It has been 90 years since the last detailed text of the Church was published. Elder Steven E. Snow, General Authority Seventy, says “Obviously much has happened since 1930. We have a team in our department working very hard to complete a four-volume history of the Church entitled Saints. It will be written in a style similar to James Michener or David McCullough” (Church Historian Announces New 4-Volume History of the Church, R. Scott Lloyd).

The first chapter of this book is available online in the February issue of the Ensign and Liahona magazines. The chapters and topics will be released every month in the magazines until it is published. It is also available in the Gospel Library app in 47 languages and as an audiobook in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Art of Nauvoo by Greg Newbold will be featured on the cover of Volume 1.

Here is a quick summary of what each volume of the books cover:

• Volume 1 covers the history of the Church to the dedication of the Nauvoo Temple
• Volume 2 covers the western exodus of the Latter-day Saints to the Salt Lake Temple dedication
• Volume 3 covers the first half of the 20^th century to the dedication of the Swiss Temple
• Volume 4 covers today and some of the temples around the world

So far, the plan is to publish the volumes of one per year from 2018-2021. “At the same time these volumes are released in print they will be available online at no cost. . . They will be published in an inexpensive paperback format, as we are desirous that as many Church members as possible read them. They have been carefully researched and contain many stories of faith previously unknown to most Latter-day Saints” (R. Scott Lloyd).

“They are written at a 9^th or 10^th grade level and the volumes will be published in all 13 languages that Church-published content is available on the internet. Endnotes and references, especially in the online version, will take interested readers to additional information, videos, articles, etc., in which they may have additional interest” (Elder Steven E. Snow).

I am interested in the new volumes coming out. I think that the narrative style is a fantastic way to learn about the history of the Church. It makes the history fun to learn when you get to read stories about the people that are in the books.

Historian Steven C. Harper shares an insider’s peek into the groundbreaking new series. Saints 1815-1846: The Standard of Truth.

Gospel Library App

LDS.org

Guest Author

Green Flake – Scout and driver for President Brigham Young.

Black Latter-day Saints and Black Past.org – Introduction by Quintard Taylor.

African Americans have been members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) almost since its founding in 1830. Their numbers were initially small, but their role was significant. Green Flake, for example, LDS President Brigham Young’s driver and scout, was one of the first Mormon pioneers to reach the Salt Lake Valley in 1847.

For 126 years (1852-1978) men of African ancestry were denied the Priesthood and other restrictions were placed on black women and children. Often overlooked in discussions of the ban were the 22 years before the ban was in place where African Americans, such as Elijah Abel and Joseph T. Ball,  played important roles in the church. As an LDS Bishop, Ball led the Boston congregation in the mid-1840s, which at the time was the largest outside of church headquarters in Nauvoo, Illinois.

After the ban was lifted African Americans such as internationally prominent entertainer Gladys Knight, Utah Jazz basketball star and actor Thurl Lee Bailey, and many others joined the Church. One black LDS member, Mia Love, sits in the U.S. Congress representing Utah’s 4^th Congressional District. Far larger numbers of Africans and people of African ancestry in Latin America were converted as well. Today, an estimated 700,000 people of African ancestry call the LDS faith their own.

BlackPast.org captures that history. With financial support from the LDS Church, we have assembled profiles on individual LDS women and men written by LDS and non-LDS volunteer contributors as well as documents, speeches, and public statements from the LDS Church and other sources. This page also includes a bibliography of the leading books on the subject and features a timeline that briefly outlines the history of black Mormons. These assembled resources are the largest concentration of information on blacks and the LDS church on the Internet.

This is not, however, a static page.  We invite others to contribute profiles of significant LDS Church members of African ancestry, to write articles on the history of blacks and the Church, and to suggest other resources that can be linked to this page. We also need your help in spreading this information to LDS members and non-LDS folks around the world. We believe this history should be shared with all. If you are interested in contributing, please contact, quintard.taylor@blackpast.org.

Guest Author

This article titled “The Quincy Miracle: How One Town Saved Thousands of Mormon Refugees” by Glenn Rawson appeared in the 19 Movember 2016 edition of LDS Living.com.

On October 27, 1838, Missouri governor Lilburn W. Boggs issued an extermination order forcing thousands of Latter-day Saints to leave Missouri by March 8, 1839, or be killed. But where could they go?

“The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the state if necessary for the public peace,” Executive Order 44 declared. Thousands of Missouri militia forces were called out; they surrounded the Latter-day Saint settlement of Far West and demanded that the Mormons leave the state according to the governor’s order.

But where could more than 10,000 people go on a moment’s notice as winter approached? They were already on the western frontier of the United States. They couldn’t go south; that would take them deeper into Missouri. They couldn’t go west; that was Indian Territory. They couldn’t go north; that was Iowa Territory, which was sparsely settled at best. The shortest and most direct route out of Missouri was due east, across the Mississippi River and into Illinois. Based on invitations from a few Church members already living in Quincy, Illinois, it was decided that the main body of the Latter-day Saints would join the handful already in the town.

