Nightfall At Nauvoo
Chronology
The new sect claimed to be a restoration of the primitive church of Christ, with
priesthood
authority restored by heavenly beings. It rapidly gained adherents, but seemed to excite either
faith or antagonism. Before the end of the first year, local animosity caused Joseph to take the
church to Kirtland, Ohio, where missionaries had had considerable success.
A branch of the church was also established in Jackson County, Missouri, near
Independence, a place revealed as the New Jerusalem which would be the gathering place for the
Saints in the last days. Here in June, 1832, the first church newspaper, The Evening and the
Morning Star, began monthly publication, W. W. Phelps, editor. Within a year some 1,200
Saints had gathered at the New Jerusalem, and soon afterward the apprehension of their
neighbors exploded in mob violence when an item in the Star was considered abolitionist by
citizens of this slave state. The Saints were forced out of Jackson County. Many went to Clay
County, while some returned to Kirtland.
The first Mormon temple was dedicated at Kirtland in 1836, at which time, witnesses
declared, "The visions of heaven were opened, angels administered to them, and the house was
filled with the glory of God." Meanwhile, the colony at Clay County, Missouri, was expelled and
gathered again at Far West, in Caldwell County.
Inner dissension shook the church at Kirtland in 1837. This, coupled with legal
difficulties,
financial problems, and mob violence, caused Joseph to lead the faithful to Missouri in January,
1838. At Spring Hill, in Daviess County, Joseph named the place Adam-Ondi-Ahman, "the
place where Adam shall come to visit his people or the Ancient of Days shall sit, as spoken of by
the Prophet Daniel."
That day was not at hand, however, for by August the whole of upper Missouri was in
an
uproar about the Mormons, and Governor -Lilburn W. Boggs mobilized the militia. Mob attacks
and Mormon retaliation reached such a pitch that on October 27 Governor Boggs issued the order
that the Saints should be expelled from Missouri or exterminated. Joseph and several others
were arrested, court-martialed, and sentenced to be shot. Fortunately, General Doniphan of the
militia happened to be Joseph's attorney, and he refused to execute the order. Joseph and five
others were jailed at Liberty, while Brigham Young took charge of the exodus from Missouri.
In April, the prisoners who had been jailed at Liberty made their escape. On the first of
May Joseph purchased two farms at Commerce, some fifty miles upriver from Quincy. This
location was renamed Nauvoo.
Site of the new city was beautiful but deadly, a marshland from which arose the
noxious
miasm that gave the Saints the chills and fever. With resistance lowered by the winter's
hardships, and families now crowded into cowsheds, tents, wagon boxes, the people fell ready
victim of the ague. Sickness hampered the work of clearing the land, trenching the swamp,
planting crops; there was even a shortage of labor to dig graves. Joseph and others performed
miracles of healing but, despite all that faith and medication could do, half the population died
the first summer. In the autumn, Brigham Young and others of the Twelve left for England on
missions. While there, they converted thousands of people, sending many shiploads of them to
Nauvoo. However, with the Apostles away, Joseph was deprived of the counsel and services of
his most capable men, and became influenced by politicians and opportunists.
The Mormons had been warmly welcomed into Illinois as persecuted refugees from
oppression; yet within this first year their neighbors began turning against the Saints, as they had
at every other place of gathering. A key date was October 29, when Joseph and three others left
for Washington to petition the President and Congress for restitution of losses suffered during the
expulsion from Missouri. This expedition had most unfortunate results. A Senatorial
investigation brought out evidence of Mormon violence that branded the Saints as fanatical
terrorists in the eyes of the Nation. Governor Boggs reacted to the attack on the honor of himself
and his state by making every effort, from that time on, to bring Joseph back to Missouri for trial,
by means fair or foul. The Times and Seasons began publication in November.
