, the line of authority in the family still flows subtly from the woman to the man. In my mind, the families in old Utah were large families that centered upon the single father. It was okay (kinda) in my mind for two women to belong to one man (and that the women could share that ownership of their husband). For some reason in my head women could share a man, and a man could share his love towards multiple women.

But polyandry turns all of this on its head: a woman who is already married already belongs to someone else. Men can share their relationship, but I had difficulty imagining women doing the same. I could imagine a man at the center of a multiple partner scenario; I had difficulty imaging a woman doing the same.

Another issue that often pops up, especially from apologists, is whether or not Joseph had a sexual relationship with these married women. The data isn’t exactly conclusive, but it seems that for at least some of them he did. This bothers people. A lot. There’s quite a bit of effort from some people to try and prove that these particular relationships were only spiritual relationships in nature, that there was no sexual contact between Joseph and these women.

Well, why is this a problem? Brigham Young had a number of wives and dozens of children with many of them. This is common knowledge to everyone both within and outside of the Church. Both Mormons and non-Mormons make jokes about it (the Mormon ones tend to be much cleaner). Brigham Young had many wives and these were real marriages. Most Mormons have no problems with it because sex is a good thing as long as it is within a marriage structure. And these women were married to Brigham, so it’s no problem to most Mormons.

So why is there all of the effort to distance Joseph and his polyandrous wives? Nobody seems to be assuming that these women weren’t having sex with their first husbands: merely that they possibly didn’t have sex with their second husband. Why the difference? Nobody questions whether or not Brigham had sex with his wives? Why is there a difference? Again, because we place more of the importance in these relationships on the men than the women. The emphasis is on Joseph Smith, not on Mary Rollins Lightner. Why is that? Again: because these women belong to someone else. It’s difficult to look at the situation as though the men involved belong to the women.

Besides, in term of the historical record, after the death of Joseph Smith most of Joseph’s wives were remarried to Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and other church leaders (including the Huntington sisters) and some had children with these third husbands (again including the Huntington sisters). So even if we can show that Joseph never had sexual relation with these wives, they had sexual relationship with their later husbands.

So what is the solution? Well, I can’t speak for everyone and I don’t want to be a Mormon apologist, but I think that feminism gives Mormons a powerful tool to look at this. If we are limited by our vision of the father “presiding” and the mother “nurturing” we continue to limit ourselves to a view of marriage where the wife is inferior (even if only a slight bit) to the husband. However, if we adopt an egalitarian view of marriage where the two (or even more) people involved in the marriage are truly equal to each other with no authority of one over the other in any sphere then suddenly the role of “wife” and “husband” simply equate to “partner” (or, for those who dislike that term as too “liberal” or “gay”, to “spouse”). At that point the terms “polygyny” (“many women”) and “polyandry” (“many men”) become the same thing: a relationship where there is one person married to multiple spouses. It becomes truly just “polygamy”. And while most Mormons (myself included) still have a lot of trouble dealing with the idea of polygamy, adopting an egalitarian view of marriage forces us to look at polyandry and say to ourselves “What is the problem with this historical practice? Is this really any worse, or really any different, from the practice of polygyny? Even if sex was involved in these relationships?” Answer: not really. And so we see yet another benefit to the Church and its members from a wider acceptance of feminism and egalitarianism instead of patriarchy and complementarianism. However, I worry because it seems that, in general, the Church refuses to be more than complementarian in their approach to equality in marriage and that Church culture (in Utah especially) still rejects feminism as a movement with suspicion and distrust.

I am a little hesitant to share specifics with why I was disappointed with a particular talk from General Conference. Over the next six months, many LDS (myself included) will study from the transcripts as published in next month’s “Ensign”; it’s expected that each talk can provide spiritual comfort and counsel. I don’t want my personal opinion about a particular talk to somehow be seen as invalidating or belittling another person’s enjoyment of the same discourse; my expectations are different and my concerns are different. I don’t think that anyone in Church leadership is somehow dishonest, hypocritical, or evil. I believe that they are all honest women and men who say the things they say because they believe in the doctrines of the LDS Church. However, a leadership position in the Church doesn’t somehow disqualify someone from making a poor choice of words, or even from endorsing a particular point of view that may later be seen as uninspired (much of the pre-1978 folklore would qualify for this; much of it was publicly taught as truth and is now seen as nothing more than misguided opinion). As someone listening to my leaders, I can only argue from a position that I believe in, and if that doesn’t match up completely with what I hear, then I need to look carefully at both what I believe and what was said. Sometimes my beliefs change, and other times I reject the wild fruits in someone’s message and only prize the good fruits. I’ve never found a talk given by a Church leader that didn’t have something in it that was worthy of study and implementation, but I’ve found a few that had some ideas that I had to leave behind because my beliefs simply could not agree with some of what was said.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a small movement compared to many Protestant Christian denominations. Its relative youth compared to the other three Abrahamic religions tends to mean it is easily mocked for its particular historical and faith claims which have occurred within the past two centuries; in spite of this the Church has grown considerably during that time (not nearly as much as the Pentecostal movement, for instance, but for a tightly organized movement, it is an impressive growth). If it is to continue to be a force for good it must continue to grow; however, while the Church currently claims nearly 14 million members it is a guessing game as to how many of those are active in their practice, let alone how many have achieved the highest levels of activity expected for the general membership by attending the Temple or being ordained in the Priesthood. The answer is certainly much lower than the pure membership numbers. From other statistical sources, such as Gallup or Pew, we know that women form a clear majority of active Church membership. As such, it might be expected that Church leadership would speak out more on issues relating to what is expected of all human beings, not just men, within the Church, with perhaps an occasional focus on women’s issues and their strength (by virtue of their numbers at the very least). Such an emphasis was occasionally seen and heard during some of the past weekend, but it is interesting to me how that emphasis was expressed, especially in comparing and contrasting the first two discourses delivered.

President Boyd K. Packer spoke at length about how the Power of the Priesthood is not yet being expressed among the Priesthood holders of the Church. However, (without a transcript to compare against) he didn’t directly define the Power of the Priesthood, as opposed to the Authority of the Priesthood which I’ve continually read from Church sources to mean “the authority to act in God’s name” or, in other words, the authority to perform efficacious rituals and ordinances. In the Church, women have not, as yet, been given such authority apart from their limited authority to perform some of the Temple rituals. However, it appeared to me that the general gist of the “Power” being described was not simply the miraculous ability to enjoy gifts from God such as healing (a power that is equally available to women through the prayer of faith, as expressed by Elder Dallin H. Oaks during his Priesthood Session remarks, and as attested by much of Latter-day Saint Church history where administration and blessings on the sick by women are commonplace), but was also power in the sense of authority and responsibility in relation to other human beings. I love that the Church has a structure that allows for people, both female and male, to hold positions of authority not because they have any particular skill for such positions but rather because the initial “calling” to that position was supposed to be the result of revelatory impressions. I accept that it can on rare occasion be useful to have an individual who has a sort of “final say” regarding difficult decisions, but I also believe that the most successful and most efficient individuals in the positions never use that “final say” (many others, of course, fall victim to the temptation to use it often which usually in my experience quickly devolves to what Joseph Smith referred to as “unrighteous dominion”). The best decisions are mutual decisions where all involved are respected equally. This seems to be how the highest councils of the LDS Church usually are run.

