The John Johnson Farm House
(Joseph Received 16 sections of the D&C in this home!)
John Johnson Farm House Bowery
Side View of John Johnson Farm House
Joseph and Emma’s bedroom in the
John Johnson Farm House
Development of the Church in Ohio
Nearly 1/3 of the revelations in the D&C were
received between August 1831 and April 1834.
William E. McLellin and William Law are two men
that it’s hard to say anything good about. Both were
apostles, but became so anti-Mormon that they
sought to kill Joseph.
Joseph later said that William McLellin had more
learning than sense.
William McLellin tried to write a revelation from God
and failed miserably (Doctrine & Covenants 66).
At the 5th Conference of the Church on Nov. 1, 1831, the
proposal was made to publish 10,000 copies of the Book of
Commandments. The brethren settled on publishing 3,000.
The biggest complaint by some was that they felt that not all
of the revelations were of God and that anyone (including
Joseph Smith) could have written them.
On December 4th, 1831 Newel K. Whitney was called to be the
2nd Bishop of the Church (Edward Partridge was in Missouri
already serving as Bishop).
These two Bishops were more like Presiding Bishops of the
Church today.
When Newel was called, his reply was, “Brother Joseph, I can’t
see a Bishop in me.” Joseph told him to ask the Lord about it.
“No one but God could see it in him and he turned
out to be a natural Bishop, a first class man of affairs.
Probably no other incumbent of that important office,
the Presiding Bishopric, to which he eventually
attained, had been better qualified than Newel K.
Whitney.
After asking the Lord, he heard a voice from heaven
say “Thy strength is in me.” That was enough for
him. He accepted the office and served faithfully until
the end of his days, (18 years).
He died in Utah and was buried close to where the
Church Office building stands today. His home stood
where the General Relief Society Building now stands.
The Amherst Conference – Jan. 1832
Joseph Smith was presented and sustained as the
President of the High Priesthood.
This meant that he was the Presiding High Priest of
the Earth, or in other words, President of the Church.
He was ordained to that office by Sidney Rigdon who
received the authority to do so from Joseph Smith.
If the President of the Church
asked me or any other Elder in
this class to ordain a certain
man to be the next Apostle,
could we do it?
Yes, if he authorized us to do so.
No office in the Church is greater
than the Priesthood!
The Vision --- Doctrine & Covenants 76
Received at the John Johnson farm home which is just outside
of Kirtland on February 16th, 1832. It was about one month
prior to the tar and feathering of Joseph and Sidney.
Philo Dibble was present and an eye-witness to the vision.
He said he saw the glory, but did not hear the Heavenly voices
or see what Joseph and Sidney were seeing.
There were 12 men present and the vision lasted for well over
an hour.
Joseph would say, “I can see…., and Sidney would say, “I see
the same!”
At the end of the vision Joseph noticed that Sidney sat
limp and pale, apparently as limber as a rag, to which
he said, “Sidney not used to it as I am” (Philo Dibble,
Juvenile Instructor 27, May 15, 1892, 303-4).
Joseph later said that the written version of the vision
“was not 100th part of what he and Sidney saw and
heard, or what he could tell the Church if they were
ready to receive it” (History of the Church 5:402).
That quote was given eleven years later (1843).
Jacobs ladder – Genesis 28, I Corinthians 15,
2 Corinthians 10, & John 14:2. They are really not
great scriptures on teaching the Three Degrees of
Glory.
Joseph later wrote a 78 verse poem called “A Vision”
about section 76 in 1843.
Joseph said that Paul understood the different rungs of the
ladder and understood that there was a Celestial, Terrestrial
and a Telestial Kingdom (Teachings 304-5).
It is interesting that this revelation is perhaps one of the
greatest given on earth and believed by less – more than any
other vision. Even in early Church history it was hard for
people to accept and turn from their sectarian views.
Brigham Young spent a lot of time with members explaining its
beauty and rationale.
Most people had grown up in a day when it was only a “heaven
and a hell” and now they were disappointed to find out that
there were a lot of people who would make it to heaven.
