The Story of the Mormons:

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The reception and treatment of the Mormons in Illinois, and the
success of the new-comers in carrying out their business and
political schemes, must be viewed in connection with these
incidents in the early history of the state.

The greeting of the Mormons in Illinois, in its practical shape,
had both a political and a business reason.* Party feeling ran
very high throughout the country in those days. The House of
Representatives at Washington, after very great excitement,
organized early in December, 1839, by choosing a Whig Speaker,
and at the same time the Whig National Convention, at Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania, nominated General W. H. Harrison for President.
Thus the expulsion from Missouri occurred on the eve of one of
our most exciting presidential campaigns, and the Illinois
politicians were quick to appraise the value of the voting
strength of the immigrants. As a residence of six months in the
state gave a man the right to vote, the Mormon vote would count
in the presidential election.

* "The first great error committed by the people of Hancock
County was in accepting too readily the Mormon story of
persecution. It was continually rung in their ears, and believed
as often as asserted."--Gregg, "History of Hancock County," p.
270.

Accordingly, we find that in February, 1839, the Democratic
Association of Quincy, at a public meeting in the court-house,
received a report from a committee previously appointed, strongly
in favor of the refugees, and adopted resolutions condemning the
treatment of the Mormons by the people and officers of Missouri.
The Quincy Argus declared that, because of this treatment,
Missouri was "now so fallen that we could wish her star stricken
out from the bright constellation of the Union." In April, 1839,
Rigdon wrote to the "Saints in prison" that Governor Carlin of
Illinois and his wife "enter with all the enthusiasm of their
nature" into his plan to have the governor of each state present
to Congress the unconstitutional course of Missouri toward the
Mormons, with a view to federal relief. Governor Lucas of Iowa
Territory, in the same year (Iowa had only been organized as a
territory the year before, and was not admitted as a state until
1845), replying to a query about the reception the Mormons would
receive in his domain, said: "Their religious opinions I consider
have nothing to do with our political transactions. They are
citizens of the United States, and are entitled to the same
political rights and legal protection that other citizens are
entitled to." He gave Rigdon at the same time cordial letters of
introduction to President Van Buren and Governor Shannon of Ohio,
and Rigdon received a similar letter to the President,
recommending him "as a man of piety and a valuable citizen,"
signed by Governor Carlin, United States Senator Young, County
Clerk Wren, and leading business men of Quincy. Thus began that
recognition of the Mormons as a political power in Illinois which
led to concessions to them that had so much to do with finally
driving them into the wilderness.

The business reason for the welcome of the Mormons in Illinois
and Iowa was the natural ambition to secure an increase of
population. In all of Hancock County there were in 1830 only 483
inhabitants as compared with 32,215 in 1900. Along with this
public view of the matter was a private one. A Dr. Isaac Galland
owned (or claimed title to) a large tract of land on both sides
of the border line between Illinois and Iowa, that in Iowa being
included in what was known as "the half-breed tract," an area of
some 119,000 acres which, by a treaty between the United States
government and the Sacs and Foxes, was reserved to descendants of
Indian women of those tribes by white fathers, and the title to
much of which was in dispute. As soon as the Mormons began to
cross into Illinois, Galland approached them with an offer of
about 20,000 acres between the Mississippi and Des Moines rivers
at $2 per acre, to be paid in twenty annual instalments, without
interest. A meeting of the refugees was held in Quincy in
February, 1839, to consider this offer, but the vote was against
it. The failure of the efforts in Ohio and Missouri to establish
the Mormons as a distinct community had made many of Smith's
followers sceptical about the success of any new scheme with this
end in view, and at this conference several members, including so
influential a man as Bishop Partridge, openly expressed their
doubt about the wisdom of another gathering of the Saints.
Galland, however, pursued the subject in a letter to D. W.
Rodgers, inviting Rigdon and others to inspect the tract with
him, and assuring the Mormons of his sympathy in their
sufferings, and "deep solicitude for your future triumphant
conquest over every enemy." Rigdon, Partridge, and others
accepted Galland's invitation, but reported against purchasing
his land, and the refugees began scattering over the country
around Quincy.