Thus, to me, statements like “The priesthood does not have the strength that it should have and will not have until the power of the priesthood is firmly fixed in the families as it should be” are troubling to me. What “power” of the priesthood is to be expressed within a family? The first answer that comes to mind is the ability of the father to directly request blessings and miracles of God for his family, to perform rituals involving members of his family like baptism and the Gift of the Holy Ghost, or to pass on this authority to his sons. That’s always a nice thing, in my mind, for a father to offer because at our present point in history, he is the only one with the authority to do so in the home. To me, while the authority is divine, it’s no different than if the mother of the home had a bank account of her own with large amounts of funds that she could give to members of her family, including her husband, whenever it was requested (and that, for some unknown reason she was not allow to jointly co-own and operate with her husband). If done in a spirit of generosity and love, without the mother feeling somehow important or entitled due to her ownership of such an account, the sharing of such funds as gifts could help the family to grow together. Of course, if she were concerned about keeping an egalitarian relationship between herself and her husband or children she might not want to make too much use of her bank account. In a similar fashion, I know of many men, myself included, who don’t actually enjoy giving blessings or other priesthood rituals in the home too often because it can be difficult to preserve the particular level of equality that the spousal partnership has currently achieved. However, since such gifts and rituals can be used to strengthen family relationships when done with the right spirit, I would agree that men in the Church, myself included, need to do more of them for the families to which we belong.

However, this idea of the father stepping up in regards to what he has to offer to the family does not seem to be simply what President Packer has in mind. Later statements about how it is a father’s right and duty to preside in the home are certainly much more than an offering of generosity and love. “The priesthood does not have the strength that it should have and will not have until the power of the priesthood is firmly fixed in the families as it should be.” Again, what does this phrase “power of the priesthood” mean? From a note made during the talk (there is no transcript yet, so this may be flavored by thoughts I was having while watching) “The father presides at the table, in family prayer, and in general instruction to the family. When he is present, he is presiding.” It seems to me that President Packer is calling on men to lead and run their families in all settings , even informal things Family Home Evening and other events.

He shared a story where a young man had requested to be ordained to a higher level of the priesthood by an individual that was not his father. We as an audience were given no context for that decision, and were even told later that the young man’s brothers had also previously requested to not have their father involved in their ordinations. The moral of the story was clear, however: it didn’t matter why the father’s sons did not want him involved, he deserved to be involved because he was the father. He had the right because he had contributed his Y chromosomes to their genetic makeup (my words, obviously). It was later related that the forced ordination by the father had indeed resulted in a better relationship between father and son; it can’t be denied, this was a touching end to the story, but for all we know it could have ended just as easily that the young man felt that his reasons for not choosing his father were seen as pointless and, upon feeling that his input was completely ignored, descended into apathy in regards to his place within the Church. In the end, the decision was not forced because of love. The moral of the story was all about respect for authority, and respect for maleness specifically. It wasn’t even about respect for the priesthood, since the story implied that the father should be involved in the ordination even if he didn’t have the authority to be involved (it was jokingly implied that, in such a case, he would be given such authority on the spot as a sort of “military commission”).

And what is the responsibility of women in regards to Pres. Packer’s plea for men to step it up in using the “power” of the priesthood in the home? “Unless we enlist the attention of the mothers and daughters and sisters, who have influence on their husbands, fathers, sons and brothers, we cannot progress. The priesthood will lose great power if the sisters are neglected.” Personally, I think that the female members of my own family have far more to give to our family than “attention” and “influence”. Certainly, Heidi can (and does) request blessings using the priesthood in her home, but that is not all that she can do in terms of creating a home that can be shielded from harm. “You [Fathers] have the power of the priesthood directly from the Lord to protect your home. There will be times when all that stands as a shield between your family and the adversary’s mischief will be that power.” I cannot agree with this prediction; the shield is that we, as parents (plural, not gendered), can raise our children to be moral agents that can choose, as we can choose individually and unitedly, to resist immorality and “mischief”. If the use of priesthood in the home can be a bonding agent to help increase trust, love, and respect among all of us, so much the better. But it is only one ingredient among many for a strong home and family. The better ingredients have been what is available to all families, both within and without the LDS Church: love, respect, and kindness.

In total, President Packer’s call for men to step up in employing their authority in both the Church and the home, was severely limiting for members of the Church who do not have the priesthood. Which, if you’ll recall again, is the vast majority of Church members. It was a call for the minority to assert their authority and a call for the majority to assist and aid them in doing so. I felt that the entire talk was a missed opportunity to not simply empower those few men within the Church who have the priesthood, but instead call for all members of the Church to step it up in striving to obtain miracles and blessings from God. While the priesthood is authority that is currently limited to men, a call to live up to the power available to us as children of God is a call that anyone can answer.

All of this is why I appreciated so much the next talk by President Julie Beck, personally applying it somewhat as a corollary to the previous talk. My issue with President Packer’s talk came from my trying to apply generally the principles he was discussing to members of the Church as a whole; much of what he said simply cannot apply to the majority of church members. However, all of what President Beck spoke about is applicable to all members of the Church. She spoke of women in the church increasing faith, strengthening families, and providing relief. And she spoke of the power that can help women in accomplishing these goals: personal revelation. In discussing this, she was appealing to the personal and individual communication available to all individuals. To President Beck, the divine power available to women (and men, I would add) is a power that comes to them directly from God. Women are not dependent upon men to provide them with power: they have it by virtue of their personal relationship with God and their ability to listen to the revelatory promptings of God’s Spirit. Women don’t need men to tell them when they are doing well; she proclaimed that women should be women, not babies to be petted and corrected all the time. “We know we are successful if we live so that we qualify for, receive, and know how to follow the Spirit”.

President Beck was also exhorting the women of the Church to step it up: “In my visits with the sisters, I have felt that there has never been a greater need for increased faith and personal righteousness. There has never been a greater need for strong families and homes. There has never been more that could be done to help others who are in need… When Relief Society functions in an inspired way, it lifts women up and out of a troubled world and into a way of living that prepares them for the blessings of eternal life… Through Relief Society, sisters can receive answers to their questions and be blessed by the combined spiritual power of all the sisters.” Now, I’m not sure what was meant by “through Relief Society” in that statement, but the combined efforts of many people can be a powerful force indeed. In calling upon the sisters to do better, she told them that “We are doing well when we increase faith and personal righteousness, strengthen families and homes, and seek out and help others who are in need.” There was little from her remarks that was not equally applicable to any member of the Church, or, indeed, any member of another faith entirely. Her talk was not limiting at all, even though it was addressed only to the women of the Church. It was empowering and ennobling counsel that applied to everyone who was listening.

