Pillar of Light

by Gerald N. Lund

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  A general conference of the Church convened in Nauvoo on Saturday, October third, and continued through Monday, October fifth, 1840. Numerous items of business were proposed and approved. Two would have lasting significance for the Saints.

  Joseph spoke at some length about the necessity of building a house of the Lord. When he was finished, it was unanimously approved that work commence no later than ten days from that date, and a committee was appointed. Among others, Brother Benjamin Steed was asked to serve on the building committee. It was also proposed and sustained that every able-bodied brother would give a “tithe” of his time, working one day in ten on the temple.

  The second important item of business had to do with a charter for the city of Nauvoo. Joseph Smith, Robert Thompson, and John C. Bennett were sustained as the committee to draft a proposal for a charter. The conference also sustained Bennett as the delegate to Springfield who would lobby the legislature for its passage.

  Joseph brought John C. Bennett over to where the Steeds were eating during the afternoon recess. In his mid-thirties, Bennett was strikingly handsome and had a smile that quickly put one at ease. He was a physician, a part-time preacher, a founder of a university in Ohio and another in Indiana. Prominent in Illinois politics, he was also a brigadier general in the dragoons of the state militia, and Governor Carlin had made him state quartermaster general, a position with considerable prestige and influence.

  Earlier Bennett had written to Joseph from Springfield, volunteering to help with the settling of the Saints and also expressing an interest in becoming a Mormon. That such a man of learning and culture and political prominence should become a Latter-day Saint sent a ripple of excitement through the Mormon community. That such a handsome, suave man was still a bachelor sent tidal waves through the feminine population of Nauvoo. After some correspondence with the Prophet, in the summer of 1840 Bennett came to Nauvoo and was eventually baptized.

  “Benjamin,” Joseph said, after introductions were made, “since I have asked you to help with the planning and platting of the city, I wanted Brother John here to meet you.”

  “Joseph speaks most highly of you, sir,” Bennett said grandly as they shook hands.

  “And of you,” Benjamin responded. “I was pleased that you were sustained to be on the committee to help us get our city charter.”

  Bennett nodded in satisfaction. “Thank you. We have a preliminary outline of what we think we should ask for. Brother Joseph will be proposing that this afternoon, right?”

  Joseph nodded. “Yes, in the next meeting.”

  “I think the Saints will find it satisfactory,” Bennett continued. “But Joseph has so much regard for your opinion, Brother Benjamin, we thought we’d let you know what we are thinking.”

  Flattered, Benjamin nodded. The rest of the family moved in a little closer, a little awed at the presence of the man and the fact that he was coming to their father and grandfather for advice.

  “It is my firm belief,” Bennett began, “that if the Saints are ever to have freedom from the depredations of Missouri, we must have the protection of the law. And a well-written city charter is how to get that protection.”

  “That sounds wonderful,” Lydia spoke up. Several of the others were nodding.

  “If the outline we are proposing is approved,” Bennett said, “we shall ask for sweeping powers, powers that will protect us.”

  “Like what?” Jessica asked.

  “Our own militia. Courts with the power to issue writs of habeas corpus.”

  Olivia, at nearly thirteen, and clearly dazzled by his presence, was hanging on his every word. She wrinkled her nose. “What’s that?”

  Joseph laughed. “It’s a paper meaning that a person has to be taken before a judge or a court to be charged with a crime. It protects one against illegal imprisonment.”

  “It’s what we tried to get over and over in Missouri but couldn’t,” Benjamin explained to his granddaughter. “That’s why Joseph and the others spent so long in jail.”

  Bennett went on. “I’ve patterned it after the charters granted to Chicago and other cities in the state. We can form our own university.”

  Benjamin was impressed. Sweeping was a good word to describe those kinds of powers. “And do you think we have a chance of getting the legislature to accept such a charter?”

  “Absolutely,” Bennett said with complete confidence.