To hasten the Mormons’ departure, mobs continued to prey on them, plundering, pillaging, raping, and burning. Joseph and Hyrum Smith were taken prisoner along with other Church leaders, and it was announced that they would be held until every Mormon had left the state. Joseph Holbrook commented, “We found that there was no more peace or safety for the saints in the state of Missouri. If the Church would make haste and move as fast as possible, it would aid much to relieve our brethren who are now in jail as our enemies were determined to hold them as hostages until the Church left the state. Every exertion was made in the dead of winter to remove as fast as possible” (Pamela Call Johnson, Joseph Holbrook, Mormon Pioneer, Journal).

By December 1838, the Mormons began to move with whatever conveyance they could obtain, leaving behind much of what they owned. Brigham Young invited the Mormon brethren to covenant to assist the poor in leaving the state, and he did his best to gather resources to help them leave. He would not rest until all were safely out of Missouri.

By the bitter cold of January 1839, there were hundreds of men, women, and children strung along a 200-mile trail leading east. The weather was forbidding. At times the snow fell as much as a foot deep, accompanied by wind and bitter cold. At other times their way was marred by rain and deep mud. None had adequate food or clothing. Some were barefoot—their way across the prairie was marked by bloody footprints. Not all would survive the flight from Missouri. And Joseph Smith Sr., who became ill during the exodus to Quincy, would die later in Nauvoo because of it.

By February, hundreds of Mormon refugees lined the west bank of the Mississippi River. Wagons filled with families and all they owned would pull to the river’s edge, drop their human cargo and their meager belongings in the snow before turning back to help evacuate more of their fellow Saints.

At times the mighty river was impassable, as large chunks of floating ice prevented boat traffic on the river. Under these conditions, the Mormons were trapped: ahead was the impenetrable river, and behind were the Missourians, terrorizing them at every turn. Their only option was to hunker down and wait for the river to freeze so that they could cross over to Illinois on the ice.

Town of Quincy, by Kirt Harmon. Image courtesy of Glenn Rawson.

Meanwhile, from across the river, citizens of Quincy saw firsthand the miserable drama of human suffering. The Quincy Whig documented, “A large number of families are encamped on the opposite bank of the Mississippi waiting for an opportunity to cross. . . . If they have been thrown upon our shores destitute, through the oppressive people of Missouri, common humanity must oblige us to aid and relieve them all in our power.”

Sometimes the shelter for the refugees consisted of nothing more than a blanket thrown over a low-hanging limb. It was under these conditions that one Latter-day Saint woman, Martha Thomas, gave birth in a bed comprised of a rope contraption under quilts hung over a tree.

Notwithstanding the risk, a delegation of Quincy residents braved their way across the river, bringing blankets and supplies. When they inquired of the Mormons what they needed, they were told:

“If we should say what our present wants are, it would be beyond all calculation, as we have been robbed of our corn, wheat, horses, cattle, hogs, wearing apparel, houses and homes, and indeed of all that renders life tolerable. . . . Give us employment. Rent us farms. And allow us the protection and privileges of other citizens” (Joseph Smith, History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ed. B. H. Roberts (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976 reprint), 3:269–70).

The river alternately froze and thawed throughout January and February. In late February 1839, the temperature dropped and the river froze solid. The Mormons still stuck on the Missouri side braved the ice and crossed. Eleven-year-old Mosiah Hancock talked of struggling to walk across the clear and slippery ice barefoot. As he neared the eastern bank, the ice began to break up.

“Father said, ‘Run Mosiah!’ and I did run,” the boy remembered. “We all just made it on the opposite bank when the ice started to snap and pile up in great heaps and the water broke through” (Mosiah Hancock, Autobiography).

The relief Mormons felt after finally being free of the terrors of Missouri was so great that some dropped to their knees on Quincy’s shores and offered prayers of thanksgiving; others kissed the ground. Some made camp on the banks of the river while others struggled up the bluffs to Washington Park, the main square of Quincy, where they set up makeshift tents. Wilford Woodruff described the following scene:

“I saw a great many of the saints, old and young, lying in the mud and water, in a rainstorm, without tent or covering. . . . The sight filled my eyes with tears” (“Wilford Woodruff History, from His Own Pen,” Millennial Star).

The citizens of Quincy had compassion on the beleaguered Saints, especially the suffering women and children, and determined to take them in. The cry for compassion was led by Quincy’s mayor and founder, John Wood.

Quincy’s mayor and founder, John Wood. Image courtesy of Glenn Rawson.

Orville Browning, another of Quincy’s leading sons and an eyewitness of the Saints’ suffering, declared, “Great God! Have I not seen it? Yes, my eyes have beheld the blood stained traces of innocent women and children in the drear winter, who had traveled hundreds of miles barefoot through frost and snow, to seek refuge from their savage pursuers” (History of the Church, 4:368).