CHAPTER II. The Settlement Of Nauvoo

Smith's leadership was now to have another illustration. Others
might be discouraged by past persecutions and business failures,
and be ready to abandon the great scheme which the prophet had so
often laid before them in the language of "revelation"; but it
was no part of Smith's character to abandon that scheme, and
remain simply an object of lessened respect, with a scattered
congregation. He had been kept advised of Galland's proposal,
and, two days after his arrival in Quincy, we find him, on April
24, presiding at a church council which voted to instruct him
with two associates to visit Iowa and select there a location for
a church settlement, and which advised all the brethren who could
do so to move to the town of Commerce, Illinois. Thus were the
doubters defeated, and the proposal to scatter the flock brought
to a sudden end. Smith and his two associates set out at once to
make their inspection.

The town of Commerce had been laid out (on paper) in 1834 by two
Eastern owners of the property, A. White and J. B. Teas, and
adjoining its northern border H. R. Hotchkiss of New Haven,
Connecticut, had mapped out Commerce City. Neither enterprise had
proved a success, and when the Mormon agents arrived there the
place had scarcely attained the dignity of a settlement, the only
buildings being one storehouse, two frame dwellings and two
blockhouses. The Mormon agents, on May 1, bought two farms there,
one for $5000 and one for $9000 (known afterward as the White
purchase), and on August 9 they bought of Hotchkiss five hundred
acres for the sum of $53,500. Bishop Knight, for the church, soon
afterward purchased part of the town of Keokuk, Iowa, a town
called Nashville six miles above, a part of the town of Montrose,
four miles above Nashville, and thirty thousand acres in the
"half-breed tract," which included Galland's original offer, and
ten thousand acres additional.

Thus was Smith prepared to make another attempt to establish his
followers in a permanent abiding-place. But how, it may be asked,
could the prophet reconcile this abandonment of the Missouri Zion
and this new site for a church settlement with previous
revelations? By further "revelation," of course. Such a
mouthpiece of God can always enlighten his followers provided he
can find speech, and Smith was not slow of utterance. While in
jail in Liberty he had advised a committee which was sent to him
from Illinois to sell all the lands in Missouri, and in a letter
to the Saints, written while a prisoner, he spoke favorably of
Galland's offer, saying, "The Saints ought to lay hold of every
door that shall seem to be opened unto them to obtain foothold on
the earth." In order to make perfectly clear the new purpose of
the Lord in regard to Zion he gave out a long" revelation" (Sec.
124), which is dated Nauvoo, January 19, 1841, and which contains
the following declarations:--

"Verily, verily I say unto you, that when I give a commandment to
any of the sons of men to do a work under my name, and those sons
of men go with all their might and with all they have, to perform
that work and cease not their diligence, and their enemies come
upon them and hinder them from performing that work, behold, it
behooveth me to require that work no more at the hands of those
sons of men, but to accept their offerings.

"And the iniquity and transgression of my holy laws and
commandments I will visit upon the heads of those who hindered my
work, unto the third and fourth generation, so long as they
repent not and hate me, saith the Lord God.

"Therefore for this cause have I accepted the offerings of those
whom I commanded to build up a city and house unto my name in
Jackson County, Missouri, and were hindered by their enemies,
saith the Lord your God."

This announcement seems to have been accepted without question by
the faithful, as reconciling the failure in Missouri with the new
establishment farther east.

The financiering of the new land purchases did credit to Smith's
genius in that line. For some of the smaller tracts a part
payment in cash was made. Hotchkiss accepted for his land two
notes signed by Smith and his brother Hyrum and Rigdon, one
payable in ten, and the other in twenty years. Galland took
notes, and, some time later, as explained in a letter to the
Saints abroad, the Mormon lands in Missouri, "in payment for the
whole amount, and in addition to the first purchase we have
exchanged lands with him in Missouri to the amount of $80,000."*
Galland's title to the Iowa tract was vigorously assailed by Iowa
newspapers some years later. What cash he eventually realized
from the transaction does not appear.** Smith had influence
enough over him to secure his conversion to the Mormon belief,
and he will be found associated with the leaders in Nauvoo
enterprises.

* Times and Seasons, Vol. II, p. 275.

** "Galland died a pauper in Iowa."--"Mormon Portraits," p. 253.

The Hotchkiss notes gave Smith a great deal of trouble.
Notwithstanding the influx of immigrants to Nauvoo and the growth
of the place, which ought to have brought in large profits from
the sale of lots, the accrued interest due to Hotchkiss in two
years amounted to about $6000. Hotchkiss earnestly urged its
payment, and Smith was in dire straits to meet his demands. In a
correspondence between them, in 1841, Smith told Hotchkiss that
he had agreed to forego interest for five years, and not to
"force payment" even then. Smith assured Hotchkiss that the part
of the city bought from him was "a deathly sickly hole" on which
they had been able to realize nothing, "although," he added, with
unblushing affrontery for the head of a church, "we have been
keeping up appearances and holding out inducements to encourage
immigration that we scarcely think justifiable in consequence of
the mortality that almost invariably awaits those who come from
far distant parts."* In pursuance of this same policy (in a
letter dated October 12, I84I), the Eastern brethren were urged
to transfer their lands there to Hotchkiss in payment of the
notes, and to accept lots in Nauvoo from the church in exchange.

