American Crucifixion
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67“We care not a fig”: Times and Seasons, December 10, 1841.
67“He is not as fit as my dog”: New York Sun, July 28, 1840.
68Cyrus Walker, “the greatest criminal lawyer”: Roberts, ed., History of the Church, vol. 5, p. 431ff.; Brodie, No Man Knows, p. 348.
68perfidious Missouri sheriffs: Lyman Omer Littlefield, Reminiscences of Latter-day Saints (Logan: Utah Journal, 1888), p. 128.
69“I understand the gospel”: Roberts, ed., History of the Church, vol. 5, p. 472.
69Hyrum Smith . . . made a startling announcement: John Hallwas and Roger Launius, Cultures in Conflict: A Documentary History of the Mormon War in Illinois (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1995), p. 87.
70“Brother Hyrum tells me this morning”: Roberts, ed., History of the Church, vol. 5, p. 526.
71“From this time forth”: Thomas Ford, A History of Illinois, from Its Commencement as a State in 1818 to 1847 (Chicago: S. C. Griggs, 1845), p. 329.
71Mormons had become political orphans: Roger Launius, “American Home Missionary Society Ministers and Mormon Nauvoo: Selected Letters,” Western Illinois Regional Studies (Spring 1985).
72“Mormonism is exerting a great . . . influence”: Clyde Buckingham, “Mormonism in Illinois,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 32 (2) (June 1939).
72“most dangerous and virulent enemies”: Matthew Bowman, The Mormon People (New York: Random House, 2012), p. xvi.
72“the pretended prophet”: Warsaw Message, September 13, 1843.
72penchant for “consecrated thieving”: Michael S. Riggs, “From the Daughters of Zion to ‘The Banditti of the Prairies’: Danite Influence on the Nauvoo Period,” Restoration Studies 7 (1998), p. 96.
73Joseph condemned stealing: Two excellent sources on Mormon stealing are ibid., and William Shepard, “Stealing at Mormon Nauvoo,” John Whitmer Historical Association Journal (2003).
73accusations of counterfeiting: Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy, p. 127.
74“an excellent specimen of base coin”: Joseph Jackson, Adventures and Experiences of Joseph Jackson: Disclosing the Depths of Mormon Villainy in Nauvoo (Warsaw, IL, 1846), p. 11ff.
75“We cannot talk about spiritual things”: Leonard Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-Day Saints, 1830–1900 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958), p. 425.
75Nauvoo’s autarkic civil government: George Moore, “Diary, 1842–1844,” Western Illinois Regional Studies 5 (1982), p. 175.
76detailing Joseph’s inglorious past: Marshall Hamilton, “MONEY-DIGGERSVILLE—The Brief Turbulent History of the Mormon Town of Warren,” John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 9 (1989).
77Joseph responded with a tirade: Roberts, ed., History of the Church, vol. 4, p. 486ff.
5. POLYGAMY AND ITS DISCONTENTS
82Joseph explained to Mary: Mary Rollins’s story is told in Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), chap. 8; Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery, Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1994), p. 65ff.
84the original polygamy revelation of 1831: Newell and Avery, Mormon Enigma, p. 65.
85Joseph had been confiding his thoughts: Richard Van Wagoner, “Mormon Polyandry in Nauvoo,” Dialogue—A Journal of Mormon Thought 18 (Fall 1985).
86Polygamy was not an idea that: Richard Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), p. 275.
86“wonderful lustful spirit”: George D. Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2011), p. 532.
88Emma “did not believe a word”: Smith, George D., ed., An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995), p. 110; Newell and Avery, Mormon Enigma, p. 152.
88Emma “was more bitter”: Newell and Avery, Mormon Enigma, p. 144.
88“blood would flow”: Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, August 16, 1843.
88Despite her many humiliations: D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998), p. 163.
89“I felt of the plates”: Newell and Avery, Mormon Enigma, p. 25.
89During his nine-month-long jail term: Ibid., pp. 144, 170.
89raven-haired poetess Eliza Snow: Fawn Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith the Mormon Prophet (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), p. 471; Newell and Avery, Mormon Enigma, p. 134.
89“Straight from hell, madam”: Newell and Avery, Mormon Enigma, p. 171.
