The Story of the Mormons:

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'Thus ended the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and
it never can move again till the Lord inspires men and women to
believe it. All the societies and assemblies of men collected
together since then is not the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-Day Saints, nor never can there be such a church till the
Lord moves it by his own power, as he did the first.

"Should you fall in with one who was of the Church [of] Christ,
though now of advanced age, you will find one deep red in the
revelations of heaven. But many of them are dead, and many of
them have turned away, so there are few left.

"I have a manuscript paper in my possession, written with my own
hands while in my [Both. year}, but I am to poor to do anything
with it; and therefore it must remain where it [is]. During the
great fight of affliction I have had, I have lost all my
property, but I struggle along in poverty to which I am
consigned. I have finished all I feel necessary to write.

Respectfully,"SIDNEY RIGDON."*

* The original of this letter is in the collection of Mormon
literature in the New York Public Library. An effort to learn
from Rigdon's descendants something about the manuscript paper
referred to by him has failed.

Rigdon's affirmation of his belief in Smith as a prophet and the
Mormon Bible when he returned to Pennsylvania was proclaimed by
the Mormons as proof that there was no truth in the Spaulding
manuscript story, but it carries no weight as such evidence.
Rigdon burned all his old theological bridges behind him when he
entered into partnership with Smith, and his entire course after
his return to Pittsburg only adds to the proof that he was the
originator of the Mormon Bible, and that his object in writing it
was to enable him to be the head of a new church. Surely no one
would accept as proof of the divinity of the Mormon Bible any
declaration by the man who told the story of angel visits in
Pittsburg.

CHAPTER XVI. Rivalries Over The Succession

Rigdon was not alone in contending for the successorship to
Joseph Smith as the head of the Mormon church. The prophet's
family defended vigorously the claim of his eldest son to be his
successor.* Lee says that the prophet had bestowed the right of
succession on his eldest son by divination, and that "it was then
[after his father's death understood among the Saints that young
Joseph was to succeed his father, and that right justly belonged
to him," when he should be old enough. Lee says further that he
heard the prophet's mother plead with Brigham Young, in Nauvoo,
in 1845, with tears, not to rob young Joseph of his birthright,
and that Young conceded the son's claim, but warned her to keep
quiet on the subject, because "you are only laying the knife to
the throat of the child. If it is known that he is the rightful
successor of his father, the enemy of the Priesthood will seek
his life."** Strang says, "Anyone who was in Nauvoo in 1846 or
1847 knows that the majority of those who started to the Western
exodus, started in this hope," that the younger Joseph would take
his father's place .***

* The prophet's sons were Joseph, born November 6, 1832; Fred G.
W., June 20, 1836; Alexander, June 2, 1838; Don Carlos, June 13,
1840; and David H., November 18, 1844.

** "Mormonism Unveiled," pp. 155, 161.

*** Strang's "Prophetic Controversy," p. 4.

At the last day of the Conference held in the Temple in Nauvoo,
in October, 1845, Mother Smith, at her request, was permitted to
make an address. She went over the history of her family, and
asked for an expression of opinion whether she was "a mother in
Israel." One universal "yes" rang out. She said she hoped all her
children would accompany the Saints to the West, and if they did
she would go; but she wanted her bones brought back to be buried
beside her husband and children. Brigham Young then said: "We
have extended the helping hand to Mother Smith. She has the best
carriage in the city, and, while she lives, shall ride in it when
and where she pleases." * Mother Smith died in the summer of 1856
in Nauvoo, where she spent the last two years of her life with
Joseph's first wife, Emma, who had married a Major Bideman.

* Millennial Star, Vol. VII, p. 23.

Emma caused the Twelve a good deal of anxiety after her husband's
death. Pratt describes a council held by her, Marks, and others
to endeavor to appoint a trustee-in-trust for the whole church,
the necessity of which she vigorously urged. Pratt opposed the
idea, and nothing was done about it.* Soon after her husband's
death the Times and Seasons noticed a report that she was
preparing, with the assistance of one of the prophet's Iowa
lawyers, an exposure of his "revelations," etc. James Arlington
Bennett, who visited Nauvoo after the prophet's death, acting as
correspondent for the New York Sun, gave in one of his letters
the text of a statement which he said Emma had written, to this
effect, "I never for a moment believed in what my husband called
his apparitions or revelations, as I thought him laboring under a
diseased mind; yet they may all be true, as a prophet is seldom
without credence or honor, excepting in his own family or
country." Mrs. Smith, in a letter to the Sun, dated December 30,
1845, pronounced this letter a forgery, while Bennett maintained
that he knew that it was genuine.**

*Pratt's "Autobiography," p. 373.