* Millennial Star, Vol. XVIII, p. 631.

The name of the town was changed to Nauvoo in April, 1840, with
the announcement that this name was of Hebrew origin, signifying
"a beautiful place."*

* In answer to a query about this alleged derivation of the name
of the city, a competent Hebrew scholar writes to me: "The
nearest approach to Nauvoo in Hebrew is an adjective which would
be transliterated Naveh, meaning pleasant, a rather rare word.
The letter correctly represented by v could not possibly do the
double duty of uv, nor could a of the Hebrew ever be au in
English, nor eh of the Hebrew be oo in English. Students of
theology at Middletown, Connecticut, used to have a saying that
that name was derived from Moses by dropping 'iddletown' and
adding 'mass.' "

CHAPTER III. The Building Up Of The City--Foreign Proselyting

The geographical situation of Nauvoo had something in its favor.
Lying on the east bank of the Mississippi, which is there two
miles wide, it had a water frontage on three sides, because of a
bend in the stream, and the land was somewhat rising back from
the river. But its water front was the only thing in its favor.
"The place was literally a wilderness," says Smith. "The land was
mostly covered with trees and bushes, and much of it so wet that
it was with the utmost difficulty a foot man could get through,
and totally impossible for teams. Commerce was so unhealthy very
few could live there, but, believing it might become a healthy
place by the blessing of heaven to the Saints, and no more
eligible place presenting itself, I considered it wisdom to make
an attempt to build up a city."

Contemporary accounts say that most of the refugees from Missouri
suffered from chills and fevers during their first year in the
new settlement. Smith, in his autobiography, laments the
mortality among the settlers. The Rev. Henry Caswall, in his
description of three days at Nauvoo in 1842, says:--

"I was informed again and again in Montrose, Iowa, that nearly
half of the English who emigrated to Nauvoo in 1841 died soon
after their arrival. . . In his sermon at Montrose in May 9,
1841, the following words of most Christian consolation were
delivered by the Prophet to the poor deluded English: 'Many of
the English who have lately come here have expressed great
disappointment on their arrival. Such persons have every reason
to be satisfied in this beautiful and fertile country. If they
choose to complain, they may; but I don't want to be troubled
with their complaints. If they are not satisfied here, I have
only this to say to them, "Don't stay whining about me, but go
back to England, and go to h--l and be d--d."'"*

*"City of the Mormons," p. 55.

Brigham Young, in after years, thus spoke of Smith's exhibition
of miraculous healing during the year after their arrival in
Illinois: "Joseph commenced in his own house and dooryard,
commanding the sick, in the name of Jesus Christ, to arise and be
made whole, and they were healed according to his word. He then
continued to travel from house to house, healing the sick as he
went."* Any attempt to reconcile this statement by Young with the
previously cited testimony about the mortality of the place would
be futile.

* "Life of Brigham Young" (Cannon & Son, publishers), p. 32.

The growth of the town, however, was more rapid than that of any
of the former Mormon settlements. The United States census shows
that the population of Hancock County, Illinois, increased from
483 in 1830 to 9946 in 1840. Statements regarding the population
of Nauvoo during the Mormon occupancy are conflicting and often
exaggerated. In a letter to the elders in England, printed in the
Times and Seasons of January, 1841, Smith said, "There are at
present about 3000 inhabitants in Nauvoo." The same periodical,
in an article on the city, on December 15, 1841, said that it was
"a densely populated city of near 10,000 inhabitants." A visitor,
describing the place in a letter in the Columbus (Ohio) Advocate
of March, 1842, said that it contained about 7000 persons, and
that the buildings were small and much scattered, log cabins
predominating. The Times and Seasons of October, 1842, said, "It
will be no more than probably correct if we allow the city to
contain between 7000 and 8000 houses, with a population of 14,000
or 15,000," with two steam mills and other manufacturing concerns
in operation. W. W. Phelps estimated the population in 1844 at
14,000, almost all professed Mormons. The Times and Seasons in
1845 said that a census just taken showed a population of 11,057
in the city and one third more outside the city limits.