Indeed, these two points of view were present throughout the Conference to varying degrees. At times the exhortations to rely upon divine power was limited to those of the Priesthood, while at other times the same exhortation was given to everyone. Since the majority of Church membership is composed of individuals without Priesthood authority, I felt it was far better to speak to the Church as a whole. Especially since the Priesthood have their own semi-private session of General Conference (semi because I can’t imagine that anyone would ask a sister in attendance to leave). Why give a talk addressed to the Priesthood to the general membership in the first place? Especially one that seemed to be about so much more than wives requesting that their husbands offer and be involved in more blessings and ordinances to members of the family? I don’t have much of an answer.

TL;DR;
President Packer’s talk, while not saying anything negative in particular, was limiting in its aspect, target audience, and application. It was empowering to the few. President Beck’s talk, while also not a paragon of egalitarian thought, was unlimited in aspect, audience, and application. It was empowering to all.

Whew, that was a LOT of writing. I wasn’t really expecting that when I decided to do this short series. Still, I think I got into the hang of keeping a regular blog. I doubt I’ll be able to keep it up daily like I have been, but we’ll see. I have a few idea for other interesting posts but for the next while things will get a lot more mundane around here.

I hope everyone enjoyed this series. Perhaps later I’ll go back and source material and such, but until then I’ll leave the comments open on all of them so that people can continue to add (or fix) material.

My hope in regards to Mormon history is that the publishing of Rough Stone Rolling and Massacre at Mountain Meadows heralds a new era of Mormon history: one where the average member of the Church is more exposed to better history than ever before. It’s time to stamp out the myths and legends: the real way that things happened is much cooler! I won’t deny that occasionally it is messier, but, to me, it is far more real that way. I find that, while I can’t possibly begin to feel what the mythic Joseph Smith is like, the human Joseph Smith is someone that I can relate to, kinda understand, and ultimately respect far more. I hope that any of the possibly troubling aspects of anything that I’ve written will not be troubling to future Latter-day Saints! I also hope they weren’t troubling to anyone here reading them.

Thanks again. I’ll get off my soapbox now.

If you found yourself, through some fluke of a time machine or something, walking the streets of 1870s Salt Lake and said to someone, “This is the right place!” it might be that they would have no idea what you were talking about.

“Um, yeah, it is; what are you talking about?” they might respond. Why? Because we don’t know whether Brigham Young actually said these famous words or not.

There are two quotes by later Apostles who remembered what Brigham Young had said. Just before their arrival Brigham had fallen sick with the “Rocky Mountain Fever”, now known as Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, a disease carried by ticks which can be fatal if not treated. He was very lucky to emerge unscathed by the disease: symptoms include fever, chills, headache, and vomiting. Complications can include diarrhea, nausea, muscle aches, gangrene, arrhythmia, renal failure, and death (yeah, death’s a complication I’d say). Anyways, he was confined to a wagon possibly driven by one of the three slaves in the company, Green Flake (Flake would later be freed in 1854). As they approached the valley, Brigham obviously felt impressed that they had arrived at their new home.

Thirty-three years later, Wilford Woodruff published his recollections of the arrival in the valley. In 1847, his renowned journals were not yet assembled, and his not-so-daily journals (from which he would build his later journals) at this time were very sparse and do not contain the famous phrase. In a publication in 1888 he remembered Brigham had sat up enough to see valley below them and said, “It is the right place. Drive on.”

Erastus Snow, another apostle, recorded later that he had also heard Brigham Young say, “This is the place whereon we will plant our feet and where the Lord’s people will dwell.” The cry went through the wagon train quickly and they descended into the valley floor. We don’t find the statement in anyone’s journals for decades, however. If it was kept alive by word of mouth is uncertain, but it’s only after 1880 that the phrase “This is the place” enters the historical record and stays there. (I think it’s silly to say that one quote or the other is “the correct quote”, personally. I don’t have a problem when people say “This is the place” versus “This is the right place.”)

It is popular to speak of the Salt Lake Valley as being a barren desert without even a tree. This is actually quite false. There were small rivers crossing the valley floor where large green trees grew and the rest of the valley was wet enough to grow brush. In the canyons small green woods grew around the abundant mountain streams. The pioneers had enough water and good soil to immediately begin planting. They built a small dam, usually thought of as an aid in irrigation, but its main purpose was to hold water for livestock, plants, and humans if the rains failed (which they occasionally would in the future). The valley was a good location and the Saints were blessed that nobody else had thought to live there.

Sometimes people will point to a statement by Jim Bridger made to the advance company of pioneers before they reached the Salt Lake Valley; he supposedly said that he would pay 1000 dollars for a bushel of corn raised in the valley; someone has visibly altered the Journal History kept on the plains from the previous statement to “Bridger would give $1,000 if he only knew if we could raise an ear of corn.” (Was this more correct or more dramatic? We don’t know.) Either way, Bridger encouraged the Saints to continue to California. Why? Bridger himself was working on establishing his trading post near the valley; since the valley itself was already a good land for growing food many historians now feel that Bridger was attempting to keep Mormon competition away from his trading post. It didn’t work and eventually the Mormons because so populous that they eventually took over the trading post (and burned it to the ground during the Utah War).

Finally, another myth about the trek west involves the Mormon Battalion. Usually we think of the Mormon Battalion being mustered up using volunteers (like the previous “Zion’s Camp” of years before). However, Brigham Young simply promised the United States government the men it requested. Men were called to go out to the Mormons at Winter Quarters and on the plains. When these men arrived at a Mormon encampment they made a list of all of the men who would be called to serve in the Battalion and it was simply expected that these men would go. Some switches were made and the majority weren’t too happy to be serving in the United States army. They were promised that if they kept their covenants and the commandments they would not be hurt in battle and this promise was kept. They performed well and only fought one battle during their desert trek to California against a herd of wild bulls. Later, after earning money in California, many of the Battalion traveled to the Salt Lake Basin to find the fledgling community and either find or wait for their families.

Most Mormons are very familiar with the story of the Martin and Willie Handcart Rescue. The Rescue was a favorite story of heroism and courage for President Hinckley who made reference to the story many times. However, the story has been strongly mythologized in the ~150 years since it first occurred.

In 1856 two handcart companies, through a series of events, were traveling west to the Salt Lake Valley. They were very late in going and, though warned against doing so by the experienced members of their companies, felt that God would protect them and they continued on (see this Deseret News article for an interesting discussion by Mormon historians as to what and who was to blame for the tragedy). Notable in this part of the journey is Levi Savage; a man who was experienced with the trail, he urged the companies to winter in Iowa City, earn money for better quality handcarts and supplies, and try to set out again in 1857. The leaders of the company urged the immigrants to continue and that God would protect them. Levi Savage again warned them that they would face danger and even death, but said he would go with them and help them. He did so, and never (as far as I can find) spoke anything unkind against those leaders. In my mind the viewpoint of the leaders was almost the same as praying really hard that you’ll pass a test that you haven’t studied for; the Lord is more likely to let you learn from your mistakes than to miraculously clear the way for you. The companies started off in May of 1856.