** Emma Smith is described as "a tall, dark, masculine looking
woman" in "Sketches and Anecdotes of the Old Settlers."

The organization--or, as they define it, the reorganization of a
church by those who claim that the mantle of Joseph Smith, Jr.,
descended on his sons, had its practical inception at a
conference at Beloit, Wisconsin, in June, 1852, at which
resolutions were adopted disclaiming all fellowship with Young
and other claimants to the leadership of the church, declaring
that the successor of the prophet "must of necessity be the seed
of Joseph Smith, Jr." At a conference held in Amboy, Illinois, in
April, 1860, Joseph Smith's son and namesake was placed at the
head of this church, a position which he still holds. The
Reorganized Church has been twice pronounced by United States
courts to be the one founded under the administration of the
prophet. Its teachings may be called pure Mormonism, free from
the doctrines engrafted in after years. It holds that "the
doctrines of a plurality and community of wives are heresies, and
are opposed to the law of God." Its declaration of faith declares
its belief in baptism by immersion, the same kind of organization
(apostles, prophets, pastors, etc.) that existed in the primitive
church, revelations by God to man from time to time "until the
end of time," and in "the powers and gifts of the everlasting
gospel, viz., the gift of faith, discerning of spirits, prophesy,
revelation, healing, visions, tongues, and the interpretation of
tongues." No one ever heard of this church having any trouble
with its Gentile neighbors.

The Reorganized Church moved its headquarters to Lamoni, Iowa, in
1881. It has a present membership of 45,381, according to the
report of the General Church Recorder to the conference of April,
1901. Of these members, 6964 were foreign,--286 in Canada, 1080
in England, and 1955 in the Society Islands. The largest
membership in this country is 7952 in Iowa, 6280 in Missouri, and
3564 in Michigan. Utah reported 685 members.

The most determined claimant to the successorship of Smith was
James J. Strang. Born at Scipio, New York, in 1813, Strang was
admitted to the bar when a young man, and moved to Wisconsin.
Some of the Mormons who went into the north woods to get lumber
for the Nauvoo Temple planted a Stake near La Crosse, under Lyman
Wight, in 1842. Trouble ensued very soon with their non-Mormon
neighbors, and after a rather brief career the supporters of this
Stake moved away quietly one night. Strang heard of the Mormon
doctrines from these settlers, accepted their truth, and visiting
Nauvoo, was baptized in February, 1844, made an elder, and
authorized to plant another Stake in Wisconsin. He first
attempted to found a city called Voree, where a temple covering
more than two acres of ground, with twelve towers, was begun.

When Smith was killed, Strang at once came forward with a
declaration that the prophet's revelations indicated that, at the
close of his own prophetic office, another would be called to the
place by revelation, and ordained at the hands of angels; that
not only had he (Strang) been so ordained, but that Smith had
written to him in June, 1844, predicting the end of his own work,
and telling Strang that he was to gather the people in a Zion in
Wisconsin. Strang began at once giving out revelations,
describing visions, and announcing that an angel had shown him
"plates of the sealed record," and given him the Urim and Thummim
to translate them.

Although Strang's whole scheme was a very clumsy imitation of
Smith's, he drew a considerable number of followers to his
Wisconsin branch, where he published a newspaper called the Voree
Herald, and issued pamphlets in defence of his position, and a
"Book of the Law," explaining his doctrinal teachings, which
included polygamy. He had five wives. His Herald printed a
statement, signed by the prophet's mother and his brother
William, his three married sisters, and the husband of one of
them, certifying that "the Smith family do believe in the
appointment of J. J. Strang." Among other Mormons of note who
gave in their allegiance to Strang were John E. Page, one of the
Twelve (whom Phelps had called "the sun-dial"), General John C.
Bennett, and Martin Harris.

Strang gave the Mormon leaders considerable anxiety, especially
when he sent missionaries to England to work up his cause. The
Millennial Star of November 15, 1846, devoted a good deal of
space to the subject. The article began:--

"SKETCHES OF NOTORIOUS CHARACTERS: James J. Strang, successor of
Sidney Rigdon, Judius Iscariot, Cain & Co., Envoy Extraordinary
and a Minister Plenipotentiary to His Most Gracious Majesty
Lucifer L, assisted by his allied contemporary advisers, John C.
Bennett, William Smith, G. T. Adams, and John E. Page, Secretary
of Legation."