As soon as the Mormons arrived, Nauvoo was laid out in blocks
measuring about 180 by 200 feet, with a river frontage of more
than three miles. An English visitor to the place in 1843 wrote
"The city is of great dimensions, laid out in beautiful order;
the streets are wide and cross each other at right angles, which
will add greatly to its order and magnificence when finished. The
city rises on a quick incline from the rolling Mississippi, and
as you stand near the Temple you may gaze on the picturesque
scenery round. At your side is the Temple, the wonder of the
world; round about and beneath you may behold handsome stores,
large mansions, and fine cottages, interspersed with varied
scenery."*

* Mackay's "The Mormons," p. 128.

Whatever the exact population of the place may have been, its
rapid growth is indisputable. The cause of this must be sought,
not in natural business reasons, such as have given a permanent
increase of population to so many of our Western cities, but
chiefly in active and aggressive proselyting work both in this
country and in Europe. This work was assisted by the sympathy
which the treatment of the Mormons had very generally secured for
them. Copies of Mormon Bibles were rare outside of the hands of
the brethren, and the text of Smith's "revelations" bearing on
his property designs in Missouri was known to comparatively few
even in the church. While the Nauvoo edition of the "Doctrine and
Covenants" was in course of publication, the Times and Seasons,
on January 1, 1842, said that it would be published in the
spring, "but, many of our readers being deprived of the privilege
of perusing its valuable pages, we insert the first section."
Mormon emissaries took advantage of this situation to tell their
story in their own way at all points of the compass. Meetings
were held in the large cities of the Eastern states to express
sympathy with these victims of the opponents of "freedom of
religious opinion," and to raise money for their relief, and the
voice of the press, from the Mississippi to the Atlantic, was,
without a discovered exception, on the side of the refugees.

This paved the way for a vast extension of that mission work
which began with the trip of Cowdery and his associates in 1830,
was expanded throughout this country while the Saints were at
Kirtland, and was extended to foreign lands in 1837. The
missionaries sent out in the early days of the church represented
various degrees of experience and qualification. There were among
them men like Orson Hyde and Willard Richards, who, although they
gave up secular callings on entering the church, were close
students of the Scriptures and debaters who could hold their own,
when it came to an interpretation of the Scriptures, before any
average audience. Many were sent out without any especial
equipment for their task. John D. Lee, describing his first trip,
says:--

"I started forth an illiterate, inexperienced person, without
purse or scrip. I could hardly quote a passage of Scripture. Yet
I went forth to say to the world that I was a minister of the
Gospel." He was among the successful proselyters, and rose to
influence in the church.* Of the requirement that the
missionaries should be beggars, Lorenzo Snow, who was sent out on
a mission from Kirtland in 1837, says, "It was a severe trial to
my natural feelings of independence to go without purse or scrip
especially the purse; for, from the time I was old enough to
work, the feeling that 'I paid my way' always seemed a necessary
adjunct to self respect."

* For an account of his travels and successes, see "Mormonism
Unveiled."

Parley P. Pratt, in a letter to Smith from New York in November,
1839, describing the success of the work in the United States,
says, "You would now find churches of the Saints in Philadelphia,
in Albany, in Brooklyn, in New York, in Sing Sing, in Jersey, in
Pennsylvania, on Long Island, and in various other places all
around us," and he speaks of the "spread of the work" in Michigan
and Maine.

The importance of England as a field from which to draw emigrants
to the new settlement was early recognized at Nauvoo, and in 1840
such lights of the church as Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, P.
P. Pratt, Orson Pratt, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, and George
A. Smith, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, were sent to
cultivate that field. There they ordained Willard Richards an
Apostle, preached and labored for over a year, established a
printing-office which turned out a vast amount of Mormon
literature, including their Bible and "Doctrine and Covenants,"
and began the publication of the Millennial Star.

In 1840 Orson Hyde was sent on a mission to the Jews in London,
Amsterdam, Constantinople, and Jerusalem, and the same year
missionaries were sent to Australia, Wales, Ireland, the Isle of
Man, and the East Indies. In 1844 a missionary was sent to the
Sandwich Islands; in 1849 others were sent to France, Denmark,
Sweden, Norway and Iceland, Italy, and Switzerland; in 1850 ten
more elders were sent to the Sandwich Islands; in 1851 four
converts were baptized in Hindostan; in 1852 a branch of the
church was organized at Malta; in 1853 three elders reached the
Cape of Good Hope; and in 1861 two began work in Holland, but
with poor success. We shall see that this proselyting labor has
continued with undiminished industry to the present day, in all
parts of the United States as well as in foreign lands.