The Saints of that day did not accept the vision as readily as we
do today. The Book of Mormon is silent on the Three Degrees
of Glory.
Brigham Young wrote:
After all, my traditions were such that when the visit came first
to me it was so directly contrary and opposed to my former
education, I said, wait a little; I did not reject it, but I could not
understand it. I then could feel what incorrect traditions had
done for me. Suppose all that I have ever read from my priest
and parents --- the way they taught me to read the Bible, had
been true; --- my understanding would be diametrically
opposed to the doctrine revealed in the vision. I used to think
and pray, to read and think, until I knew, and fully understood
it for myself, by the visions of the Holy Spirit. At first, it
actually came in contact with my own feelings, though I never
could believe like the mass of the Christian world around me;
but I did not know how might I believed as they did. I found,
however, that I was so nigh, I could shake hands with them
any time I wished (Deseret News, 14 September 1852, 24).
John Murdoch wrote:
The brethren had received word of the
revelation (the Vision) in difference cities of
Ohio and were stumbling at it. I called them
together in the different cities and confirmed
the truth.
Exaltation (1832-33)
With “the vision,” exaltation took its place alongside
the Zion project as a second pillar of Mormon belief.
One of the exaltation revelations came to new idea of
salvation. Protestant evangelicals were preoccupied
with the Fall, sin, grace, faith, and redemption; they
said little about heaven.
Building on Paul, “The Vision” made the three resurrected of
glories of sun, moon, and stars into three heavenly realms.
The same scripture inspired eighteen-century Swedish
scientist and visionary Emanuel Swedenborg to divide the
heavens into three parts, “celestial,” “spiritual,” and
“natural,” equivalent to sun, moon, and stars. Like Joseph
and Rigdon, Swedenborg thought the sharp division of the
after life into heaven and hell underestimated God’s desire to
bless his children. Since Swedenborg attracted the attention
of New England intellectuals (his Treatise Concerning Heaven
and Hell had its first American edition in 1812), his ideas may
conceivably have drifted into Joseph Smith’s environment,
but it was more likely the passage from Paul sparked the
revelations of both men.
The three degrees doctrine resembled the
Universalist’ belief that Christ’s atonement was
sufficient to redeem everyone.
“The Vision” also eliminated the injustices of heavenand-hell theology.
At a conference in Geneseo, New York, held to deal
with controversy, one brother declared “the vision
was of the Devil and he believed it no more then he
believed the devil was crucified.”
Eventually, Joseph counseled missionaries
against publicizing “The Vision” prematurely.
Other members found it thrilling. William
Phelps immediately published “The Vision” in
the Church newspaper in Missouri.
Joseph loved “The Vision.”
This Knowledge made heaven accessible.
When God revealed to Joseph Smith and
Sidney Rigdon that there was a place prepared
for all, according to the light they had received
and their rejection of evil and practice of good,
it was a great trial to many, and some
apostatized because God was not going to
send to everlasting punishment heathens and
infants, but had a place of salvation, in due
time, for all, and would bless the honest and
virtuous and truthful, whether they ever
belonged to any Church or not (Journal of
Discourses 16:42).
When Joseph and Emma arrived in Kirtland in February 1831,
Emma was in her seventh month of pregnancy with twins.
Their first child, a boy named Alvin, had died immediately after
birth on June 15, 1828, at Harmony, Pennsylvania.
On April 30th, 1831, the same day the Smith twins were born
and died, Murdock’s wife had died while giving birth to twins,
a boy and a girl. After he buried her, he realized he could not
care for the twins alone, so he asked Joseph and Emma to
raise them. In his biographical sketch, he said the adoption
was motivated by a desire to “place them where they can be
taught in the faith and principles of Salvation” (Murdock, “A
Brief Synopsis of the Life of John Murdock,” B-5).
Tar and Feathering
(March 24th or March 25th, 1832)
Joseph and Julia Murdock Smith (the twins), had been ill with the measles
for some time. Joseph and Emma were exhausted caring for the them.
They had separated for the night with Emma taking Julia to the bedroom
and Joseph staying in the trundle bed in the front room with little Joseph
who was the sicker child.