89Emma Smith’s horrified reaction: J. Lewis Taylor, “John Taylor: Family Man,” in Champion of Liberty: John Taylor, ed. Mary Jane Woodger (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2009).
90“very repugnant to my feelings”: Leonard Arrington, The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-Day Saints (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992), p. 222.
91Jennetta, died just two years later: Devery Anderson, “‘I Could Love Them All,’ Nauvoo Polygamy in the Marriage of Willard and Jennetta Richards,” Sunstone 171 (June 2013).
91Smith eventually married dozens of wives: Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, p. 616.
93Nauvoo required a girl to be fourteen: John S. Dinger, ed., The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2011), p. 65.
93“I would never have been sealed to Joseph”: Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy, p. 198ff.
93People change: Helen Mar Whitney, Why We Practice Plural Marriage (Salt Lake City: Office of the Juvenile Instructor, 1884).
94adventure . . . befell Apostle Orson Pratt: Marvin Hill, Quest for Refuge: The Mormon Flight from American Pluralism (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), p. 118.
94the Twelve excommunicated both Pratts: Richard Van Wagoner, “Sarah M. Pratt: The Shaping of an Apostate,” Dialogue—A Journal of Mormon Thought 19 (Summer 1986), p. 77.
95“You must not be a doctor here”: Salt Lake Tribune, July 31, 1887.
95“No man could be better fitted”: Lyndon W. Cook, William Law: Biographical Essay; Nauvoo Diary; Correspondence; Interview (Orem, UT: Grandin Book, 1994).
96Law brothers led a flying squad: B. H. Roberts, ed., History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2nd ed., rev., vol. 5 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1978), p. 431ff.
96“a honest upright man”: Cook, William Law, p. 55.
96“All hail to our Chief!”: Times and Seasons, February 15, 1843.
96“If an angel from heaven”: Cook, William Law, p. 37.
97“He would have shot”: Ibid., p. 133.
97“endeavored to seduce my wife”: Ibid., p. 128.
99“Poor, weak woman!”: Charlotte Haven, “A Girl’s Letters from Nauvoo,” Overland Monthly 16 (December 1890).
99“Whether we view Joseph”: Roberts, ed., History of the Church, vol. 6, p. 42.
99“a delightful habitation”: Scott H. Faulring, ed., An American Prophet’s Record: The Diaries and Journals of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), p. 308.
100“we began here first”: Robert Bruce Flanders, Nauvoo: Kingdom on the Mississippi (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1965), p. 188.
100Foster arrived home one evening: Brodie, Fawn. No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith the Mormon Prophet. (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), p. 371.
100“‘You,’ shaking his fists”: Scott H. Faulring, ed., An American Prophet’s Record: The Diaries and Journals of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), p. 474.
101“I have seen him steal”: Times and Seasons, May 15, 1844.
101Foster pulled a pistol: Richard Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), p. 532.
101“notorious in this city”: Wagoner, “Sarah M. Pratt,” p. 77.
101“too indelicate for the public eye”: Times and Seasons, May 15, 1844
101Chauncey had been severed from the church: Ding
er, The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes, p. 415.
102extraordinary tirade against Chauncey Higbee: Rocky O’Donovan, “The Abominable and Detestable Crime Against Nature: A Brief History of Homosexuality and Mormonism, 1840–1980,” in Multiply and Replenish: Mormon Essays on Sex and Family, ed. Brent Corcoran (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994).
102Joseph accused Harrison Sagers: Dinger, The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes, p. 478.
102“walked up and down the streets”: Roberts, ed., History of the Church, vol. 6, p. 46.
103“we have lately been credibly informed”: Times and Seasons, February 1, 1844.
103“one or two disaffected individuals”: Roberts, ed., History of the Church, vol. 6, p. 378.
104“Do you solemnly swear”: James Wesley Scott, “The Jacob and Sarah Warnock Scott Family: 1779–1910,” online history and genealogy available at http://www.scottcorner.org/JACOB%20&%20SARAH%20SCOTT.pdf, p. 79; Horace H. Cummings, “Conspiracy of Nauvoo,” August 8, 1932, typescript submitted note, BYU Library, Provo, Utah.
104“I kept a detective”: Cook, William Law, p. 118.
105Attacks of a very different kind: Andrew F. Ehat, “Joseph Smith’s Introduction of Temple Ordinances and the 1844 Mormon Succession Question,” master’s thesis in history, Brigham Young University, December 1982, p. 77.