On July 7, a search party from Tully, Missouri, found a large cache of stolen goods near
the
river at Nauvoo; they kidnapped four Mormons found in the vicinity, taking them to Tully and
extorting confessions through beatings. The Mormons claimed frameup; on this basis Governor
Carlin of Illinois lodged strong protest to Governor Boggs. However, after hearing the Missouri
side of the affair, Governor Carlin turned against the Saints, for it was obvious that the cache was
entirely too big, its contents stolen over too long a period of time, for the whole thing to be
merely a scheme to entrap just any four Mormons who happened near. Also, at least one of the
four was a notorious thief. The Tully affair drove Joseph into hiding, as Governor Boggs
demanded his extradition, and went far toward convincing the Governor and people of Illinois
that the entire Society of the Mormons was allied to the banditti.
-The election. The Mormons voted as a bloc. Nauvoo already was the largest city of
Hancock County, and growing so fast it soon would be largest in the state. While politicians fell
over themselves currying favor, Mormon power engendered fear of Mormon domination.
-The Nauvoo charter. Bennett pushed this measure through the state legislature and, as
a
reward, became the city's first mayor. The charter made Nauvoo almost a kingdom within the
state. The authority of the municipal court was construed to be superior to the county and even
the state. Gentiles claimed it was impossible to convict a Mormon on any charge at Nauvoo.
-The Nauvoo Legion. The energetic Bennett built this city militia into the largest
military
body in the Nation, except the U.S. Army. Apprehensive Gentiles wondered what was the
purpose of this armed force. Rumors of Mormon plans to take over the county, state, and the
Nation grew wildly.
-The temple. The mystery surrounding this building, the labor and materials lavished
upon
it-which the Saints could ill afford-caused the temple to become a symbol of impending Mormon
dominance. It was no secret that the Saints expected charisma to accompany its completion, when
they would be endowed with supernatural powers for overwhelming the world.
-Polygamy. Persistent whispers of this practice had begun within a year of the church's
founding, to be furiously denied, for Joseph realized public outrage could smash the church. Yet
at last it became a matter of record when he took Louisa Beman as a plural wife the day prior to
the laying of the temple cornerstones in April, 1841 - the first such marriage ceremony performed
before witnesses.
Bennett's rise to power during these nine months seemed ended at one point, when
Joseph
learned the horrid secret that had dogged the past of this most capable but unstable man. (He was
a sexual sophisticate.) But in a dramatic gesture of repentance, Bennett took poison (probably a
carefully measured dose) and convinced Joseph of being born anew. Over this crisis, Bennett's
star continued its rapid rise. On the day following the laying of the temple cornerstones he was
appointed assistant president of the church.
Joseph, flushed with success, warned the anti-Mormons that he would become
President of
the Nation and make them toe the mark. When Sharp broadcast this boast in the Signal, it
confirmed Gentile fears.
Joseph called the Apostles home from England. They arrived in July to find the first
counselor in the church presidency, Sidney Rigdon, in virtual eclipse, and the dashing newcomer,
Bennett, second to Joseph. Quietly they began undermining Bennett's authority.
That winter, Joseph published the Book of Abraham, translated from papyri found in a
mummy case. Tom Sharp burlesqued Joseph's translation in the Signal (beginning a controversy
that still continues, being revived at the rediscovery of the papyri more than a century later, in
1967)
Don Carlos Smith, editor of the Times and Seasons and younger brother of the prophet,
died of the ague. John Taylor after a period became editor. Meanwhile, work progressed on the
temple, which to the Gentiles looked more and more like a fortress. And as converts by the
thousand poured into Nauvoo and satellite communities, too many of them belonged to the
growing underworld. Joseph was forced to dissolve the church stake at nearby Ramus, which
had become "a nest of thieves."
Then on May 6, 1842, Joseph's great enemy, ex-Governor Lilbum W. Boggs, was shot.
(Despite several balls in his brain, he survived.) Gentiles claimed Joseph had sent Porter
Rockwell to do the job. Joseph retorted, "Port wouldn't have missed.")
The following day, Joseph became convinced that John C. Bennett planned to have him
killed during a sham battle of the Nauvoo Legion climaxing the grand Programma Militaire.
Bennett's star went into eclipse.
However, instead of quietly limping away with his hurt-as had Oliver Cowdery and
others
once intimate with the prophet and holding high office-Bennett struck back with vindictive fury.