I was soon awakened by Emma screaming murder, when I found myself
going out the door, in the hands of about a dozen men; some of whose
hands were in my hair, and some had hold of my shirt, drawers, and
limbs….I made a desperate struggle, as I was forced out, to extricate
myself, but only one cleared one leg, with which I made a pass at one
man, and he fell on the door steps. I was immediately overpowered
again, and they swore…they would kill me if I did not be still, which
quieted me. As they passed around the house with me, the fellow that I
kicked came to me and thrust his hand, all covered with blood, into my
face and with an exulting hoarse laugh, muttered: “I’ll fix ye.”
The mob was about 40 strong, made up of mostly Campbellites,
Methodists and Baptists. They came through the front door.
At the door while being carried out,
Joseph got a foot loose and kicked
Warren Waist in the mouth. Warren shot
out the front door like he was fired from a
cannon. He plowed into the frozen
ground so hard that he was knocked out
for a few seconds.
It was easy to see where Warren had
landed because they could see the print
of his head in the ground.
Symonds Ryder was the leader of the
group with Ezra Booth assisting.
Warren Waist, a man considered to be the
strongest man in the Western Reserve had
previously bragged that he would be able to
handle Joseph Smith with either hand, without
a problem.
After attacking Joseph, Waist soon said to the
group, “Do not let Joseph touch the ground or
he’ll run over the whole of us!”
Waist later declared later that Joseph was the
most powerful man he ever laid hold of in his
life.
The mob over-powered Joseph and swore with an
oath they would kill him if he made further
resistance. They choked him until he lost his breath.
About 500 feet from the house, the Prophet saw
Sidney stretched upon the ground where the mob
had dragged him by his heels. The Prophet thought
Sidney was dead.
Joseph began to plead with the mob, saying, “You
will have mercy and spare my life, I hope.” To which
they replied,”…call on yer God for help, we’ll show no
mercy;” and the people began to show themselves I
every direction; one coming from the orchard had a
plank; and I expected they would kill me, and carry
me off on the plank.
Someone said: “Ain’t ye going to kill im? Ain’t ye going to kill
im?”…They held a council, and as I could occasionally overhear a
word, I supposed it was to know whether or not it was best to
kill me.
They returned after a while, when I learned that they had
concluded not to kill me, but to beat and scratch me well, tear
off my shirt and drawers, and leave me naked. One cried,
“Simonds, Simonds, where’s the tar bucket?” “I don’t know,”
answered one, “where tis, Eli’s left it.”
They ran back and fetched the bucket of tar, when one
exclaimed,…”Let us tar up his mouth;” and they tried to force
the tar-paddle into my mouth; I twisted my head around, so that
they could not; and they cried out,” hold up yer head and let us
giv ye some tar.” They then tried to force a vial unto my mouth,
and broke it in my teeth (History of the Church, 1:261-64).
All my clothes were torn off me except my shirt collar;
and one man fell on me and scratched my body with his
nails like a mad cat, and then muttered out: “that’s the
way the Holy Ghost falls on folks!”
When they got Joseph about 1,000 feet away from the
Johnson house they stripped him naked, except for his
shirt collar. They laid him on a plank and then a man
got on top of him, raking his chest with his nails and
screaming, “This is how the Holy Ghost falls upon you
Mormons.” The man swore and cursed the whole time.
Joseph later recorded the man’s words that were used
in the “Times and Seasons.” They were horrible.
A contemporary newspaper called
the tar and feathering “a base
transaction, an unlawful act, a
work of darkness, a diabolical
trick” (Warren Newsletter in
Parkin, Conflict at Kirtland, 204).
The mob then took a bottle of aquafortis
(nitric acid) and tried to put it down Joseph’s
throat which ended up breaking off a piece of
his front tooth.
Joseph spoke with a slight whistle until his
tooth was fixed in Nauvoo by Alexander
Nyberg, a convert from Germany who was a
dentist.
The acid from the broken bottle burned his mouth and face and
killed the grass where it was spilt.