Compassion overwhelmed the people of Quincy, and as they had done before and would do again, they took in the homeless and ministered to the suffering. They brought the Mormons into their homes, shops, and even their barns. Every space that could be made hospitable was opened to the suffering Saints. The Mormons filled Quincy to overflowing before spreading out into other communities in Adams County. John Lowe Butler described the kindness that so typified the people of Quincy:

“The old gentleman came to me and told me to bring my family up to one of his houses and we could live in it until we had been there a little while so that we should have a little time to look about us and get a place. . . . He never charged us anything for what we had. There were three or four other families living close to us that were Mormons. They were living in his houses that were joining ours. He treated them all with kindness. It seemed a new thing to us to be treated with so much kindness” (John L. Butler, “A History of the Biography of John L. Butler”).

The small community of Quincy, numbering fewer than 2,000 people, somehow absorbed more than 5,000 Mormons, giving them not only shelter but also food, clothing, and jobs. When the Quincy citizens couldn’t provide any more from their own stores, they sent out pleas for assistance as far away as Washington, D.C.

The Mormons would never forget what was done and by whom. A statement by the First Presidency proclaimed, “It would be impossible to enumerate all those who in our time of deep distress, nobly came forward to our relief and like the Good Samaritan poured oil into our wounds and contributed liberally to our necessities” (“Proclamation to the Saints Scattered Abroad, January 15, 1841,” History of the Church).

In April 1839, Joseph Smith escaped prison in Missouri and found his way to his family in Quincy.

For the brief period of three months, Quincy, Illinois, was the headquarters of the Latter-day Saints. Some of the Saints made their homes among the good people of Quincy. Some citizens of Quincy—including Ezra T. Benson, great-grandfather of President Ezra Taft Benson—joined the Mormons and traveled on with them.

Image courtesy of Glenn Rawson.

By May 1839, Joseph Smith and the first wave of Saints had moved 50 miles north of Quincy to Commerce, where they began building the foundations of a new city that would later be called Nauvoo. All but a handful of Mormons eventually left Quincy and settled in Nauvoo or other places in Hancock County.

But the miraculous kindness of Quincy didn’t stop there. Seven years later, in the fall of 1846, when the Mormons left Illinois for a new home in the Rocky Mountains, it was the citizens of Quincy who rallied. They loaded barges with food, clothing, and supplies, sailing the Saints up-river and aiding even the poorest of the Mormons in their exodus to the West.

The legacy of Quincy will endure as one of great humanitarian compassion. The deeds of Quincy’s citizenry will live forever in the hearts of many who descended from those Mormons sheltered and saved in Quincy in 1839. Joseph Smith himself summed up the deeds of Quincy’s citizens and their place in history: “They burst the chains of slavery and proclaimed us forever free! Quincy, our first noble city of refuge when we came from the slaughter in Missouri and with our garments stained with blood, should not be forgotten” (History of the Church, 4:292).

Lead image by Julie Rogers (courtesy of Glenn Rawson).

Guest Author

This article written by Katie Lambert appeared in the 7 November 2016 online edition of LDS Living.com.

On the eve of Election Day, many are contemplating their vote and the results tomorrow will bring.

But among those who fought for this right to cast their say in elections and hold political offices were valiant Mormon women.

In 1870, well ahead of August 1920 when the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, Utah—though not yet a state—became the second U.S. territory to pass an act allowing women to vote.

Two days after the act was signed, Sarah Young, grandniece to the Prophet Brigham Young, was the first woman to cast her vote in a municipal election, according to historytogo.utah.gov.

Though the act was repealed by congress in 1887, the right for women to vote was later added to Utah’s Constitution in 1895.

A year later, Utah yet again became the first state to carve out a milestone for women’s rights.

After a campaign trail of passionate speeches about women’s suffrage, Mary Elizabeth Woolley Chamberlain became the first woman in Utah to become a county clerk.

As Chamberlain wrote:

“I was nominated on the Republican ticket for county clerk of Kane County. . . . Women had never held office in Utah and the propriety of her doing so was a moot question which was thoroughly ‘mooted,’ I assure you” (Janelle M. Higbee, Women of Faith in the Latter Days, Vol. 3: 1846-1870, “A Strong and Abiding Testimony”).

But Chamberlain’s political career was not over.

On Nov. 7, 1911, Chamberlain became the first female mayor in U.S. history elected along with an all-female town council.

Unfortunately, this historic event was not taken as seriously as it should have been at the time.

“Our election was intended as a joke and no one thought seriously of it at the time. When election day dawned, there was no ticket in the field; no one seemed interested in the supervision of the town, so the loafers on the ditch bank (of which there were always plenty) proceeded to make up the above ticket as a burlesque, but there was no other ticket in opposition, so, of course, we were elected” (Janelle M. Higbee, Women of Faith in the Latter Days, Vol. 3: 1846-1870, “A Strong and Abiding Testimony”).

Initially disgusted by the “joke,” Chamberlain almost refused the nomination. But others talked her into keeping the position, and Chamberlain held the office of mayor of Kanab, Utah, from 1911 to 1913.