In a sensational series of newspaper articles, expanded into a book, Bennett took the lid
off
Nauvoo. He told of plural marriage; of the Nauvoo underworld, with the city a depot for stolen
goods; of the plan for world domination (a plan so secret it took a hundred years for scholars to
corroborate Bennett's story).' Bennett went on a lecture tour, denouncing the abominations at
Nauvoo. He joined Boggs in the endless plotting to entrap Joseph and bring him back to
Missouri for trial.
Joseph sent Out 300 missionaries to refute Bennett's attack. But as outside forces grew
menacing, the prophet went into hiding.
In the 1842 elections, the solid Mormon vote put Thomas Ford into the governor's
chair. In
return, Ford advised Joseph to clear himself legally from Boggs' attempts at extradition by
surrendering to the Missouri writ and having it denied. Joseph did this, but Boggs wasn't
through.
Porter Rockwell now was in a Missouri dungeon, charged with the attempted
assassination
of Boggs, and the sheriff of Jackson County came to arrest Joseph on the charge of conspiracy to
murder. While Joseph was visiting his wife's relatives in the north of the state, at Dixon, the
sheriff and an Illinois constable, posing as Mormon missionaries, took the prophet into custody.
The plan was to rush him to Rock Island, where a boat waited with steam up to take him down
the Mississippi to Missouri.
Joseph dispatched two men toward Nauvoo for help, and fought a legal delaying action.
He
made a deal with Cyrus Walker, prominent lawyer and Whig candidate for Congress, who agreed
to defend him in return for a healthy fee and the promise of Joseph's vote in the upcoming
elections. Walker obtained a change of venue that would allow Joseph to appear for hearing at
Nauvoo - where his own court could be expected to discharge him on the customary writ of
habeas corpus. On the return trip, Joseph met a body of Mormon horsemen galloping to the
rescue; he came back to Nauvoo in triumph, thousands lining the road as a brass band ushered
him into his own city.
On July 4, 1843, some 13,000 people poured into Nauvoo for a great celebration.
On July 12, the prophet dictated the revelation on plural marriage. Now it was on paper
and, though still to be a secret practice, its acceptance as doctrine was required of the church
hierarchy. This split Nauvoo wide open. William Law of the first presidency led a group who
became convinced that Joseph was a fallen prophet whose more recent revelations concerning
baptism for the dead, multiple gods, and plural wives were of the devil. Former intimates
became bitter enemies. Someone close to Joseph poisoned his food at a banquet in the prophet's
own home.
The Governor of Missouri protested to Governor Ford that Joseph had escaped custody
illegally in the Dixon affair, and requested that Ford supply troops for Joseph's capture and
extradition. Ford wanted the Democratic candidate for Congress elected rather than the Whig,
Cyrus Walker, and delayed action on the Missouri writ until after elections-a political horse trade
that put Joseph on the horns of a dilemma. He had promised the vote to Walker; yet unless
Walker lost the election the prophet faced extradition to Missouri, and he knew he'd never come
back alive.
The strain of the Dixon episode and the poisoning had undermined Joseph's vitality.
He
was seriously sick at election time when he employed a desperate stratagem by personally voting
for Walker while advising his people to follow his brother Hyrum, who claimed to have had a
revelation to vote for the other candidate.
Public reaction was violent. Walker was outraged. Even the victorious Democrats
were
apprehensive of the capricious Mormon voting power. Governor Ford, trying to cover up his
deal, sent word to Joseph that the only solution to the Mormon problem in Illinois was for the
Saints to leave the state.
On the last day of August, Joseph moved into the newly completed Nauvoo Mansion,
designed as his home and also a hotel. Indicative of the cloak-and- dagger situation was the
secret panel in a closet opening on an escape route.
Nauvoo and its prophet had become a magnet for travelers. The period was
characterized
by big dinner parties at which wine flowed freely and extravagant toasts were drunk to the grand
Mormon dream of world domination.
A party on Christmas night was perhaps Joseph's finest hour. Here he was presented as
candidate for the Presidency of the United States. Sidney Rigdon would be his running mate.
A ragged ruffian with a wild beard burst into the party. Joseph began grappling with
him,
then cried, "Port!" Porter Rockwell was back from a Missouri dungeon, released after nine
months for lack of evidence in the Boggs shooting.