A man named Doctor Dennison was also in the mob. He was
supposed to castrate Joseph, but at the last moment he
declined to do so (Brodie, Fawn, 1945, No Man Knows My
History, Alfred A. Knopt, 119).
The same doctor (Dennison), was later placed in the Ohio State
Penitentiary for performing an illegal abortion in which the
woman died during the procedure.
Emma was in the doorway when she saw Joseph returning to
the house and fainted. She thought the tar was blood and that
Joseph was crushed to pieces.
Joseph’s friends spent the entire night using gauze, soap, and a
knife to scrape off as much tar as possible. The tar was
everywhere imaginable.
As a tragic consequence of the mob
action, Joseph and Emma lost their
adopted son, Joseph. The twins
were sick with the measles, and the
eleven-month-old boy caught a
severe cold and died four days later
(History of the Church, 1:265).
John Poorman, a convert to the Church stumbled upon some
of the mob carrying Sidney Rigdon and stepped up to them
with his club. He hit one right on his back and began hitting
the others. They dropped Sidney and took off running.
John Poorman may have saved Sidney’s life.
John Johnson finally got free in his house and tried to help
Joseph (His son had locked him in his room because he had
made an agreement with the mob that they could get Joseph
as long as they left his dad alone).
John Johnson was walking through the corn field with his gun
looking for members of the mob when John Poorman
mistakenly mistook him for a mob member and hit him with his
club. John Poorman broke his collar bone and knocked him
out.
David Whitmer later layed his hands upon John Johnson and
healed him.
The next day was Sunday and Joseph though sore and tender,
preached a sermon on the steps of the Johnson home.
He spoke about the importance of loving your enemies and
other related topics.
Many in the crowd were those who were part of the mob the
night before.
That afternoon three people were baptized.
Philomen Zepp saw the Prophet’s physical condition and was so
touched by the sermon that he joined the Church.
Nine days later, little Joseph contracted pneumonia and died.
Joseph taught that those men who were in the mob will answer
for his life. He was buried in the cemetery by the Kirtland
Temple. Emma had now lost four children (Barrett, Joseph
Smith and the Restoration, 205-06).
On the morning following the tarring and
feathering, Joseph went to see Elder Rigdon
and “found him crazy, and his head highly
inflamed, for they had dragged him by his
heels, and those, too, so high from the
ground that he could not raise his head from
the rough, frozen surface, which lacerated it
exceedingly;…and he continued delirious
some days” (History of the Church, 1:265).
The J.S.T
Virtually all of Joseph Smith’s translation of the Bible, in which he received
instruction from the Lord, occurred in the Kirtland area. The three primary
places were the Morley Farm, the Johnson Home and an upstairs room at
Newel K. Whitney’s store.
“There was never any hesitation reviewing, or reading back….As he dictated
(the words), so they stood. I was present to witness the dictation of several
communications.”
Parley P. Pratt
It is very clear that the contents of the JST, having received the truth of the
restoration through the hand of the prophet of God, resemble the doctrinal
content of the brass plates more fully than do those of any other Bible.
Robert Matthews
The Prophet Joseph Smith warned the Saints that “except the
Church receive the fullness of the scriptures that they would yet
fall” (Far West Record, 28). In short “we have not begun to
appreciate the value of the JST, nor have we used it as a textual
source the way we could.
Robert Matthews
Although the Prophet used the term “translation of the Bible,”
Elder B.H. Roberts commented: “It would be more proper to say
‘revision of the Bible’ than ‘translation’ of it.
Joseph completed the work on July 2, 1833, while he was at the
Whitney Store (Karl Anderson, Joseph Smith’s Kirtland Eyewitness
Accounts, 102).
He never did have time to finish it the way he want to because of
persecution.
Tar and Feathering in Nauvoo?
William Huntington was in Nauvoo when Joseph came to his
house. Shadrack Roundy told Joseph that a mob of twenty
men were “on the river and on their way up to get Joseph.
Joseph said to William, “A mob is coming, counsel me.” In
reply, William Huntington told Joseph to climb in to his bed and
he would go and take his place at his house.