England provided an especially promising field for Mormon
missionary work. The great manufacturing towns contained hundreds
of people, densely ignorant,* superstitious, and so poor that the
ownership of a piece of land in their own country was practically
beyond the limit of their ambition. These people were naturally
susceptible to the Mormon teachings, easily imposed upon by
stories of alleged miracles, and ready to migrate to any part of
the earth where a building lot or a farm was promised them. The
letters from the first missionaries in England gave glowing
reports of the results of their labors. Thus Wilford Woodruff,
writing from Manchester in 1840, said, "The work has been so
rapid it was impossible to ascertain the exact number belonging
to each branch, but the whole number is 33 churches, 534 members,
75 officers, all of which had embraced the work in less than four
months." Lorenzo Snow, in a letter from London in April, 1841,
said: "Throughout all England, in almost every town and city of
any considerable importance, we have chapels or public halls in
which we meet for public worship. All over this vast kingdom the
laws of Zion are rolling onward with the most astonishing
rapidity."

* "It has been calculated that there are in England and Wales six
million persons who can neither read nor write, that is to say,
about one-third of the population, including, of course, infants;
but of all the children more than one-half attend no place of
public instruction."--Dickens, "Household Words."

The visiting missionaries began their work in England at Preston,
Lancashire, in 1836 or 1837, and soon secured there some five
hundred converts. Then they worked on each side of the Ribble,
making converts in all the villages, and gaining over a few farm
owners and mechanics of some means. Their method was first to
drop hints to the villagers that the Holy Bible is defective in
translation and incomplete, and that the Mormon Bible corrects
all these defects. Not able to hold his own in any theological
discussion, the rustic was invited to a meeting. At that meeting
the missionary would announce that he would speak simply as the
Lord directed him, and he would then present the Mormon view of
their Bible and prophet. As soon as converts were won over, they
were immersed, at night, and given the sacrament. Then they were
initiated into the secret "church meeting," to which only the
faithful were admitted, and where the flock were told of visions
and "gifts," and exhorted to stand firm (along with their earthly
goods) for the church, and warned against apostasy.

One way in which the prophetic gift of the missionaries was
proved in the early days in England was as follows: "Whenever a
candidate was immersed, some of the brethren was given a letter
signed by Hyde and Kimball, setting forth that 'brother will not
abide in the spirit of the Lord, but will reject the truth, and
become the enemy of the people of God, etc., etc.' If the brother
did not apostatize, this letter remained unopened; if he did, it
was read as a striking verification of prophecy."*

* Caswall's "City of the Mormons," appendix.

Miracles exerted a most potent influence among the people in
England with whom the early missionaries labored, and the
Millennial Star contains a long list of reported successes in
this line. There are accounts of very clumsy tricks that were
attempted to carry out the deception. Thus, at Newport, Wales,
three Mormon elders announced that they would raise a dead man to
life. The "corpse" was laid out and surrounded by weeping
friends, and the elders were about to begin their incantations,
when a doubting Thomas in the audience attacked the "corpse" with
a whip, and soon had him fleeing for dear life.*

* Tract by Rev. F. B. Ashley, p. 22.

Thomas Webster, who was baptized in England in 1837 by Orson Hyde
and became an elder, saw the falsity of the Mormon professions
through the failure of their miracles and other pretensions, and,
after renouncing their faith, published a pamphlet exposing their
methods. He relates many of the declarations made by the first
missionaries in Preston to their ignorant hearers. Hyde declared
that the apostles Peter, James, and John were still alive. He and
Kimball asserted that neither of them would "taste death" before
Christ's second coming. At one meeting Kimball predicted that in
ten or fifteen years the sea would be dried up between Liverpool
and America. "One of the most glaring things they ever brought
before the public," says Webster, "was stated in a letter written
by Orson Hyde to the brethren in Preston, saying they were on the
way to the promised land in Missouri by hundreds, and the wagons
reached a mile in length. They fell in with some of their
brethren in Canada, who told him the Lord had been raining down
manna in rich profusion, which covered from seven to ten acres of
land. It was like wafers dipped in honey, and both Saints and
sinners partook of it. I was present in the pulpit when this
letter was read."