In August they were passed on the trail by Franklin D. Richards who, upon arriving in Salt Lake in October, warned the Church about the unexpected handcart companies still on the trail. President Brigham Young, aware of what dangers an early winter could bring, ordered a rescue operation mounted. The rescuers found the handcart companies suffering on the frozen plains of Wyoming. There weren’t enough wagons to carry everyone, so the handcart companies had to continue pulling westward. Eventually, after crossing over some difficult and deadly terrain, the companies arrived in Salt Lake and memebrs were called to care for the suffering Saints. Over 25% of the companies died and, as a result, the story of the Mormon Exodus, which until then had been seen as possibly miraculous in its ease and safety, has ever since been influenced by their suffering (for comparison, possibly only 30 people died on handcart treks outside of the Martin and Willie companies, and the death rate for the entire exodus before the railroad was built seems to be around 4-5%; a tad higher than just staying at home and farming, I suppose, but not much). At first, members of the Church didn’t talk much about the tragedy; it was too recent, too hard, and too many people in Salt Lake were responsible. Over time, as new generations who were not invovled grew up, the story has changed into a mythologized legend of sacrifice, heroism, and faith.

There are two stories that are usually told about the trek that are part of this mythology. One story that is routinely told is part of a famous Priesthood Session talk that President Hinckley gave in 1981. President Hinckley has always enjoyed this story and its lessons, but he did not share this particular aspect of the story later on, possibly because the mythic aspects were brought to his attention. I remember him speaking to a private audience at the premiere of a new documentary on the Handcart Tragedy and Rescue and seem to recall him saying that, as we learn more and more about the events of 1856, we may have to give up some of the stories of the past, but the gravity, depth, and heroism of the events only continue to grow (or perhaps that’s just what my memory wants to remember). Church media, however, continues to relate it (usually using the 1981 talk as their source).

The story President Hinckley recounted is as follows, after relating the complete discouragement of the companies when faced with crossing the icy Sweetwater River:

And now I quote from the record: “Three eighteen-year-old boys belonging to the relief party came to the rescue, and to the astonishment of all who saw, carried nearly every member of the ill-fated handcart company across the snowbound stream. The strain was so terrible, and the exposure so great, that in later years all the boys died from the effects of it. When President Brigham Young heard of this heroic act, he wept like a child, and later declared publicly, ‘that act alone will ensure C. Allen Huntington, George W. Grant, and David P. Kimball an everlasting salvation in the Celestial Kingdom of God, worlds without end.’” (President Gordon B. Hinckley, “Four B’s for Boys”, Ensign, 1981, p. 42)

The record that President Hinckley is quoting from is from a story in the Improvement Era, a Church periodical, published by Solomon Kimball in 1914, fifty-eight years after the disaster. There are a number of incorrect details in this popular account.

• Three eighteen-year-old boys belonging to the relief party came to the rescue There were 26 or 27 rescuers with the companies at the time of the Sweetwater crossing. All of them were 20 years old or over. It’s very discouraging to think that everyone else would simply watch while a couple teens took action for the next few hours. Probably everyone in the rescue party took part in carrying at least someone across and the companies themselves took courage and braved the stream.
• carried nearly every member of the ill-fated handcart company across Actually, many or even most of the company had to ford the stream on their own. Only the most feeble and sick were carried across. Speed was important and the company had to keep moving. They couldn’t afford to wait for everyone to be carried across.
• in later years all the boys died from the effects of it Actually, the three named all lived rather long lives and weren’t really affected by any injuries sustained during the rescue. We don’t have record of any of the relief party having troubles due to the rescue.
• President Brigham Young… later declared publicly We don’t have the record of Brigham saying this. Possibly he had said that this act will “immortalize them”, but that would just mean we’d always remember them (and, since this story has become legendary, that’s completely true).
  .

This is usually the case with some of our best pioneer stories: they begin as an impressive story and eventually transmogrify into truly miraculous events (the Seagulls and the Crickets is another great example of this).

The other story that is related is a second-hand account of an old member of the company rebuking a Sunday School class for discussing the blame. He relates how the journey strengthened his faith and testimony; he had felt the presence of angels helping them along (interestingly, this second-hand account relates that the angels came when he was too tired to get up a “patch of sand” or a “hill slope”, which seems to indicate that the assistance referred to happened much further east, before the companies entered the snowy plains of Wyoming).

Due to this story (first recorded over ninety years later) many people have supposed that all members of the handcart tragedy were strengthened in their faith. However, while some were strengthened, others were not, and some even apostatized due to the hardship they had encountered.

We often assume that the Pioneers didn’t have to deal with the same spiritual issues we do today; we assume that their physical hardships made spiritual and moral choices easier than our choices today. However, there really isn’t a difference – their physical hardships simply made them examine their own testimonies in the same way that our world today forces us to do the same. It’s not really any harder or easier, just different times with the same human beings living in them.

]]> http://blog.doggetto.com/2009/07/the-handcart-tragedy/feed/ 1 http://blog.doggetto.com/2009/07/women-of-the-exodus/ http://blog.doggetto.com/2009/07/women-of-the-exodus/#comments Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:00:09 +0000 NoCoolName_Tom http://blog.doggetto.com/?p=242

It’s probably no secret that Brigham Young and Emma Smith never much cared for each other after Joseph’s death. Their personal distaste for each other eventually transformed into a quiet cold war between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints that only really died out in the 1960s and 70s. Brigham Young possibly dissolved the Nauvoo General Relief Society, of which Emma was the elected President, because of this battle of wills between two very stubborn people, and didn’t bother re-forming the society for nearly twenty years, at which point he chose Eliza R. Snow to be President (and the RS Presidents have been called by the President of the Church ever since).

However, just because their organization was at this time absent did not mean that the women crossing the plains were content to simply let that be. Early Mormon women were strong characters and have always continued to be. The founding of the Nauvoo Relief Society corresponded with the fledgling Women’s Suffrage movement (which died during the Civil War only to rise again a generation later but that’s another topic entirely), nowadays viewed as the first wave of American feminism. This feminist strength continued throughout the history of Utah, a territory and state which saw women involved in many levels of organization and politics nearly since the beginning of the territory.

Some interesting tidbits from the journal of Louisa Barnes Pratt, wife of Apostle Addison Pratt (Louisa led her family herself across the plains because he was on a mission in the South Seas at the time). On June 7, 1846 while on the trek through Iowa she records:

“Last evening the ladies met to organize. Mrs. Isaac Chase [Pheobe Chase] was called to the chair! She was also appointed President by unanimous vote. Mrs. L. B. Pratt [Lousia Barnes Pratt] Counsellor and scribe. Several resolutions were adopted. 1st Resolved, that when the brethren call on us to attend prayers, get engaged in conversation and forget what they called us for, that the sisters retire to some convenient place, pray by themselves and go about their business. 2nd if the men wish to hold control over the women let them be on the alert. We believe in equal rights. Meeting adjourned sin ni die [sine die - meeting adjourned with no resumption date set].” (Louisa Barnes Pratt, The History of Louisa Barnes Pratt, pg. 82)

Taken from a post at ByCommonConsent.com.