  Joseph clapped Bennett on the shoulder. “And if there is a man in the state who can see to it that it gets done, that man is standing right here.”

  When the train from London pulled into the station at Manchester, Matthew was the first passenger off. He spied Derek in the waiting crowd immediately and started swinging his arm. “Derek! Derek! I’m over here.”

  Though it had been only three weeks since they had been together in Liverpool, they greeted each other as if it had been much longer than that. They shook hands warmly, and then Derek looked around. “What about your brethren? Didn’t they come with you?”

  “Yes and no. Brother Woodruff wanted to stop in Staffordshire on the way up and revisit the branches. Heber and George A. are with him. They should be here tomorrow.”

  “Well, then,” Derek said, taking him by the elbow, “we’re off. It’s not far, no more than a mile or two. You’ll be staying in our flat with me.”

  “Good. How many of the others are here?”

  “Brother Taylor is still on the Isle of Man. He’s having a series of debates with a local minister which are creating a lot of interest, so he felt like he couldn’t break away. Orson Pratt hasn’t yet arrived from Scotland, but he is coming. When your three from London arrive, that will be it.”

  As they began to make their way through the crowded railway station, Matthew suddenly turned. “Have you gotten any letters?” he asked.

  “I got one from Rebecca. One came for both of us from Mama and Papa yesterday.”

  “And that’s all?” Matthew asked, disappointment pulling down the corners of his mouth.

  Derek got an impish little grin. “Let’s see. There was one other one, but I couldn’t quite make out the handwriting. Looked like it might be written in Irish or some such thing.”

  “Really?” Matthew crowed. “I haven’t gotten a letter since we went to London.” He grabbed Derek’s arm and pulled him into a trot. “Come on, let’s get going.”

  Half an hour later, Matthew was going over Jennifer Jo’s letter for the fourth time when there was a brisk knock on the door. It pushed open even as Derek called out, “Come in.”

  Brigham Young was into the room in three strides and swept Matthew up in a bear hug. “Matthew, you rascal. How are you?”

  “Fine, Brother Brigham. And you?”

  “Busier than a carpenter with four hammers and no hands.” He frowned. “Can you imagine that? Me, who can barely spell good enough for a man to read, and I’m in charge of things here—publishing a hymnbook, getting the Book of Mormon printed.”

  “Yes, I can imagine it,” Matthew said soberly.

  “I try to have Willard write most of the letters, but when I do write one now and then, you can hear groans all over the British Isles.”

  Matthew laughed. Oh, it was good to see Brother Brigham again!

  Brigham put his arm around his young friend. “What we need to do is open up a little carpenter and mill shop here. We could leave all this publishing and Church leadership to someone better qualified to do it.”

  “I’m with you,” Matthew agreed. “It sounds great to get my hands on a good piece of wood again.”

  “How are the conference plans coming?” Derek asked.

  Brigham brightened immediately. For all his protestations to the contrary, he loved being in the midst of the work. “It is going to be a grand conference. Did Derek tell you, Matthew? Since July, total Church membership here has jumped another eleven hundred members. That’s an increase of almost fifty percent in just three months’ time!
”

  Matthew felt a surge of exultation and a burst of discouragement at the same instant. Not many of those numbers had come out of London. Since their arrival there in late August, they had had very little success. Unlike the people in the central part of England, the people in England’s capital were generally indifferent to religion or so crushed by their poverty that they had no time for spiritual matters.

  Brigham saw his reaction and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Brethren,” he said soberly, “I don’t know how much longer the Lord plans for us to be here, but I think the general consensus of the Twelve is that we shall leave next spring. We shall have to intensify our efforts. There is so much to do. So much to do.”

  When Mary Ann opened the door, Carl and Melissa were on the porch. None of the children were with them. Carl swept off his hat immediately. “Hello, Mother Steed.”

  “Well, hello.” She was a little surprised. They lived just across the street and one house up, and usually Melissa didn’t knock. “Come in.”