6. “THE PERVERSION OF SACRED THINGS”
109plans to publish a new, independent newspaper: Marvin Hill, Quest for Refuge: The Mormon Flight from American Pluralism (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), p. 144.
110Expositor was “a hazardous enterprise”: Macomb Eagle, May 22, 1875.
110not a cautious enterprise: B. H. Roberts, ed., History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2nd ed., rev., vol. 6 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1978), p. 43.
111“You have trampled upon”: Lyndon W. Cook, William Law: Biographical Essay; Nauvoo Diary; Correspondence; Interview (Orem, UT: Grandin Book, 1994), p. 30.
111“I had prepared some manuscript”: Ibid.
113“the perversion of sacred things”: Brotherton’s letter appeared in the St. Louis Bulletin, July 15, 1842, and elsewhere. Details of the case appear in Fawn Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith the Mormon Prophet (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), p. 307, and George D. Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2011), p. 264ff.
116Expositor flew out the doors: B. Carmon Hardy, Doing the Works of Abraham: Mormon Polygamy: Its Origin, Practice, and Demise (Norman, OK: Arthur H. Clark, 2007), p. 69.
117the eager-to-please council: George D. Smith, ed. An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995), p. 133; John S. Dinger, ed., The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2011), p. 215.
117passed several special ordinances: Dinger, ed., Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes, p. 188.
117inveighing against their enemies: Ibid., p. 238ff, has a complete record of the council’s Saturday session.
118“the wickedest man on earth”: Hyrum L. Andrus and Helen Mae Andrus, They Knew the Prophet (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1974), p. 148.
118a raucously unreliable memoir: Dinger, ed., Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes; and Joseph Jackson, Adventures and Experiences of Joseph Jackson: Disclosing the Depths of Mormon Villainy in Nauvoo (Warsaw, IL, 1846).
119“Free People of Color”: Evening and Morning Star Extra, July 16, 1833.
119an angry mob killed . . . abolitionist editor: Thomas Ford, A History of Illinois, from Its Commencement as a State in 1818 to 1847 (Chicago: S. C. Griggs, 1845), p. 244ff.
120“a greater nuisance than”: Dinger, Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes, p. 250ff, has the complete record of the council’s Monday session.
120“quote Blackstone and other authors”: George W. Givens and Sylvia Givens, Five Hundred Little-Known Facts About Nauvoo (Springville, UT: Bonneville Books, 2010), p. 36.
120“Whatsoever unlawfully annoys”: William Blackstone and Cyrus Sprague, Blackstone Commentary Abridged (London, 1899), p. 290.
121methodically trashed the interior: Roberts, ed., History of the Church, vol. 6, p. 490.
122“work of destruction and desperation”: Warsaw Signal, June 11, 1844.
122“I gave them a short address”: Scott H. Faulring, ed., An American Prophet’s Record: The Diaries and Journals of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), p. 498.
122“The work of Joseph’s agents”: Salt Lake Tribune, July 31, 1887, William Wyl interview.
123Missionary Isaac Scott wrote: Letter, June 16, 1844, in James Wesley Scott, “The Jacob and Sarah Warnock Scott Family: 1779–1910,” online genealogy available at http://www.scottcorner.org/JACOB%20&%20SARAH%20SCOTT.pdf.
124“War and extermination is inevitable!”: Warsaw Signal, June 12, 1844.
124Smith had yet again escaped arrest: Roberts, ed., History of the Church, vol. 6, p. 458.
125“Such an excitement”: Ibid., p. 463.
125“violated the highest privilege”: Ibid.
7. “CRUCIFY HIM! CRUCIFY HIM!”
127“Two brethren come”: Scott H. Faulring, ed., An American Prophet’s Record: The Diaries and Journals of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), p. 491.
128According to Morley’s letter: B. H. Roberts, ed., History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2nd ed., rev., vol. 6 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1978), p. 482.
128“Instruct the companies”: Ibid.
128examining Benjamin West’s famous painting: Noel A. Carmack, “Of Prophets and Pale Horses: Joseph Smith, Benjamin West, and the American Millenarian Tradition,” Dialogue—A Journal of Mormon Thought (Fall 1996).