The mob apparently dragged William Huntington out of
Joseph’s bed and eventually recognized the mistaken identity.
They showed boundless “viciousness” toward the substitute.
According to Oliver Huntington, “they stripped him, roughed
him up, tarred and feathered him, and herded him back to
Nauvoo like a mad dog.”
When Joseph saw his scarified friend, he
embraced him and said, “Brother William,
in the name of the Lord I promise you will
never taste of death.”
William died in Springville, Utah in 1887,
right in the midst of bedtime conversation
with his wife --- which the family took as
fulfillment of the promise (Truman
Madsen, Joseph Smith the Prophet, 40).
Joseph’s trip to New York City in 1832:
Brother Whitney went to re-stock his store and Joseph
traveled with him.
In New York City, Joseph wrote an interesting letter to Emma.
He said:
This day I have been walking through the most splendid part
of the city of New York. The buildings are truly great and
wonderful to the astonishing a beholder in the language of my
heart is like this: can the great God of all the earth, maker of
all things magnificent and splendid be displeased with man for
all his great inventions?... I could wish for a moment to be
with them (Emma and Julia). My heart is filled with all the
feelings of tenderness of a parent and a husband and could I
be with you I would tell you many things. Yet when I reflect
upon this great city, like Nineveh, not discerning their right
hand from their left….”
New York City was wicked and he talked about the
approximately 250,000 people that couldn’t tell their right hand
from their left.
Joseph spent much of his time in his hotel room. Apparently
he was not authorized by the Holy Spirit to declare gospel
truths to them.
After Joseph returned from New York, Emma gave birth to
their first son who survived, Joseph Smith III.
Doctrine & Covenants 84:114:
The Savior referred to these three cities: New York, Albany
and Boston.
In the 1860’s, Wilford Woodruff stood at the Logan temple site
with Brigham Young and others to dedicate the ground for the
building of the temple.
Wilford said, “I have seen in a vision that New York
City will be destroyed by earthquakes. I have seen
that Albany will perish by fire, and that the sea will
leap it’s bounds and take the inhabitants of Boston
away.”
In another setting, Orson Pratt took John W. Young
up on a hill overlooking San Francisco and prophesied
in a prayer that San Francisco would be destroyed by
an earthquake.
1906 brought a strong earthquake and so did 1989,
but San Francisco has yet to be destroyed.
The School of the Prophets:
January 22-23, 1833. Men and women were invited
to this special meeting.
During the meeting there was speaking in tongues,
prophesying, and angels who appeared to many.
On January 24th, 1833 the School of the Prophets
began in the upper room of the Newel K. Whitney
store.
It was held under the direction of the Savior.
Doctrine & Covenants 84:127-141 taught about the
school. It was to teach about the Son of God. These
men saw the Son of God.
Only 21 men were invited to attend. Those not
involved at that time were Brigham Young and Heber
C. Kimball.
Only those who joined the Church in 1830 and 1831
were invited to be in the group.
Orson Hyde was the teacher.
Bruce R. McConkie said that the School of the
Prophets continues today and that it consists of the
First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve
Apostles.
Although the emphasis would initially be on doctrine
and spiritual instruction, other subjects, such as
penmanship, arithmetic, English grammar, and
geology, would be added later.
Several names were used interchangeably for the
school: “School of the Prophets,” “School of the
Elders,” and “School of Mine Apostles.”
Sessions were held during winter, when there was less
to be done on farms and elders were not traveling as
much on missionary assignments.
Priesthood
The priesthood has one purpose in
every age: exaltation.
Joseph’s temple ordinances had the
spirit of Roman Catholic practices but
resembled even more the rituals of
ancient Israel.
Light and Truth
Like other revelations, the “Olive Leaf” moved
from subject to subject. Nothing in nineteenthcentury literature resembled it.
These passages altered the idea of salvation
from making “salvation” and “exaltation”
contained a world of difference. One implied
escape – from sin or hell or Satan – and the
other elevation to glory and godhood.
The School of the Prophets
The “Olive Leaf” placed much emphasis on
spiritual preparation as it did on subject
matter.