  As they did so, Carl looked around. “Is Father Steed at home?”

  “Yes,” came the reply from the back room. “Just a moment.”

  “Sit down,” Mary Ann said, giving her daughter a quizzical look. But Melissa was evidently going to let Carl take the lead on this and just shrugged.

  They sat down as Benjamin came out, drying his hands. “Well, hello, you two,” he said.

  “Hello, Father Steed,” Carl responded. “Sorry to come this late in the evening, but we’re wondering if we could speak with you for a few minutes.”

  “Of course.” He came over and sat down beside Mary Ann.

  Carl glanced at his father-in-law, then to Mary Ann, and then finally to Melissa. She nodded her encouragement. “I’d like to ask your advice on a business matter.”

  Benjamin raised one hand and laughed. “You and Joshua have five times the business sense I’ve got,” he said. “How could I possibly advise you?”

  “This is also a family matter, Papa.”

  He looked at Melissa. “Oh, all right.”

  Carl was not a man of many words, and he usually chose them carefully. It also meant he liked to skip any small talk and get right to the heart of the matter. He took a breath and plunged. “We’d like to leave the partnership with Joshua.”

  That stunned them both and he hurried on. “It’s not that we are having problems. It’s not that at all. Things are going very well there. It’s just that . . .”

  “Has Joshua said something?” Mary Ann asked, completely flabbergasted by this announcement.

  “No, not at all.”

  Melissa jumped in. “Please understand, Papa, Joshua has been wonderful to us. In fact, that’s part of the problem. Carl is worried that he might take it wrong.”

  “Then what is it?” Benjamin asked.

  Carl looked at his wife, and when she nodded her encouragement he went on, excitement making him speak more quickly. “Actually, I’ve been thinking a lot about what’s going on here in Nauvoo. There’s so much building and growth going on. And . . . well, you know how expensive lumber is, having to bring it in from the East and all that?”

  “I certainly do,” Benjamin agreed. That was a major issue that the temple building committee was wrestling with at this very time. Illinois was part of the Great Plains and had few natural stands of timber. There were a few trees along the river and the numerous streams, but these were limited and were not ideal for sawing into long planks. So to this point, most of the homes built in Nauvoo were log cabins or mud-and-board shanties, with only a few frame homes here and there. Eastern lumber was coming down the Ohio and then up the Mississippi, but it was very expensive. With cash money scarce and barter the major means of commerce in Nauvoo, purchase of sufficient lumber to build a home was very difficult.

  “So what if we make a brick kiln?” Carl said.

  It took a moment for that to register with both Mary Ann and Benjamin. “A brick kiln?” Benjamin finally said.

  “Yes. One of those British people that came in a month or so ago was in the stable the other day. He used to work the big pottery kilns in England. He says making bricks shouldn’t be a whole lot different. He’s been along the bluffs and down by the riverbanks. He says there’s plenty of good clay in the area.”

  Benjamin leaned back. “A brick kiln? Well, well. What an interesting idea.”

  Carl nodded. “Anyway, the more I’ve thought about it, the more intrigued I am with the idea. This is something that is really needed here. I’m enjoying the work with Joshua, but he doesn’t need me. I’m just there to keep the books.” Now he frowned. “But will Joshua be hurt after all he’s done for us?”

  Benjamin leaned back, pulling thoughtfully on one ear. “Well, there’s one way to find out. Let’s get Joshua over here.”

  Carl flinched a little. “You mean right now?”

  “I do,” Benjamin chuckled. “I think it’s time for another family council. I think we ought to bring Nathan and Lydia too.”

  “Of course I’m not going to be upset,” Joshua said, shaking his head at the notion that Carl would even think such a thing. “It sounds like a great idea to me.”

  “You really think so?” Carl asked.

  “Yes, I do. In fact, I’ve been wrestling with exactly the same problem in my own mind.”

  “What problem?” Nathan asked.

  “The problem of the shortage of lumber and the cost of bringing it in from the East.”