Her efforts as mayor inspired other women, including Susa Young Gates, daughter of Brigham Young. A strong women’s suffrage advocate and writer, Gates was especially enthusiastic about Chamberlain’s political achievements.

“Aunt Susa called me ‘Mayor’ and shouted it out wherever she met me, on the street, in meeting, at the temple, or elsewhere, much to my embarrassment at times, but she took great delight in it” (Janelle M. Higbee, Women of Faith in the Latter Days, Vol. 3: 1846-1870, “A Strong and Abiding Testimony”).

Though many women have worked valiantly to shape women’s rights, these Mormon women helped pave the way for women’s suffrage and women’s rights while leaving their mark on history.

Photo from deseretnews.com of the Kanab all-woman town council. From left to right: Luella McAllister, treasurer; Blanche Hamblin, councilor; Mary W. Chamberlain, mayor; Tamar Hamblin, clerk; Ada Seegmiller, councilor.

Guest Author

William E. McLellin (1806-1883), late in life (Wikimedia Commons)

The following article by Dan Peterson appeared on Patheos.com on 8 November 2016.

William E. McLellin was chosen as one of the Twelve Apostles in 1835, but was excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 1838.  However, he never abandoned his faith in the Book of Mormon, and one of the pillars of his faith rested upon his early, searching interviews with the witnesses to that book.  He was a highly intelligent man (and, it seems, a rather irascible one), and he was very careful and intent upon getting at the truth.  He left a number of statements on his investigations.  This one comes from a previously unpublished manuscript that he wrote between January 1871 and January 1872.  I find it fascinating:

In 1833, when mobbing reigned triumphant in Jackson Co. Mo. I and O. Cowdery fled from our homes, for fear of personal violence on Saturday the 20th day of July.  The mob dispersed, agreeing to meet again on the next Tuesday.  They offered eighty dollars reward for any one who would deliver Cowdery or McLellan in Independence on Tuesday.  On Mond[a]y I slipped down into the Whitmer’s settlement, and there in the lonely woods I met with David Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery.  I said to them, “brethren I have never seen an open vision in my life, but you men say you have, and therefore you positively know.  Now you know that our lives are in danger every hour, if the mob can only only catch us.  Tell me in the fear of God, is that book of Mormon true?  Cowdery looked at me with solemnity depicted in his face, and said, “Brother William, God sent his holy angel to declare the truth of the translation of it to us, and therefore we know.  And though the mob kill us, yet we must die declaring its truth.”  David said, “Oliver has told you the solemn truth, for we could not be deceived.  I most truly declare declare to you its truth!!”  Said I, boys I believe you.  I can see no object for you to tell me false <hood> now, when our lives are endangered.  Eight men testify also to handling that sacred pile of plates, from which Joseph Smith <read off the> translation that heavenly Book.

One circumstance I’ll relate of one of these eight witnesses.  While the mob was raging in Jackson Co. Mo. in 1833 some young men ran down Hiram Page <in the woods> one of the eight <witnesses,> and commenced beating and pounding him with whips and clubs.  He begged, but there was no mercy.  They said he was <a> damned Mormon, and they meant to beat him to death!  But finally one then said to him, if you will deny that damned book, we will let you go.  Said he, how can I deny what I knowto be true?  Then they pounded him again.  When they thought he was about to breathe his last, they said to him, Now what do you think of your God, when he dont save you?  Well said he, I believe in God–Well, said one of the most intelligent among them, I believe the damned fool will stick to it though we kill him.  Let us let him go.  But his life was nearly run out.  He was confined to his bed for a length of time.  So much for a man who knows for himself.  Knowledge is beyond faith or doubt.  It is positive certainty.

I in company with <a> friend, <I> visited one of the eight witnesses <in 1869>–he only one who is now alive, and he bore a very lucid and rational testimony, and gave us many interesting particulars.  He was a young man when he had those testimonies.  He is now <was then> sixty eight years old, and still he is firm in his faith.  Now I would ask what will I do with such a cloud of faithful witnesses, bearing such a rational and yet solemn testimony?  These men while in the prime of life, saw the vision of the angel, and bore their testimony to all people.  And eight men saw the plates, and handled them.  Hence these men all knew the things they declared to be positively true.  And that too while they were young, and now when old they declare the same things.

These paragraphs come from Mitchell K. Schaefer, ed., William E. McLellin’s Lost Manuscript (Salt Lake City: Eborn Books, 2012), 166-167.  The editorial marks (and McLellin’s curious misspelling of his own name) and the occasional omitted word are all faithfully reproduced and double-checked.

The witness whom McLellin visited in 1869 has to have been John Whitmer, who died in 1878.

Guest Author

This account, written by Jamie Armstrong, appeared in the 29 October 2016 online edition of LDS Living.com.