The president was to enter the schoolroom
first and pray. As the students came in, he
was greeted with the uplifted hands and the
words:
Art thou a brother?
I salute you in the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ, in token, or remembrance of the
everlasting covenant, in which covenant I
receive you to fellowship in a determination
that is fixed, immovable and unchangeable, to
be your friend and brother through the grace
of God, in the bonds of love (Doctrine &
Covenants 88:133).
The brethren in turn were to lift up their
hands and repeat the covenant or say amen.
The School of the Prophets was the prototype for the
good society, a fraternity united by study and faith.
It met again in 1834-35 and 1835-36, then the school fell
into abeyance for decades until revived periodically by
Brigham Young and John Taylor.
Perhaps not surprisingly for the 1830’s, women were
conspicuously absent; it was a decade before they were
formally included in the holy sociality.
The “Word of Wisdom,” as the revelation was later called,
came at a time when temperance and food reforms were
flourishing in the United States. As in ancient Israel,
treatment of the body was combined with ministration to
the spirit.
Joseph drank tea and a glass of wine from time to
time. It was left to a later generation of Saints to turn
the “principle with a promise” into a measuring rod of
obedience.
The School of the Prophets added bodily discipline to
the students’ spiritual purification.
They met at the Whitney store early in the morning
and continued until late in the afternoon, often fasting
through the day. New members were added to the
original class of fourteen until the number rose as
high as twenty-five.
There was much speaking and praying and
singing, all done in tongues. The elders washed
their own feet, and then Joseph knelt before
each one and washed. Joseph told the brethren
the washing had made them clean from the
“blood of this generation.”
In April 1833, the school was disbanded, and
the elders went out again to proclaim the
Gospel.
Cities of Zion (1833)
Characteristically nonchalant about
weekly congregational worship,
Joseph failed to mention regular
Sunday worship in his history, much
less inadequate meeting space, until
late in 1833.
Temple
The word “temple” had no single meaning for
Americans.
Joseph was familiar with the Masons who met in
buildings called temples, but Freemasonry was not an
attractive model in the aftermath of anti-Masonic
political campaigns, and Masonic temples were nonexistent in areas where Joseph lived.
It is not likely that Joseph ever saw a Masonic temple
before he began building in Kirtland.
Joseph turned quite naturally to the Bible for
inspiration. The Kirtland temple did not resemble the
temple of Solomon; it had the outward appearance of
a large, vaguely neoclassical meetinghouse. But the
pair of auditoriums, one on top of the other, were
called inner courts, suggesting biblical antecedents.
Joseph put aside Christian tradition in favor of ancient
Israel. During the course of his life, he never built a
standard meetinghouse, even in Nauvoo, where the
Mormon population exceeded 10,000. his architectural
imagination focused on temples.
Joseph had only vague ideas about the purpose
of the temple when the revelations first
mentioned the idea. Temples at first were an
empty form, awaiting content.
Economically, the temple was a disaster. The
project was far out of proportion to the
Church’s pitiful resources. Joseph Smith went
into debt and was hounded by his creditors
ever after. From then on, every member was
asked to contribute funds or labor; one day in
seven was the rule for labor.
City Plans
With the design for the temple, Joseph included a plat for the
City of Zion, a layout for an entire city with temples at the
center. The city was to occupy one square mile. An amended
plan expanded the size to a mile and a half square. Ten-acre
blocks, divided into half-acre house lots, surrounded public
squares at the center.
Joseph’s house lots were set at right angels on alternate blocks.
On one block the long, narrow lots fronted the east and west
sides of the block. On the next block, the lots faced north and
south. Consequently, houses did not look across the street at
other fronts, but into the long back gardens of the lots across
the street.
The most unusual aspect was the three public
squares at the center with twenty-four temples,
twelve to a block, standing on two of these
squares.
The temples were grouped into threes and
assigned to priesthood “quorums,” the
organizations of the various levels of
priesthood.
One group was to be called “House of the
Lord for the presidency of the High and
most holy priesthood after the order of
Melchizedek, which was after the order of
the Son of God.
The second one was “the Sacred Apostolic
Repository for the use of the Bishops.”