I wanted to talk about female blessings and such, common at this time and for the next eighty years or so, but I understand that this is a very foreign (and thus extremely uncomfortable) idea to our modern Church (especially after the ERA debacle). If you are interested in that, here is an old article that traces the history of the practice.
]]> http://blog.doggetto.com/2009/07/women-of-the-exodus/feed/ 0 http://blog.doggetto.com/2009/07/adam-ondi-ahman/ http://blog.doggetto.com/2009/07/adam-ondi-ahman/#comments Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:03:43 +0000 NoCoolName_Tom http://blog.doggetto.com/?p=359

This might be a little rushed and odd – this post was requested and I don’t have much free time to write it in. As such I really don’t have many sources. Feel free to call me out on anything wrong. I’ll try to either find sources or edit the post with the correct information.

Adam-ondi-Ahman (usually called simply Di-Ahman by the Mormon settlers) is located in Northern Missouri and was a sizable settlement during 1838. As one of the Mormon headquarters during the Mormon War of 1838 it held Mormon militia prepared to defend themselves and to take, by force occasionally, property from the enemy in recompense for property taken from them earlier by mobs of Missourians (the 1838 conflict is a messy affair and while the Mormons were, by far, not the most violent they did participate in fighting, plundering, and property burning of their own; this is the heyday of the Danites, a band of supporters of Joseph Smith whom he used sparingly but they often got out of control in following the prophet’s counsel).

The word had first appeared in a revelation given in 1832 (D&C 78). In this revelation the word was not defined, although the reference is quickly followed by “Michael”, who was identified by Mormons as the name Adam was known by before and after his mortal life. In 1835 another revelation related an event in the early religious history of humanity where Adam blessed his righteous posterity in a valley called Adam-ondi-Ahman.

A site settled in 1838, called Wright’s Ferry, was renamed by God through Joseph as Adam-ondi-Ahman (see D&C 116); Joseph prophesied that in a future day Adam shall come and visit his people and in this place the Ancient of Days, a title variously interpreted by Mormons as either Adam or God (as for Adam-God, nope, not going there!), will sit. Another revelation a few months later castigated the Saints for covetousness and poetically referred to Adam-ondi-Ahman as the “place where Adam dwelt”. These are the only canonical references.

The Early Saints felt that Wright’s Ferry/Spring Hill/Adam-ondi-Ahman/Cravensville (all of the names by which the area has been called) was either the site of the Garden of Eden mentioned in Genesis itself, or it is the location of a place near Eden where the human race began to grow. Spring Hill was also identified as a Nephite fortification. A temple was supposed to have been built here, but due to the Mormon War of 1838, the plans for the temple were indefinitely abandoned and have not yet been taken up again (it has been suggested, however, that no temple site was ever dedicated, but rather a public square for a new settlement was instead dedicated and this dedication transformed over time into a temple dedication – I will look into this more fully).

Since Adam-ondi-Ahman is identified so closely with Adam it has become a source of curiosity to many people both within and outside the faith. There are, however, a few possibilities when we examine the authoritative evidence as to why the site was named:

1. Adam-ondi-Ahman is the site outside Eden where humanity spread over a Pangaea-like world continent that was flooded in a global flood and was later broken up during the days of Peleg leaving humanity in the new Old World.
2. Adam-ondi-Ahman is the site outside Eden where humanity spread over North America until a limited or global flood washed Noah out to sea where he landed in the Old World (kinda like a reverse Nephi).
3. Adam-ondi-Ahman is a name applied to places where Adam blesses his people and is not tied to any particular location on the earth (like the word Zion which can refer to both specific places and also to the location of the Lord’s people wherever they are). There may be multiple Adam-ondi-Ahmans, at least one in the Old World where Adam blessed his people before he died and one in the New World where Adam will bless his people again in a future day.
4. Adam-ondi-Ahman was named as an attempt at Old-Testamentizing the world view of the early Latter Day Saints: to make them feel as though they were directly taking part in the religious drama of the history of the world. In this view there really is nothing in the past to distinguish the area at all, but the arrival of God’s people gave the land new status and God gave it a new name and promise to reflect that.

My personal view is #4, but there may be better reasons to pick a different view. I view the creation story as a ritualized myth (although I should state categorically that I believe in Eve and Adam as real historical people): the landscape described in Genesis is an idealized view of the entire world known to the ancient Jews. The four main rives of Mesopotamia each flow out of Eden to represent that Eden was the center of the world, the source of humanity, life, and knowledge. As such, I am extremely cautious in approaching the Fall story as real history; I don’t know what happened to Eve and Adam but I know something did. Since early human civilization first arises in Mesopotamia, I suppose Adam and Eve lived near there, although I imagine it was dozens of thousands of years ago, rather than just 6,000 years ago, to give time for their posterity to cover the globe. As such, I view Adam-ondi-Ahman to be so named because it represents exactly what D&C 116 says it represents: an important site in some unknown future date where Adam will visit his people. I view the name as being given to the site in an attempt to involve the American Church in the events of the Old World and the Old Testament and to help them to feel that they are truly related to the events in the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Just as these ancient people were God’s people, so too are the Latter Day Saints God’s people as well. The naming of the site as Adam-ondi-Ahman represents God’s involvement with his people both past, present, and future.

]]> http://blog.doggetto.com/2009/07/adam-ondi-ahman/feed/ 2 http://blog.doggetto.com/2009/06/b-y-transfiguration/ http://blog.doggetto.com/2009/06/b-y-transfiguration/#comments Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:00:17 +0000 NoCoolName_Tom http://blog.doggetto.com/?p=232

In August of 1844 the Church was reeling. Joseph Smith had been murdered at the Carthage jail months before and there was a serious power vacuum in Nauvoo. To make matters worse, Anti-Mormon sentiment in Illinois had not died down and seemed to be continuing to rise. The Church needed direction and leadership, but Joseph had not instructed the general membership of the Church as to what would happen to the Church after his death and had only privately left instructions for some people (like the Twelve). Joseph’s death had been sudden and unexpected and questions abounded: What of the Nauvoo Temple, still to be completed? What to do to lessen the lingering anti-Mormon feelings in Illinois? Should Nauvoo be fortified against attack or should they prepare to leave? Where would they go? If they left how would they sell their homes and their land; what would their creditors think? How should the Church deal with the massive debt it was in?

All of those questions centered, however, upon one all-encompassing question: Who’s in charge?

