of 1830–1831 Pratt, Cowdery and two others had gone as far west as Jackson county, Missouri; in June 1831 Rigdon and Smith joined them there near what is now Independence and (in August) laid corner-stones of Zion and of a Mormon temple; thereafter Mormon immigration to Missouri increased rapidly; and in the early part of 1838 Smith and Rigdon fled to the new settlement called Far West (now Kerr) in Caldwell county, Missouri, which had been made in 1836–1837. Thither many of the saints had taken refuge, having been forcibly driven[1] from Independence and Big Blue in November and December 1833, and having been induced to remove from Clay county after staying there in 1833–1836. In Caldwell and Daviess counties Smith’s troubles, however, continued to increase. His profligacy had repelled many of his leading supporters and bred internal dissensions, while from the outside the brethren were harassed and threatened by the steadily growing hostility of the native Missourians. At Far West on the 4th of July 1838 Rigdon preached his “salt sermon” from Matt. v. 13, urging his hearers to wage “a war of extermination” on those who disturbed them. To such a height did the conflicts with the “gentiles” grow that they assumed the proportions of a civil war, and necessitated the calling out of the state militia. A company of Danites from Far West put some Missourian militia to flight but lost their own leader Captain Patten; the gentiles then attacked a Mormon settlement at Hawn’s Mill (near Far West) and killed in cold blood about a score of the Mormons. Late in October Far West surrendered to an overwhelming force of militia. Smith and Rigdon with others were arrested and imprisoned on a charge of treason, murder and felony, and their followers to the number of 15,000 crossed over into Illinois and settled near Commerce, Hancock county. Smith, who succeeded in escaping from custody, had rejoined the Mormons in Illinois, and there they were cordially welcomed, especially by the politicians of both parties, who hoped to secure the Mormon vote in the presidential campaign of 1840; and when they founded (on the site of Commerce) the city of Nauvoo, they readily obtained (Dec. 1840) from the state legislature a charter which made the city practically independent of the state government and gave Smith nearly unlimited civil power. He organized a military body called the Nauvoo Legion (also incorporated by the legislature), of which he was commander, being commissioned “lieutenant-general” by the governor of Illinois in 1841; Smith allowed Dr John C. Bennett, an Illinois politician and a new convert, to be the city’s first mayor. Foundations of a new temple were laid on the 6th of April 1841 and the temple (83 by 128 ft.) was dedicated on the 1st of May 1846. The city grew very rapidly; a university of the city of Nauvoo was established, among its professors being Rigdon and Orson Pratt (1811–1881), a mathematician, who was called “The Gauge of the Law.” In 1842 Smith was charged with instigating an attempt, made by O. P. Rockwell, a Mormon of Nauvoo, to assassinate ex-Governor L. W. Boggs of Missouri; it was impossible to hold either Rockwell or Smith after their indictment and arrest, since the Nauvoo municipal court had the power to determine cases of habeas corpus; the influence of Dr Bennett, who had quarrelled with Smith, was not strong enough to outweigh the power of the Mormon vote with the state authorities, and Smith was not held when in June 1843 he was arrested on the old charge of treasonable acts committed in Missouri. His downfall was brought about in a very different manner.
The Book of Mormon had forbidden polygamy: “There shall not any man have save it be one wife, and concubines he shall have none, for I the Lord God delighteth[2] in the chastity of women. . . . For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people, otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.” The conditional clause may indicate that Smith from the first had intended to make polygamy a part of the creed of the Church. There is some evidence that even in Ohio polygamy had been secretly practised by Smith and less probably by other elders. In Illinois there seems to have been no secret about Smith’s cohabiting with other women. On the 12th of July 1843 he had a revelation expressly establishing and approving polygamy. This revelation was not published officially until 1852, but its purport immediately became known in Nauvoo and aroused great indignation. Dr R. D. Foster, whose wife Smith seems to have coveted, and whom Smith had accused of theft and immorality, William Law and Wilson Law, wealthy Canadian converts, and Sylvester Emmons, a member of the council, established a newspaper the Expositor, which was to work for the repeal of the city charter, “to correct the abuse of the unit power, to advocate disobedience to political revelations”; the first and only number (June 7, 1844) told of Hyrum Smith’s reading to the council the “revelation on the eternity of the marriage covenant, including plurality of wives,” of Joseph Smith’s methods and success in winning spiritual wives, and of the prophet’s political ambitions. The city council tried the editors of the Expositor, the Smiths denying the “revelation” on plural marriage, and on the 20th of June the Expositor printing office was razed. Foster and the Laws fled to Carthage. There was a general uprising against the Mormons and Smith put Nauvoo under martial law; but his most able lieutenants were absent,[3] the legion surrendered its arms, and Joseph and Hyrum Smith and others were arrested on the charge of treason (June 25, 1844) and were imprisoned at Carthage. On the night of the 27th a mob, with the collusion of the militia guard, broke into the prison and shot the two brothers dead.
Rigdon, the survivor of the first presidency, and Brigham Young, who were absent from Illinois at the time of Smith’s death, were rivals for Smith’s place; Young succeeded in having the Council of Twelve, of which he was head, made the supreme authority, and then had Rigdon[4] tried for threatening treason and “cut off from the Church.” Young had still to meet the opposition of Joseph Smith’s family, who claimed for his son, Joseph, the right of succession, and for a time supported the claims of James J. Strang (1813–1856) of Wisconsin, who had been baptized in February 1844, who told of revelations he had received, who settled with his followers on Beaver Island, Michigan, in 1847, was crowned “King of Zion” there in July 1850, and was killed by some of his followers there in June 1856, when his kingdom broke up. In January 1845 the Nauvoo city charter was repealed; hostility and suspicion against the Mormons increased; there were “burnings” of Mormon property in the outlying country and retaliation by the Nauvoo Legion under a pro-Mormon sheriff; a commission of four members (including Stephen A. Douglas), appointed by the governor, arranged with the Mormon authorities in October 1845 that they should all leave the state next spring. In May and June 1846 most of the Mormons left Nauvoo; in September the city was cannonaded and it again surrendered to the gentiles.
Five companies of Mormon volunteers joined the force under Colonel Stephen W. Kearny which marched to California in the winter of 1846–1847; but this was rather in the nature of assistance from the general government, which provided for their western transportation, than a proof of Mormon patriotism. An exploring party under Brigham Young entered (July 24, 1847) the Great Salt Lake valley and chose it as a place for their new city. Young then returned to Winter Quarters, near what is now Florence, Nebraska, and there on the 5th of December 1847 was chosen president as Smith’s successor. Under his leadership, and in accordance with a scheme “revealed” to him and announced in January 1847, the march was organized in a
- ↑ One of the early charges against the Mormons in Missouri was that they invited free negroes and mulattoes to settle with them; and this rather than any disgust at their religious teachings may have been the first source of opposition to them.
- ↑ Such solecisms are not infrequent in the Mormon Bible.
- ↑ Brigham Young, Orson Pratt, and others of the Twelve were campaigning for Smith’s candidacy for president of the United States, a campaign which he had undertaken because neither Henry Clay nor John C. Calhoun would give him satisfactory pledges as to the attitude he would take toward the Mormons if elected president.
- ↑ Rigdon attempted, with brief success, to establish in Pittsburg a Church of Christ, independent of the Latter Day Saints, but based on much the same plan. He spent his last years at Friendship, Allegany county, New York.