In the winter of 1838, Governor Lilburn W. Boggs issued an Extermination Order demanding that Mormons leave Missouri by March 8, 1839, or be killed. More than 5,000 Saints fled the state by crossing the frozen Mississippi River into the tiny town of Quincy, Illinois. With throngs of Mormon refugees overwhelming the kind-hearted community, shelter was scarce, so one family gladly—and knowingly—took refuge in a haunted farmhouse.

“Some were willing to take whatever [shelter] they could get, despite the living or the dead,” writes Richard E. Bennet, a BYU professor of Church History and Doctrine and author of Mormons in Quincy, Illinois, 1838–1840.  “Take the case of a Mr. Robert Stilson and his haunted house. Eager to rent his vacant farmhouse to the soonest new tenants, Stilson willingly rented out his property to a Mormon newcomer, Mr. Hale, and his young family as long as Hale did not mind living in a spooked environment. . . . The story was that a black peddler had been murdered there and his body thrown into the well. Hale, a very active Latter-day Saint, saw absolutely no problem with the arrangement since he, as a priesthood holder, could cast out every devil in Adams County.”

For months, the family lived in the farmhouse without incident, but then things began to take a disturbing turn. One of the Hale children, Aroet L. Hale, wrote the following spooky account in his journal:

“Father had called the family together for prayers at bed time and had read a chapter in the Book of Mormon and had knelt down and commenced to pray when there was something that fell on to the top of the house that fairly shook the house so that the dishes rattled on the cupboard . . . and so Father sprang to his feet run to the door up the corner of the house on to the roof and rebuked the evil spirits and commanded them to depart. Came back, knelt down and had his family prayers.

“A few Sundays after this occurrence, Father was having prayers before going to bed. He was on his knees and had commenced praying when there was something sounded like a man braying and a lot of log chains past by close to the door. These logs [had lain] for a week in front of the door. The chains rattled over those logs and passed to the end of the house. Father sprang to his feet ran down to the door and commenced rebuking this evil spirit and commanded it to depart and leave the premises. It started off dragging its chains. He followed it about 20 rods, returned to the house, had prayers and went to bed.

“The third and last time was on Sunday again at the close of the meeting. We had had a very good meeting. The Spirit of the Lord had been in our midst to a great degree. One of the sisters looked across the room and there stood the Devil or evil spirit in the shape of a large Newfoundland dog only much larger with eyes glaring like balls of fire looking into the house. This scared the women and children. Father spoke to one of the Brethren [and] they followed this spirit off of the farm and into the woods rebuking it by the power of the Priesthood and ordered it to return no more. No more evil spirits returned to bother us” (Aroet L. Hale, Journal, Church Historical Department).

Guest Author

The article titled “When Body Snatchers Targeted Mormons and the Miraculous Dream That Saved a Slain Missionary’s Body” by Danielle B. Wagner appeared in the 17 October online edition of LDS Living.com.

When the Latter-day Saints moved west to escape persecution, they weren’t just forced to leave behind homes and valuables. Many of them were most heartbroken to leave behind the bodies of their deceased loved ones—possibly to fall into the hands of unscrupulous body snatchers, also commonly called “resurrectionists.”

Body Snatching: A Fate Worse Than Death

Body snatching—robbing crypts and graves for human cadavers—is a practice with a rather controversial history.

Due to medical schools’ high demand for bodies to study for anatomy, body snatching became a lucrative business that escalated during the 1600s through the 1800s. In fact, in the 1820s two body snatchers, William Burke and William Hare, even went to the extreme of murdering 20 people so they could sell their bodies for dissection.

At that time, people considered dissection a fate worse than death, a “further Terror and peculiar Mark of Infamy” reserved only for the worst of criminals who were publicly executed.

Fearful citizens held riots and ransacked medical schools that they thought practiced dissection. One such riot, held in New York in 1788, involved  by citizens ransacking and searching for bodies in the rooms of students and professors at the Columbia College of Medical School and led to the outlawing of body snatching in New York the following year. However, more comprehensive, national laws regulating medical dissection didn’t come into play in the U.S. and Britain until the 1830s.

Despite these past misgivings, Cambridge scientists claim the knowledge that was gained from these dissections had a greater influence on medicine than WWI. “The body snatchers, like the war, allowed scientists to have a greater understanding of general medicine and amputation due to the bodies they had to work with,” Louise Walsh, a spokeswoman for the Cambridge told the Daily Mail. “For the first time, medical students were able to not only practice but work with real bodies—they could understand how the organs worked.”

Body Snatching in the Early Days of the Church

So, what does all of this have to do with Mormons?

Many Latter-day Saints were victims of “resurrectionists” and illegal body snatching before they began their trek out west.

Saints in Kirtland kept an especially close eye on the graves of their loved ones, guarding them day and night for weeks after their burial because of their close proximity to Willoughby Medical College. According to Latter-day Saint Helen Mar Whitney, the medical students and professors at the college thought it “no sacrilege to dissect a ‘Mormon’ dead or alive” (George W. Givens, 500 Little-Known Facts in Mormon History).