There were many different people who could have filled the void left behind by Joseph Smith. Most members of the Church had heard Joseph publicly say that, if Joseph ever died, his brother Hyrum would lead the Church. Hyrum had died with Joseph at Carthage. Some others had insisted that Joseph’s oldest son, Joseph Smith III, had been given a patriarchal blessing which announced he would be the next Prophet. James Jesse Strang, a recent convert, had been called by Joseph to establish a Stake of Zion in Wisconsin and announced that this call, combined with an angelic visitation directly after Joseph’s death, was his calling to lead the Church to their new home in Wisconsin. Sidney Ridgon returned from Pennsylvania (where he had been called to go by Joseph Smith) and claimed leadership based on his membership in the First Presidency. Some of the Apostles felt that the Council of Fifty, a religious/political organization organized by Joseph Smith, was the highest governing body of the Church and should lead the Church until a new President could be called. Other Apostles felt that the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles should fit that role.

Brigham Young returned to Nauvoo on August 6 from a mission and immediately took charge. On August 8 an outdoor conference was assembled at which Sidney Rigdon was invited to speak. At this conference, Brigham Young addressed the crowd that was gathered and spoke strongly for the leadership of the Quorum of the Twelve. So strong was his speaking that of a group of hundreds only twenty raised their hands to sustain President Rigdon as the leader of the Church.

Most Church members in the crowd that day did not write their feelings or experiences. Of the few that later did, some reported that they had received a spiritual witness that Brigham Young and the rest of the Twelve were divinely appointed to lead the Church.

A few months later we have the first journal accounts of what that witness might have been for some present.

On 15 November 1844, Henry and Catharine Brooke wrote from Nauvoo that Brigham Young “favours Br Joseph, both in person, & manner of speaking more than any person ever you saw, looks like another.” (D. Michael Quinn, “Succession Crisis”, BYU Studies 16, no. 2 (1976) p 18)

Over the next few months the list of accounts grows and, once the Saints had arrived in Utah, exploded. Over 120 people recorded that they had either seen or heard (or both) Brigham Young transfigured to look and/or sound like Joseph Smith while speaking.

For early Utah Mormons these accounts provided an impressive divine proof of Brigham Young’s prophetic mantle. However, the lack of a single contemporary account (i.e., anything written within a few weeks of the August 8th meeting) has caused some people to question whether the transfiguration of Brigham Young was seen by many people (a few antagonistic historians would even question whether the event happened at all and simply represents a “fish tale” that grew with each retelling).

As Kevin Barney writes in a FARMS review of a book detailing the witnesses of the account:

“Does it really matter whether numerous Saints saw something of Joseph in Brigham that day? What truly matters is that the keys were passed from Joseph to Brigham, not whether Brigham was perceived as Joseph.”

I recall that, at the MHA [Mormon History Association] meetings in Kirtland a few years ago, in a session on Joseph Smith biography, this topic of the passing of the mantle of the Prophet from Joseph to Brigham came up, and the discussion that ensued was a sort of microcosm of the different approaches taken to this issue. Someone in the audience mentioned that the Saints all perceived Joseph in Brigham that day. This is probably a common, if simplistic, view of the event. The assumption is that everyone had this experience and that we must have good contemporaneous evidence of that fact. Then someone raised his hand and challenged the original comment, with the perspective that there is no evidence that the event occurred at all, that it is a sort of Mormon urban legend. Finally, a number of people, referencing the Jorgensen article from BYU Studies, gave a more realistic recounting of the experience. Most people present at that event did not make a written record of the day’s events at all, and the accounts of the transformation of Brigham that we do have are later recollections, not contemporaneous accounts. But, with those limitations understood, we actually do have a substantial number of accounts by individuals who did in some way perceive Joseph in Brigham. The more cautious approach to the event suggested by the documentation collected by Jorgensen takes us on a course between the naive simplicity of youthful assumptions and the nihilistic cynicism of one who has been burned by such expectations one too many times.” (Kevin Barney, “Review of Opening the Heavens”, The FARMS Review 18/2 (2006) p. 186-187.)

The middle road is that we should be cautious whenever we use the account of Brigham’s transfiguration. Even Brigham Young himself was uncertain whether it happened: “Brother Carrington’s testimony proves to you that men’s eyes are liable to be deceived. It may appear strange to some that he could not tell me from Joseph Smith, when I was speaking in the stand in Nauvoo during the October Conference [President Young is probably mistaken on the date of this conference; it took place in August, nearly thirteen years before] of 1844. Somebody came along and passed a finger over his eyes and he could not see any one but Joseph speaking, until I got through addressing the congregation.” (19 July 1857, J.D. vol. 5, p. 57-58)

While most probably saw nothing of the sort, at least some people had a spiritual manifestation of Brigham’s call and saw Brigham Young as Joseph Smith; what an experience and a witness that must have been!

]]> http://blog.doggetto.com/2009/06/b-y-transfiguration/feed/ 5 http://blog.doggetto.com/2009/06/carthage-jail/ http://blog.doggetto.com/2009/06/carthage-jail/#comments Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:00:44 +0000 NoCoolName_Tom http://blog.doggetto.com/?p=193

There were many factors that led to Joseph Smith’s martyrdom: polygamy, his running for President, the newly formed “Reform Church” operating in Nauvoo that was leading to a fracturing of social life, his public disdain for Missouri, and his leadership of the Nauvoo Legion (meaning that Joseph, as Mayor of Nauvoo, Leader of the Nauvoo Militia, and Leader of the Church was in charge of Nauvoo from a religious, political, and military perspective at the same time – that amount of power in a single person was troubling). However, the one factor that looms over them all is his decision, ratified by the Nauvoo City Council, to close the tabloidish paper: the Nauvoo Expositor (Note: Richard E. Bennett, BYU professor of Church history and doctrine disagrees; I like his post – a good focus on the scriptures. I need to do that more!).

On June 7, 1844, the one and only issue of the Nauvoo Expositor was printed. As opposed to the general modern LDS explanations of the paper, the Nauvoo Expositor was not a paper full of lies, per se (I can, if anyone wants, go into the details of the paper, its claims, and the few outright fabrications that it does contain). It was a tabloid—a paper of yellow journalism. The editors’ stated purpose was not to destroy the Church or even for Joseph Smith’s death: they wanted a return to the Church of a few years ago before new doctrines (like polygamy) began to be preached privately and publicly, to put down the new “worldly” culture of dancing, parties, and “excesses” that had developed in Nauvoo, and they also wanted to break apart the immense power that Joseph held as both Mayor, Legion Commander, and Prophet by revoking the powerful Nauvoo Charter. The information it “exposed” was mostly accurate (apart from a claim by the wildly excessive Elias Higbee that Joseph was guilty of Murder!!!1!!11! and a few other equally outrageous claims), but the delivery and manner of the paper was scandalous and loud (it also contained some pretty poor poetry, which some people might consider to be a crime worthy of destruction, I suppose). The Nauvoo city council debated all through Friday, Saturday, and Monday and finally a decision was made that, allowable with the power granted by the Nauvoo Charter, the city was legally justified in forcibly closing the paper as a public nuisance. Joseph was possibly upset at sacred things being revealed, but I’d argue that he was probably more worried about what their public exposure would mean for the surrounding countryside which had grown increasingly anti-Mormon in recent months. The existence of the paper certainly threatened him personally, but its claims were likely to lead to violence upon Nauvoo.