Strang announced a revelation which declared that he was to be
"King in Zion," and his coronation took place on July 8, 1850,
when he was crowned with a metal crown having a cluster of stars
on its front. Burnt offerings were included in the programme.

This ceremony took place on Beaver Island, in Lake Superior,
where in 1847 Strang had gathered his people and assumed both
temporal and spiritual authority. Both of these claims got him
into trouble. His non-Mormon neighbors, fishermen and lumbermen,
accused the Mormons of wholesale thefts; his assumption of regal
authority brought him before the United States court, (where he
was not held); and his advocacy of the practice of polygamy by
his followers aroused insubordination, and on June 15, 1856, he
was shot by two members of his flock whom he had offended, and
who were at once regarded as heroes by the people of the
mainland. A mob secured a vessel, visited Beaver Island, where
Strang had maintained a sort of fort, and compelled the Mormon
inhabitants to embark immediately, with what little property they
could gather up. They were landed at different places, most of
them in Milwaukee. Thus ended Strang's Kingdom.*

* "A Moses of the Mormons," by Henry E. Legler, Parkman Club
Publications, Nos. 15-16, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, May 11, 1897; "An
American Kingdom of Mormons," Magazine of Western History,
Cleveland, Ohio, April, 1886.

Another leader who "set up for himself " after Smith's death was
Lyman Wight, who had been one of the Twelve in Missouri, and was
arrested with Smith there. Wight did not lay claim to the
position of President of the church, but he resented what he
called Brigham Young's usurpation. In 1845 he led a small company
of his followers to Texas, where they first settled on the
Colorado River, near Austin. They made successive moves from that
place into Gillespie, Burnett, and Bandera counties. He died near
San Antonio in March, 1858. The fact that Wight entered into the
practice of polygamy almost as soon as he reached Texas, and
still escaped any conflict with his non-Mormon neighbors, affords
proof of his good character in other respects. The Galveston
News, in its notice of his death, said, "Mr. Wight first came to
Texas in November, 1845, and has been with his colony on our
extreme frontier ever since, moving still farther west as
settlements formed around him, thus always being the pioneer of
advancing civilization, affording protection against the
Indians."

After Wight's death his people scattered. A majority of them
became identified with the Reorganized Church, a few gave in
their allegiance to the organization in Utah, and others
abandoned Mormonism entirely.

CHAPTER XVII. Brigham Young

Brigham Young, the man who had succeeded in expelling Rigdon and
establishing his own position as head of the church, was born in
Whitingham, Windham County, Vermont, on June 1, 1801. The precise
locality of his birth in that town is in dispute. His father, a
native of Massachusetts, is said to have served under Washington
during the Revolutionary War. The family consisted of eleven
children, five sons and six daughters, of whom Brigham was the
ninth. The Youngs moved to Whitingham in January, 1801. In his
address at the centennial celebration of that town in 1880, Clark
Jillson said, "Henry Goodnow, Esq., of this town says that
Brigham Young's father came here the poorest man that ever had
been in town; that he never owned a cow, horse, or any land, but
was a basket maker." Mormon accounts represent the elder Young as
having been a farmer.

His circumstances permitted him to give his children very little
education, and, when sixteen years old, Brigham seems to have
started out to make his own living, working as a carpenter,
painter, and glazier, as jobs were offered. He was living in
Aurelius, Cayuga County, New York, in 1824, working at his trade,
and there, in October of that year, he married his first wife,
Miriam Works. In 1829 they moved to Mendon, Monroe County, New
York.

Joseph Smith's brother, in the following year, left a copy of the
Mormon Bible at the house of Brigham's brother Phineas in Mendon,
and there Brigham first saw it. Occasional preaching by Mormon
elders made the new faith a subject of conversation in the
neighborhood, and Phineas was an early convert. Brigham stated in
a sermon in Salt Lake City, on August 8, 1852, that he examined
the new Bible for two years before deciding to receive it. He was
baptized into the Mormon church on April 14, 1832. His wife, who
also embraced the faith, died in September of that year, leaving
him two daughters.