One common way the Saints protected their deceased was to overturn a bier, or coffin stand, on top of the grave of a loved one and then tie a rope connecting the bier to the arm of someone sleeping nearby. If the bier was moved, the person on watch would be notified by a tug from the rope (George W. Givens, 500 Little-Known Facts in Mormon History).

Did You Know? Following the death of Joseph Smith’s brother, Alvin, rumors circulated about his body being dug up and dissected. In order to put these rumors to rest, Joseph Smith Sr. “ran a public notice five times in the Palmyraweekly” which read in part: ““TO THE PUBLIC: Whereas reports have been industriously put in circulation that my son Alvin had been removed from the place of his interment and dissected; … therefore, for the purpose of ascertaining the truth of such reports, I, with some of my neighbors this morning, repaired to the grave, and removing the earth, found the body, which had not been disturbed” (Ensign, August 1987, “The Alvin Smith Story: Fact and Fiction“).

A Miraculous Encounter with Body Snatchers

Kirtland was not the only place the Saints faced the terrorizing body snatchers.

In Pomfret, New York, in January of 1831—nearly 50 years since body snatching had been outlawed in the state—”opposers” to the Church murdered Mormon missionary Joseph Brackenbury, who died from “the effects of poison secretly administered to him” (HC, 7:524, quoted in George W. Givens, 500 Little-Known Facts in Mormon History).

The cold, stormy night following Elder Brackenbury’s burial, my ancestor Joel Hills Johnson had a strange dream. Joel Johnson (the famous writer of “High on a Mountain Top”) was not yet baptized a member of the Church, though he had already shown interest in its teachings. (It’s not clear how Johnson knew Elder Brackenbury, but it’s possible he could have been one of the missionaries who shared the gospel with Johnson.)

As Joel Johnson slept, he dreamt that body snatchers were defiling Elder Brackenbury’s grave and stealing his corpse. The dream was so realistic and disturbed Joel so deeply, he woke his brother David and convinced him to travel with him to the cemetery a mile from their house.

There, the brothers found men digging at Elder Brackenbury’s grave. After chasing the men, they were able to catch one and discovered he was a doctor hoping to dissect the body. The man was brought to the authorities and given a bond, but like “many anti-Mormons accused of crimes against the Saints, he was never brought to trial” (George W. Givens, 500 Little-Known Facts in Mormon History).

Not six months after this event, Joel Hills Johnson was baptized as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and David and many of his other siblings followed. In fact, the descendants of Joel’s father, Ezekiel Johnson, are believed to belong to the largest family in the LDS Church.

Unfortunately, the experiences Joel Hills Johnson and the Saints in Kirtland had with body snatchers are not unique in Latter-day Saint history. Perhaps these encounters give us one more reason to admire the courage of the pioneers and to realize a portion of what they sacrificed and left behind.

Lead image from Getty Images.

Guest Author

The article titled “In Our Lovely Deseret: What pioneers wrote of their impressions of the Prophet Joseph Smith” by Susan Evans McCloud appeared in the 29 September 2016 online edition of Deseret News in the Faith section.

Those who were privileged to meet the Prophet Joseph Smith in the flesh were universal in their responses to the experience.

President Lorenzo Snow, who joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a young man in Kirtland, Ohio, was just one witness.

“I heard the Prophet (Joseph Smith) discourse upon the grandest of subjects,” he said, which was recorded in “Remembering Joseph,” by Mark L. McConkie. “At times he was filled with the Holy Ghost, speaking as with the voice of an archangel, and filled with the power of God; his whole person shone and his face was lightened until it appeared as the whiteness of the driven snow.”

George Spilsbury was baptized in England and later became a member of the Nauvoo Legion, seeming to expand on this same theme.

“In his preaching, I have heard him (Joseph) quote scriptures in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and German,” he said (see “Personal Glimpses of the Prophet Joseph Smith,” by Hyrum L. Andrus and Helen Mae Andrus). “He was a great man — a statesman-philosopher, also a revealer of many things in philosophy and astronomy.”

Bathsheba W. Smith, a convert from West Virginia, married the Prophet’s cousin, George A. Smith, and became the fourth general president of the Relief Society.

She left a lively description of Joseph. “The Prophet was a handsome man — splendid looking, a large man, tall and fair,” she wrote (see “They Knew the Prophet,” compiled by Hyrum L. Andrus and Helen Mae Andrus). “He had a nice complexion. His eyes were blue, and his hair a golden brown, and very pretty.

“My first impressions were that he was an extraordinary man, a man of great penetration; was different from any other man I ever saw; had the most heavenly countenance; was genial, affable and kind; and looked the soul of honor and integrity.”

Elizabeth B. Pratt crossed the ocean from England as a young girl, arriving in Nauvoo in November 1841.

“When I was first introduced to the Prophet, he held my hand and said, ‘God bless you.’ There was such an influence with his words I wondered how anyone could doubt his being a prophet,” she wrote in an article in 1890 in “The Young Women’s Journal” that was published in “Personal Glimpses of the Prophet Joseph Smith.”