130“I thought I was riding out”: Roberts, ed., History of the Church, vol. 6, p. 461.
130“I looked out of the pit”: Ibid.
131his fiery, final sermon: The entire sermon can be found in ibid., p. 473ff.
134Smith dispatched another letter: Ibid., p. 466.
8. ENTER PONTIUS PILATE
136“DOUGLAS is a master spirit”: Glen Leonard, Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, a People of Promise (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2002), p. 296; and Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), p. 426.
136“like a man weary of human nature”: B. W. Richmond, Deseret News, November 27, 1875.
136Illinois governorship . . . “was feeble”: Thomas Ford, A History of Illinois, from Its Commencement as a State in 1818 to 1847 (Chicago: S. C. Griggs, 1845), p. 104.
136Tyler “accidentally became president”: Ibid., p. 271.
137“so wholly wanting in self-confidence”: Robert Howard, Mostly Good and Competent Men: The Illinois Governors, 1818–1988 (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Society, 1988); and Rodney Davis, “Introduction” to Ford, A History of Illinois; John Francis Snyder, “Governor Ford and His Family,” Journal of the Illinois Historical Society 3 (1910).
137Ford supported the vigilante “regulators”: Rodney O. Davis, “Judge Ford and the Regulators, 1841–1842,” in Selected Papers in Illinois History (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Society, 1981).
138“no money in the treasury whatever”: Ford, A History of Illinois, p. 446.
139“The early settlers”: Ibid., p. 406.
139“they all hold meetings”: John Hallwas, “Thomas Gregg: Early Illinois Journalist and Author,” Western Illinois Monograph Series, no. 2, Western Illinois University, Macomb, 1983, p. 22.
140Fraim’s execution: Dallin Oaks and Marvin Hill, Carthage Conspiracy (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1979), p. 3.
140“2 Brothers arrived from Carthage”: Scott H. Faulring, ed., An American Prophet’s Record: The Diaries and Journals of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), p. 493.
141“A rumor is afloat”: Warsaw Signal, June 19, 1844.
141He sent a young Mormon: �
��Autobiography of Gilbert Belnap,” available at http://www.boap.org/LDS/Early-Saints/GBelnap.html.
142“I can assure that”: George Rockwell, Letters, letter addressed to “Parents,” 1844, Harold B. Lee Library, Provo, Utah, and Kansas State Historical Society.
143Legion drilled every morning: Richard E. Bennett, Susan Easton Black, and Donald Q. Cannon, The Nauvoo Legion in Illinois: A History of the Mormon Militia, 1841–1845 (Norman, OK: Arthur Clark, 2010), p. 241.
143guard the waterfront and station pickets: Leonard, Nauvoo, p. 370; Bennett, Black, and Cannon, Nauvoo Legion, p. 241.
144“We have never violated the laws”: “The Last Speech of President Smith to the Legion,” in B. H. Roberts, ed., History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2nd ed., rev. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1978), vol. 6, p. 498ff.
146“filled with a perfect set of rabble”: B. H. Roberts, The Rise and Fall of Nauvoo (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1900), p. 418.
146“You have no idea”: Leonard, Nauvoo, p. 368; S. O. Williams letter to John Prickett, July 10, 1844, in John Hallwas and Roger Launius, Cultures in Conflict: A Documentary History of the Mormon War in Illinois (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1995), p. 222.
146a vast military bivouac: S. O. Williams letter to John Prickett.
146“about six acres of ground”: B. W. Richmond, Deseret News, November 27, 1875.
147“scene of great bustle and excitement”: Eudocia Baldwin Marsh, “Mormons in Hancock County: A Reminiscence,” ed. Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 64 (1) (Spring 1971).
147Ford addressed the restive militias: Ford, A History of Illinois, p. 332.
147letter to President John Tyler: Roberts, ed., History of the Church, p. 508.
148“Your conduct in the destruction”: Ibid., p. 533ff.
148Smith answered immediately: Ibid., p. 538ff.
149“He gave us a full description”: Brian Cannon, “John C. Calhoun, Jr., Meets the Prophet Joseph Smith Shortly Before the Departure for Carthage,” BYU Studies 33 (4) (1993).
149Repairing to his upstairs study: Roberts, ed., History of the Church, vol. 6, p. 545ff; Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery, Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1994), p. 185.