Joseph meanwhile organized his campaign for the Presidency, sending the Apostles and
some 240 Elders out stumping for the Smith-Rigdon ticket. On the eve of a political convention
at Nauvoo in May, Josiah Quincy visited the city; he subsequently wrote a penetrating analysis of
the prophet but was unaware of tensions that were due to explode in violence. But the Saints
believed the prophet invincible; Nauvoo was proclaimed the "center stake of Zion forever" of the
kingdom of God, and the secret Council of Fifty was organized to run things at the expected
takeover. Joseph was confident of election. "Steamboat elections"-polls taken on river
boats-showed him leading other candidates.
On June 7, William Law's dissident group published the Nauvoo Expositor, calling for
separation of church and state, freedom of the press, discontinuance of the "gathering" that had
invited trouble time and again, the end of "tyranny and oppression," and the abolition of
"abominations and whoredoms."
Joseph ordered the paper and its press destroyed. This was the spark which ignited the
powder keg. When arrested for destroying the Expositor, Joseph automatically was freed by his
own court. But this was once too often. As mobs gathered, Joseph declared martial law and
mobilized the Legion. Governor Ford called out the state militia.
Realizing that further resistance would mean civil war, Joseph fled across the river in
the
night. When accused of cowardice for deserting his people, he returned and submitted to arrest.
Joseph and Hyrum Smith, Willard Richards, and John Taylor were in the county jail at
Carthage two days later, June 27, when a mob stormed it. The attack was prearranged: the jail
guard had loaded their own pieces with blanks, while the company of militia on hand to preserve
the peace, the Carthage Greys, stood by as the mob killed Joseph and Hyrum and seriously
wounded Taylor.
Nauvoo now experienced its most prosperous period. Fine brick homes were built.
Every
effort was made to push the completion of the temple. Nauvoo was reaffirmed as the center
stake of Zion forever.
However, the Nauvoo charter was repealed in January, 1845The largest city of Illinois
no
longer had legal existence. It was without municipal machinery; the powerful court was gone,
nothing of greater authority remaining than the justice of the peace.
The collapse of the city government brought an upsurge of the Nauvoo underworld.
Five
hundred police were appointed in a desperate effort to maintain law and order.
On May 24, the capstone of the temple was laid. As this was celebrated, only high
church
leaders knew that a decision had been made to abandon Nauvoo. Sam Brannan, visiting from
New York, was commissioned by Brigham Young to charter a ship and take a colony of eastern
Saints around the Horn to California, to prepare a place there for the Saints who would journey
overland from Nauvoo.
Now the city was put up for sale - including the temple itself - at distress prices. A fine
brick
home in the city, together with a farm on the outskirts, might bring $200.
Nauvoo was converted into a great wagon-making factory, as homes, shops, even the
temple basement, became part of the preparation for the exodus.
Meanwhile, the Saints made heroic effort to complete the temple they would have to
leave.
This was the Lord's commandment; and also there had been awesome predictions that Jesus
would return to occupy it and that the Saints would be endowed with charisma at its completion.
Anti-Brigham forces tried to hamper the work; there were attempts to burn the structure. Men
working on the building kept guns and knives beside their tools.
Attempts to apprehend the Twelve increased. On December 18, five Apostles,
including
Brigham Young, were indicted for counterfeiting.
Meanwhile in the East, Sam Brannan had involved the church in the notorious A. G.
Benson deal - unless Brigham agreed to deed half the land settled by the Mormons in their new
location to Benson's gang, the U.S. Army would come upriver from New Orleans to prevent the
exodus from Nauvoo.
At a meeting in the temple, the Nauvoo chief of police, Hosea Stout, revealed that a
gang of
assassins had sworn to murder Brigham and the Twelve. Enemy spies had infiltrated Nauvoo,
and some were even members of Stout's police force.
Brigham put the people on four-hour alert. They were safe from the threat downriver
so
long as the Mississippi remained frozen. But a thaw came in January, 1846. When the ice broke
up and the river cleared, the exodus began from Nauvoo, February 4.