The paper was closed while the owners were away and they returned to find that not only had their paper been closed, but the printing press had been broken and bent, the printed pages were burned, and the type had been dumped in the street while some of the editors had watched. Upset at the destruction of their property and what they saw as an infringement of the Federal Bill of Rights, they quickly called up Joseph Smith on the charge of instigating riot. A few days later, after being convinced by some of the frightened residents of Nauvoo to give themselves up to the mercy of the Illinois courts, Joseph and Hyrum rode to Carthage where they were incarcerated in the local jail awaiting a trial on Saturday, June 29.

As for whether or not Joseph knew he would be killed at Carthage the question is unanswerable. He was certainly frightened about his safety. Some of him closest friends and confidants later related that he said phrases that indicated his coming death. Perhaps the most famous of these was recorded by John Taylor who reported Joseph saying, upon leaving Nauvoo, “I am going like a lamb to the slaughter; but I am calm as a summer’s morning; I have a conscience void of offense towards God, and towards all men. I SHALL DIE INNOCENT, AND IT SHALL YET BE SAID OF ME—HE WAS MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD.” (D&C 135:4, emphasis in original). However, some of Joseph’s actions and words while in prison seem to indicate a hopeful optimism. He wrote a letter to Emma (one of many from the jail) in which he said, “There was a little mutiny among the ‘Carthage Greys’; but I think the Gov. has & will succeed in enforcing the laws” (June 25, 1884). Joseph’s last letter was actually to an attorney, O.H. Browning of Quincy, Illinois (an acquaintance to the young Illinois lawyer Abraham Lincoln). Joseph asked him to come up to Carthage to represent him and Hyrum on Saturday the 29th (two days after the martyrdom); Joseph was certain that, with a good legal counsel, he and Hyrum could more than adequately show their innocence to the charge of treason. The mobs in Carthage accosted the letter carrier, thinking the letter to contain instructions to the Nauvoo Legion, but finally the letter came through. I have been unable to find if Mr. Browning ever gave any sort of response. [Edit: I have found his response---he arrived in Carthage and was the defense attorney for the anti-Mormon mob. Apparently he had represented Joseph before and this time represented his killers.]

Possibly because of this letter, it is sometimes claimed that Joseph wrote a letter to Jon Dunham, captain of the Nauvoo Legion, to come to Carthage to free him by force of arms. The story has floated around for a long time and the evidence seemingly appeared in the early 1980s when the letter Joseph wrote to Durham was found. However, the letter was later revealed to be one of the masterful forgeries by Mark Hoffman. To this day there is no evidence that Joseph ever gave orders to the militia apart from securing Nauvoo against possible mob action during Joseph’s absence.

As the hot afternoon of the 27th wore on, the men in the room sat around in a melancholic state. “A Poor Wayfaring man of Grief” was sung twice (the tune at this time was not the turn we currently have in our hymnbook, but was a lighter, happier tune; this account of Hyrum asking it to be sung again directly led to the 1985 hymnbook’s claim of “Favorite Song of the Prophet Joseph Smith”, a claim with little evidence). The jailer’s family offered the men some wine, which those gathered gratefully accepted. John Taylor later spoke of this: “Sometime after dinner we sent for some wine. It has been reported by some that this was taken as a sacrament. It was no such thing,; our spirits were generally dull and heavy, and it was sent for to revive us…. I believe we all drank of the wine, and gave some to one or two of the prison guards. We all of us felt unusually dull and languid, with a remarkable depression of spirits.” (History of the Church, Vol. 7, page 101) I don’t want to mention this for the shock value (The Church at this period in history did not follow the Word of Wisdom as we do today; a living and changing Church remember!) but simply to try and paint in the picture of the mood in the room that afternoon.

(This next part is violent…) The attack upon the jail occurred soon thereafter around 5 pm; the jailer was absent and the guards were friends of the gathering mob. The attack began suddenly. In the confusion, Hyrum was struck in the face by a bullet through the door and went down. He was able to exclaim “I’m a dead man!” before another bullet was fired from the doorway that grazed his chest and struck his head though his throat. John Taylor ran to the window to assess the situation outside. From there he was struck in the leg and arm; he fell onto the windowsill, breaking his watch (later many would say that the watch had miraculously stopped a bullet, but analysis of the watch indicates that probably a spring in the watch burst out when Elder Taylor fell on the windowsill; either way, the watch stopped showing the time of the attack at 5:16 pm).

After firing a gun (smuggled to him earlier by some visiting friends) into the crowd in the hallway, Joseph ran to the window and started to appeal to any fellow Masons in the crowd by stating the Masonic distress call, “O Lord, my God, is there no help for the widow’s son?” However, he was struck before he could finish and fell out of the window after crying “O Lord, my God!” Many of the Apostles would speak out strongly against the Masons in the crowd who knew Joseph was pleading for their aid but continued to aid in the assassination. This call for distress is supposed to be answered with safety and quarter from any fellow Mason except where it would endanger their own life, as well (I hope I’m not saying too much; I’m not a Mason and I don’t know if this is supposed to be secret. I can edit this down if need be). John Taylor wrote a few weeks later in the Times and Seasons that he felt that fellow Masons should rise up for justice:


“Every good man will do it when he remembers, that these two innocent men were confined in jail for a supposed crime, deprived of any weapons to defend themselves: had the pledged faith of the State of Illinois, by Gov. Ford, for their protection, and were then shot to death, while, with uplifted hands they gave such signs of distress as would have commanded the interposition and benevolence of Savages or Pagans. They were both Masons in good standing. Ye brethren of ‘the mystic tie’ what think ye! Where is our good master Joseph and Hyrum? Is there a pagan, heathen, or savage nation on the globe that would not be moved on this great occasion, as the trees of the forest by a mighty wind? Joseph’s last exclamation was ‘O Lord my God’…
Me-thinks I see a ‘union of all honest men’, aside from religion, stand forth to magnify the law, who will never rest till justice and judgement have made the offenders, abettors and accesories, whether apostates, officers, or mere men, atone for the innocent blood of Joseph and Hyrum Smith” (Times and Seasons, vol. 5 no. 13 [July 15, 1844], p. 584-585).

I know this point is still contentious as we are arguing about what a person was intending to do right before they died, but the best interpreters of Joseph’s actions are probably those who were closest to him at the time, and many of his friends and brethren felt that Joseph was not simply offering a prayer but was pleading for assistance. Personally, I don’t think this makes Joseph any less of a martyr as some will argue.

Joseph probably died as he hit the ground outside. A later fanciful account would talk of a firing squad that ended his life as he was pulling himself up to a sitting position at the base of the wall, but other aspects of that account make it highly suspect: supposedly after the squad was finished a man rushed up with a knife to mutilate the Prophet. This man was then struck by a blinding light, seen by all the mob, that froze them all in place. The light disappeared and the mob was freed and everyone fled from the scene.