Perhaps Joseph knew this young convert would need that word of blessing, for Elizabeth wrote, “My father only stayed nine weeks in the church. He apostatized and moved away to Warsaw with the family. … I stayed on the ship Zion which has brought me safely thus far on my journey.”

She added, “We would meet to worship on the Sabbath in a large bowery where he (Joseph) sometimes addressed the assembly for two to three hours. The Saints were rapt in profound attention by the words of inspiration that fell from his lips.”

Every time Joseph Smith spoke — to individuals or to the Saints as a whole — he taught something. Every act of his, every word, was a blessing to others — for so hundreds of the people who knew him testified.

“He was visited constantly by angels, he had vision after vision … that he might comprehend the great and holy calling that God had bestowed upon him. In this respect, he stands unique. Think of what he passed through! Think of his afflictions, and think of his dauntless character!” said George Q. Cannon, who knew Joseph Smith in Nauvoo and was later the first counselor in the First Presidency to President John Taylor, President Wilford Woodruff, and President Snow (see “Personal Glimpses of the Prophet Joseph Smith”). “He was filled with integrity to God, with such integrity as was not known among men. He was like an angel of God among them.”

“The Prophet’s voice was like the thunders of heaven, yet his language was meek and his instructions edified much,” wrote Joseph Lee Robinson in “The Journal of Joseph Lee Robinson.” “There was a power and majesty that attended his words that we never beheld in any man before.”

People heard him talk to God in prayer. They received blessings under his hand. They heard him preach and prophesy. They saw him teach, inspire and support women. They saw him play tenderly with their children, they saw him direct and defend their youth; upon many occasions, they saw him weep. And with the power of his own humility and goodness, many times the Saints saw the Prophet forgive.

After years of faithful service and the blessings of a personal relationship with the Prophet, Parley P. Pratt fell victim to the raging spirit of apostasy that swept through Kirtland following the dedication of the temple there.

He records in “Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt”: “It seemed as if the very powers of darkness which war against the Saints were let loose upon me.”

When Parley criticized the Prophet to John Taylor — whom he had helped teach the gospel — his friend’s reply had the power to awaken his senses. “If the work was true six months ago, it is true today,” said President Taylor in “John Taylor,” by Francis M. Gibbon. “If Joseph Smith was then a prophet, he is now a prophet.”

“I went to brother Joseph Smith in tears, and, with a broken heart and contrite spirit,” Pratt recorded. “He frankly forgave me — prayed for me — and blessed me.”

Gilbert Belnap, a convert from Canada, who later served as a bishop in Utah, wrote this of Joseph Smith: “While I was standing before his penetrating gaze, he seemed to read the very recesses of my heart — I gazed with wonder at his person and listened with delight to the sound of his voice. My very destiny seemed to be interwoven with his” (see “Autobiography of Gilbert Belnap”).

Today, as ever, the gospel will go forward. As George Q. Cannon testified: “It is indestructible, for it is the work of God. And knowing that it is the eternal work of God, we know that Joseph Smith, who established it, was a Prophet holy and pure” (see “Life of Joseph Smith the Prophet”).

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Monday, August 6, 1838, Gallatin, Missouri. When the fighting stopped between the Mormons and the non-Mormons John Lowe Butler gathered his brethren about him and faced the mob declaring that they would fight as long as the blood ran warm in their veins. But, bloodied and bruised, both sides had had enough and parted ways. John went to where he had left his wagon and team, but they were gone. So he mounted a horse and rode home with Samuel Harrison Smith, where he spent the night, presumably fulfilling his duties as a militia captain.

The next morning, he rode home to the Marrowbone settlement where his wife had been anxiously waiting. John determined to ride to Far West and inform the Prophet Joseph Smith about what had happened. Exaggerated reports of the brawl had spread throughout the county and many tempers were fanned into flames. After hearing what had happened, Joseph then asked John if he had moved his family to safety. “I told him, no,” John said. “Then, said he, go and move them directly and do not sleep another night there. But said I, I don’t like to be a coward.” To which Joseph said, “Go and do as I tell you.”

John turned around immediately and rode the 14 miles back home, arriving about 2 hours after dark. He informed his wife what Joseph had said. They loaded up their household goods and moved to the Taylor’s home about a mile and a half away, arriving just at dawn.

They would later learn that no sooner had they departed than a close neighbor saw a mob of about 30 men ride up and surround the Butler cabin. Fearing the worst, he rode off in a fright toward the Taylor home. When he arrived and saw the Butlers, he exclaimed, “Oh, I am so glad that you are here for there are about thirty men around your house to kill you all.”

John Butler would later write, “I then saw the hand of the Lord guiding Brother Joseph Smith to direct me to move my family away. If he had not, why in all probability we should all have been murdered, and I felt to thank God with all my heart and soul.”

We thank, O God, for a prophet who still sees the way to safety!