The third was called “the house of the
Lord for the Elders of Zion.”
The plan specified the “Underneath must be
written on each House – Holiness to The Lord.”
Speaking of the United States as a whole,
Garry Wills has noted “there is no more
defining note to our history than the total
absence of a sacred city in our myths.” The
only exception, he noted, “is the Mormons’
temple, fetched (like Jerusalem’s) from
heaven.”
Plans called for a population of 15,000 to 20,000 people – a
city, not a town. Only seven cities in the United States in 1830
had more than 25,000 inhabitants and only sixteen had
populations between 10,000 and 25,000. St. Louis had around
10,000. Zion would have dwarfed every city west of the
Mississippi.
Joseph wanted everyone, including farmers with lands outside
the plotted area, to live in the city.
After Joseph’s death, Mormons in the mountain West based
the scores of towns they founded on the original plan for Zion.
The conception of a church of cities rather than a church of
congregations had wide-reaching – and disastrous –
implications for the Mormons.
Persecution:
As Parley P. Pratt noted, the Jackson County
inhabitants “became jealous of our growing influence
and numbers. Political demagogues were afraid we
should rule the country.”
In July 1833 William Phelps published an article in the
Evening and Morning Star about the legal
requirements for bringing free Negroes into the state,
and locals interpreted the description as an invitation.
Phelps quickly disavowed any such intention, insisting
he was actually warning future immigrants against
importing free blacks, but the damage had been
done.
The Jackson County Citizens believed they could act legally
against the Mormons. They were not a mob but the people in
action.
As the days passed, Joseph became more and more troubled.
On August 18, he wrote the most anguished letter of his life,
all of it in his own hand, addressed to “Brother William, John,
Edward, Isaac, John and Sidney” – the Missouri leaders. He
was driven nearly to “madness and desperation,” he said, not
understanding why the grand plan for Zion, the heart of the
whole restoration movement, had been set back. God “will
speedily deliver Zion for I have his immutable covenant,” but
He “keeps it hid from mine eyes the means how exactly the
thing will be done.” Joseph scarcely knew what to say or do.
The question of an armed defense plagued Joseph
for the next six months – and for the rest of his life.
For the first time, government figured in his thought
as an active agent.
People who had no respect for the Saints’ theology,
recognized the injustice of their treatment. The
persecution was all the more poignant because it
happened in a land presumably free.
By asking for toleration and the right to worship,
Mormonism had to present itself not as the one true
church but as one church among a society of
churches, all on an equal plane.
Redress:
In light of this later history, Joseph’s account of the 1833
expulsion castigated Boggs:
“All earth and hell cannot deny that baser knave, a greater
traitor, and a more wholesale butcher, or murderer or
mankind, never went untried, unpunished, and un-hung.”
Joseph gradually regained his footing after December, but the
events of 1833 cast a long shadow over Mormon history.
The Saints learned that the mobs were the people and the
people were the government.
The first house Joseph and his
wife, Emma, could really call home
was built in 1834 in Kirtland, after
they had been married seven
years. This home, built on a hill
near the site of the Kirtland
Temple.
Missouri Mission 1832:
After completing their business I Missouri, Joseph Smith and
Newel K. Whitney, who had accompanied him, were returning to
Kirtland by stagecoach. Near Grangeville, Indiana, the horses
pulling the coach became frightened and started to bolt. As the
two men leaped from the stagecoach, Bishop Whitney caught his
foot in the wheel, breaking his leg and foot in several places.
The Prophet nursed him for four weeks at a “public house,” or
inn, in Greenville. At dinner one evening, poison was placed in
the Prophet’s food. A violent attack of vomiting followed, and he
began to hemorrhage. Great “muscular contortions” caused his
jaw to become dislocated, and he replaced it himself. He made
his way to Bishop Whitney’s bedside and asked for a blessing.
Bishop Whitney, he said, “laid his hands on me and administered
to me in the name of the Lord, and I was healed in an instant.”
The poison’s effect was so powerful, however that much of the
Prophet’s hair fell out (History of the Church, 1:271).