A usually unknown aspect of the Carthage attack was that Samuel Smith, brother to Joseph and Hyrum, was racing on horseback from Nauvoo to Carthage to help Joseph and get advice for the city. In approaching Carthage he was spotted by the mob and was chased away. (It is possible that he was assumed to be a scout for the Nauvoo Legion by many in the mob, leading the mob to quickly disperse with cries of “The Mormons are coming!”) Returning to the jail much later, Samuel helped with the recovery of the injured and the slain who had been moved to the nearby home of a Mr. Hamilton. Samuel made it safely back to Nauvoo and later attended the viewing of his brothers. A few weeks afterward he complained of an ache in his side that he had received after racing from the mob and went to his bed to lay down. He died a few days later; his mother attributes his death to shock from the mob, the chase, and seeing his brothers dead. Samuel is often called the Third Martyr and was listed as such in a later issue of the Times and Seasons. Samuel was expected by some to be called as the Patriarch of the Church soon in Hyrum’s place and many members of the Church had heard Joseph publicly state that either Hyrum or Samuel would lead the Church after Joseph’s death. The death of all three Smith brothers paved the way for the confusing and depressing summer of the “Succession Crisis” of 1844.

]]> http://blog.doggetto.com/2009/06/carthage-jail/feed/ 0 http://blog.doggetto.com/2009/06/the-nauvoo-cultural-hall/ http://blog.doggetto.com/2009/06/the-nauvoo-cultural-hall/#comments Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:00:04 +0000 NoCoolName_Tom http://blog.doggetto.com/?p=183

The Nauvoo Cultural Hall is a part of the Church’s extensive renovation and restoration work on various buildings from Old Nauvoo. However, the building is not a full restoration and there are large differences between the modern building and it’s nineteenth-century counterpart.

Old Pictures of the Old Masonic Hall and 1978 Restoration

The Nauvoo Masonic Hall was built during 1844 and was dedicated in April 1844 by Hyrum Smith. Many of the Saints at this time were Masons: a fraternity that dates from 17th Century Europe and has a mythical history that idealizes its rituals and knowledge were passed down from a mythic stonemason, Hiram Abiff, who worked on King Solomon’s Temple. Joseph Smith, Sr., and Hyrum Smith had belonged to the Freemason fraternity since their days in Palmyra, although Joseph had never joined the organization until Nauvoo.

The Masonic Hall was indeed a cultural center (boasting possibly 26 different uses, although some of those uses overlap): the first floor held a theater which often featured famous actors of the day (Brigham Young famously played an Incan King in a staging of Pizarro causing the non-Mormon director to jokingly lament years later that Brigham was “still playing the part!”). Dancing and parties were often held in the building as well. The second floor contained political offices (er, literal offices, like rooms); the mayor’s office and the Nauvoo Legion were directed from this floor. The third floor contained the actual Lodge, where Masonic ritual and ceremony were performed. Helen Mar Whitney Kimball remembered, “We held an occasional concert in the Masonic Hall which, according to history, was considered the most substantial and best finished Masonic Temple in the western states.” Before the Masonic Hall was built, Masons had met in the second floor of Joseph Smith’s Red Brick Store.

[See the comments below by George Miller for more info on this paragraph.] American culture seems to have had a dark [dim] view of the Masonic fraternity since the early 1800s. Many early members of the Church, like W. W. Phelps, were distrustful of any sort of secret society and many early Mormons saw the Book of Mormon’s warnings of “secret combinations” as a warning against the Masons specifically. In the early 1840s [Early in his life] Joseph Smith seems to have become curious regarding the organization and in 1844 formally joined and quickly advanced through the ranks of the Nauvoo Lodge. He stated that there were many good things in Freemasonry and many [some] things that had been corrupted. Many of the Saints followed the example of Joseph and the Nauvoo Lodge flourished. Even after the Nauvoo Temple was completed and the Saints started receiving their endowments, Mormon Masons continued to participate in the Masonic Hall until Brigham Young closed the Hall during preparations for the westward trek. Masonic rituals, images, and symbols continued to be employed by the early Utah saints. In our modern day, unfortunately, the Freemasons continue to evoke images of secret political organizations and secret oaths. Americans generally don’t understand why most of the American “Founding Fathers” were also Masons, thus giving rise to dumb entertainment like “National Treasure” and Dan Brown’s forthcoming book “The Lost Symbol”. However, the Freemasons are still in existence and, after restrictions against Mormons were removed by the Salt Lake City Grand Lodge in 1984, have many active and faithful Mormon members. The Masons are an organization devoted to making good men better and building up their local communities through service. They also bear absolutely no connection to the Stonecutters (I couldn’t resist).

After the Mormons left and the building was sold (at a pitiful $4.47 at auction) the building was transformed into a house: the theater and offices were converted into rooms and the third floor was entirely removed. In 1967 the LDS Church bought the building again and began reconstruction a few years later, finishing in 1978.

During the reconstruction the original floor of the third floor was found under the roof. LDS reconstuctionists looked at the original floor in an attempt to determine how best to rebuild the building. However, at this period in Church history Mormons had left Masonry behind for nearly a century and the reconstructionists were unequipped to interpret the floor markings. Mistaking many of the markings for that of a dance floor the third floor was reconstructed as a ballroom, complete with a new musicians box. Modern analysis by Mormon Masonic researchers has matched the markings on the floor to ritual items such as an altar, candlesticks, and worn areas on the wood where countless Nauvoo Masons advanced through their degrees. The Church, uncomfortable with the term “Masonic Hall”, renamed the building as the “Cultural Hall” – since modern Church buildings often hold parties, theater, and dancing in our modern Cultural Halls the term seemed appropriate for the variegated use of the building. However, the word would have been meaningless to an original resident of Nauvoo.

Of course, that does not preclude the possibility of dancing on the top floor, however, but there isn’t much evidence of it. There were many parties and dancing that occurred in the Masonic Hall on the first floor. It is likely that the Saints love of dancing started from this time in Nauvoo. Dances could have been held in the Lodge part — we know that dances were occasionally held in the Nauvoo Temple after Endowment ceremonies completed. Many of the apostates during the last days of Nauvoo spoke out strongly against the dancing of the Saints, “we discountenance and disapprobate the attendance at houses of reveling and dancing; dram-shops and theaters.” Needless to say, the Saints continued to dance across the plains and, to this day, Utah culture continues to foster the arts of theater and dancing!

Some modern Mormon historians have proposed the full restoration of the third floor as a Masonic lodge, in order that the missionary tour guides would have a safe place to discuss the Masonic history of Nauvoo (and to discontinue the incorrect discussion of the top floor as a ballroom), but such a decision seems unlikely until either Church culture or American culture comes to terms with their collective Masonic history.

For further info: Probable Layout of Nauvoo Lodge room, cs. 1843 Restoring the Nauvoo Lodge Room – FAIR Freemasonry in Nauvoo – Encyclopedia of Mormonism

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