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Artwork: Kelly Donovon

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Excerpts used in this article were taken from the original article “What 17 Famous People Have Said About Mormons” by Danielle B. Wagner for the 31 August 2016 online edition of LDS Living.com.

People have a lot to say about the Mormons these days, what with The Book of Mormon musical still going strong not to mention how Mormons are impacting the current presidential election. And there’s no short supply of topics or opinions.

But, since the 1800s, Mormons have always been a popular topic of conversation, and often misrepresentation. As a “peculiar” people, we just can’t help but draw the attention of famous people, from writers to presidents to celebrities and more.

Here are just a few priceless quotes of what influential people have said about Mormons:

President Abraham Lincoln

“When I was a boy on the farm in Illinois there was a great deal of timber on the farm which we had to clear away. Occasionally we would come to a log which had fallen down. It was too hard to split, too wet to burn and too heavy to move, so we plowed around it. That’s what I intend to do with the Mormons. You go back and tell Brigham Young that if he will let me alone I will let him alone.”

Charles Dickens

Upon boarding an emigrant ship with several Latter-day Saints, Dickens observed,“Nobody is in an ill temper, nobody is the worse for drink, nobody swears an oath or uses a coarse word, nobody appears depressed, nobody is weeping . . . And these people are so strikingly different from all other people in like circumstances whom I have ever seen, that I wonder aloud, ‘What would a stranger suppose these emigrants to be!’”

Dickens also noted: “It is surprising to me that these people are all so cheery, and make so little of the immense distance before them. . . . What is in store for the poor people on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, what happy delusions they are labouring under now, on what miserable blindness their eyes may be opened then, I do not pretend to say. But I went on board their ship to bear testimony against them if they deserved it, as I fully believed they would; to my great astonishment, they did not deserve it; and my predispositions and tendencies must not affect me as an honest witness, I went over the Amazon’s side, feeling it impossible to deny that, so far, some remarkable influence had produced a remarkable result, which better known influences have often missed.”

Maria von Trapp

“In Brazil, in Argentina, in Peru, in Chile, in Mexico, in New Zealand, in Australia … whenever there were two strapping young Americans—two—coming up to us, very friendly, they were Mormon missionaries. I always admired the Mormon Church, for this in a way is most natural thing to do, to give two years of your life—a preconceived Peace Corps plan, long before there was Peace Corps—and to go to teach all people, as He has told us to do.”

-From Much Ado About Mormons: What Famous People Have Said About the Mormons by Rick Walton

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Good out of evil. One must thank the genius of Brigham Young for the creation of Salt Lake City — an inestimable hospitality to the Overland Emigrants, and an efficient example to all men in the vast desert, teaching how to subdue and turn it to a habitable garden.”

-From Much Ado About Mormons: What Famous People Have Said About the Mormons by Rick Walton

President Franklin D. Roosevelt

In a letter to Winston Churchill, President Franklin Roosevelt commented on a Deseret News article noting that Churchill was related to members of the LDS Church. He wrote:

“Hitherto I had not observed any outstanding Mormon characteristics in either of you—but I shall be looking for them from now on. I have a very high opinion of the Mormons—for they are excellent citizens.”

-From Much Ado About Mormons: What Famous People Have Said About the Mormons by Rick Walton

Cecil B. Demille

Filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille said during his comments at a BYU commencement: “I have known many members of your church—and I have never known one who was not a good citizen and a fine, wholesome person—but David O. McKay embodies, more than anyone that I have ever known, the virtues and the drawing-power of your church.

“David McKay, almost thou persuadest me to be a Mormon! And knowing what family life means to the Latter-day Saints, I cannot speak or think of President McKay without thinking too of that gracious and spirited young lady who is his wife.”

-From Much Ado About Mormons: What Famous People Have Said About the Mormons by Rick Walton

Mark Twain

“We walked about the streets [of Salt Lake City] some, afterward, and glanced in at shops and stores; and there was a fascination in surreptitiously staring at every creature we took to be a Mormon. This was a fairyland to us, to all intents and purposes—a land of enchantment, and goblins, and awful mystery. We felt a curiosity to ask every child how many mothers it had, and if it could tell them apart; and we experienced a thrill every time a dwelling-house door opened and shut as we passed, disclosing a glimpse of human heads and backs of shoulders—for we longed to have a good satisfying look at a Mormon family in all its comprehensive ampleness, disposed in the customary concentric rings of its home circle.”

-From Much Ado About Mormons: What Famous People Have Said About the Mormons by Rick Walton

President Herbert Hoover

“I have witnessed their devotion to public service and their support of charitable efforts over our country and in foreign lands during all these years. I have witnessed the growth of the church’s communities over the world where self-reliance, devotion, resolution, and integrity are a light to all mankind. Surely a great message of Christian faith has been given by the church—and it must continue.”

-From Much Ado About Mormons: What Famous People Have Said About the Mormons by Rick Walton

All images from Getty Images.

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