  “Can’t you bring in lumber more cheaply than others are doing it?” Lydia asked. “You’ve already got the freight business set up to do that sort of thing.”

  Joshua shrugged. “Maybe a little. But that isn’t the answer. Every mile you carry something, whether it’s by wagon, boat, or mule, costs you money. We’re just too far from the eastern lumber mills.”

  “So brick is one answer?” Melissa asked hopefully.

  “It certainly is,” Joshua replied. “And I feel like a fool for not having thought of it before. It is a brilliant idea, Carl.”

  The relief on Carl’s face was openly visible. It was going to be all right. “Thank you. I think we can make a go of it.”

  “Make a go of it?” Joshua exclaimed. “With you being the first one in, I think you’re going to find yourself with more demand than you can supply.”

  “I agree,” Benjamin said, “but that doesn’t solve the lumber problem. You can’t build a temple with nothing but bricks.”

  Joshua looked smug. “That’s why you and me and Nathan are going to take a little trip upriver to Wisconsin Territory.” He laughed aloud at the expression on their faces. Even Caroline was dumbfounded.

  “Wisconsin?” Nathan finally managed.

  “They say up there, there are pine forests that stretch from horizon to horizon, as far as the eye can see. Millions of trees and straight as a nail.”

  “But that’s six hundred miles from here,” Carl said, “with not a lot of good roads between here and there. How’s that going to help keep the price down?”

  Now Joshua looked pleased. “Are you forgetting the greatest wagon of them all?”

  Carl looked puzzled. Lydia and Melissa were watching Joshua closely, not understanding. But Nathan saw it instantly. “The Mississippi.”

  “You mean by boat?” Mary Ann asked.

  “No, by raft,” said Joshua. “Lumber rafts. Just get that lumber to the river during the winter when the ground is hard enough to carry sleds and wagons. Then when the ice breaks up, you just tie them logs together with a lot of rope and float them right on down to Nauvoo. No horses to feed, no teamsters to worry about. Just a hundred thousand board feet of lumber coming downriver like a great raft from heaven itself.”

  Nathan was nodding. It was brilliant. The brickyard was brilliant, but it was only part of the solution. Reasonably priced lumber was the other half of the answer. He looked at Lydia. She was still trying to digest it. He reached out and took her hand, but he was looking at Joshua. “So w
hen do we leave?”

  Will hurried along the wharf, moving around the people who walked at a more leisurely pace than him. It had been nearly eighteen months since he had last been on the New Orleans docks, but he still felt right at home. He smiled. He felt more at home right now than he had felt in a long time. This was the last major stopping place. A week upriver and it would be over.

  As he rounded the corner of one of the big cotton warehouses, he saw the Mormons, clustered on the dock not far from the customshouse. Theodore Turley and John Benbow were back and immediately broke off from the group when they saw him. On board, Turley and Benbow had jointly shared leadership, but since disembarking this morning and moving through customs, it was clear that Turley had taken the lead. Though English, he had lived in America for several years before returning with the Twelve. On board, he had seemed a bit stern to Will, particularly compared to John Benbow’s warm openness, but when Will approached him and offered to help find a riverboat and book passage, he proved to be pleasant and congenial.

  Will saw the crowd edging closer to their leaders so they could hear about their fate. He also saw that Jenny Pottsworth and her mother were near the front. “Did you have any luck?” he asked of Turley.

  Both men nodded. “The shipping company says they have two boats leaving tomorrow,” Turley explained. “The one is too small for our group, but the other, the Blue Bay, has plenty of room.”

  John Benbow leaned forward. “And the customshouse has promised to have our large trunks cleared by morning. So what do you think?”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Will saw that Jenny was watching him closely, and there was a little bit of mockery in her eyes. He could almost hear her saying it: Look at Mr. Big, playing the expert with these dumb Mormons.

  He turned away from her. “I think it looks all right.”

  “You think we should give them the money, then?” Turley asked.