Young married his second wife, Mary A. Angel, in Kirtland on
March 31, 1834. His application for a marriage license is still
on file among the records of the Probate Court at Chardon, now
the shire town of Geauga County, Ohio, and his signature is a
proof of his illiterateness, showing that he did not know how to
spell his own baptismal name, spelling it "Bricham."

Young began preaching and baptizing in the neighborhood, having
at once been made an elder, and in the autumn of 1832, after
Smith's second return from Missouri, he visited Kirtland and
first saw the prophet. Mormon accounts of this visit say that
Young "spoke in tongues," and that Smith pronounced his language
"the pure Adamic," and then predicted that he would in time
preside over the church. It is not at all improbable that Joseph
did not hesitate to interpret Brigham's "tongues," but at that
time he was thinking of everything else but a successor to
himself.

Young, with his brother Joseph, went from Kirtland on foot to
Canada, where he preached and baptized, and whence he brought
back a company of converts. He worked at his trade in Kirtland
(preaching as called upon) from that time until 1834, when he
accompanied the "Army of Zion" to Missouri, being one of the
captains of tens. Returning with the prophet, he was employed on
the Temple and other church buildings for the next three years
(superintending the painting of the Temple), when he was not
engaged in other church work. Having been made one of the
original Quorum of Twelve in 1835, he devoted a good deal of time
in the warmer months holding conferences in New York State and
New England.

When open opposition to Smith manifested itself in Kirtland,
Young was one of his firmest defenders. He attended a meeting in
an upper room of the Temple, the object of which was to depose
Smith and place David Whitmer in the Presidency, leading in the
debate, and declaring that he "knew that Joseph was a prophet."
According to his own statement, he learned of a plot to kill
Smith as he was returning from Michigan in a stage-coach, and met
the coach with a horse and buggy, and drove the prophet to
Kirtland unharmed. When Smith found it necessary to flee from
Ohio, Young followed him to Missouri with his family, arriving at
Far West on March 14, 1838. He sailed to Liverpool on a mission
in 1840, remaining there a little more than a year.

In all the discords of the church that occurred during Smith's
life, Young never incurred the prophet's displeasure, and there
is no evidence that he ever attempted to obtain any more power or
honor for himself than was voluntarily accorded to him. He gave
practical assistance to the refugees from Missouri as they
arrived at Quincy, but there is no record of his prominence in
the discussions there over the future plans for the church. The
prophet's liking for him is shown in a revelation dated at
Nauvoo, July 9; 1841 (Sec. 126), which said:--

"Dear and beloved brother Brigham Young, verily thus saith the
Lord unto you, my servant Brigham, it is no more required at your
hand to leave your family as in times past, for your offering is
acceptable to me; I have seen your labor and toil in journeyings
for my name. I therefore command you to send my word abroad, and
take special care of your family from this time, henceforth, and
forever. Amen."

The apostasy of Marsh and the death of Patton had left Young the
President of the Twelve, and that was the position in which he
found himself at the time of Smith's death.

One of the first subjects which Young had to decide concerned
"revelations." Did they cease with Smith's death, or, if not, who
would receive and publish them? Young made a statement on this
subject at the church conference held at Nauvoo on October 6 of
that year, which indicated his own uncertainty on the subject,
and which concluded as follows, "Every member has the right of
receiving revelations for themselves, both male and female." As
if conscious that all this was not very clear, he closed by
making a declaration which was very characteristic of his future
policy: "If you don't know whose right it is to give revelations,
I will tell you. It is I."* We shall see that the discontinuance
of written "revelations" was a cause of complaint during all of
Young's subsequent career in Utah, but he never yielded to the
demand for them.

* Times and Seasons, Vol. V, pp. 682-683.

At the conference in Nauvoo Young selected eighty-five men from
the Quorum of high priests to preside over branches of the church
in all the congressional districts of the United States; and he
took pains to explain to them that they were not to stay six
months and then return, but "to go and settle down where they can
take their families and tarry until the Temple is built, and then
come and get their endowments, and return to their families and
build up a Stake as large as this." Young's policy evidently was,
while not imitating Rigdon's plan to move the church bodily to
the East, to build up big branches all over the country, with a
view to such control of affairs, temporal and spiritual, as could
be attained. "If the people will let us alone," he said to this
same conference, "we will convert the world."

Many members did not look on the Twelve as that head of the
church which Smith's revelations had decreed. It was argued by
those who upheld Rigdon and Strang, and by some who remained with
the Twelve, that the "revelations" still required a First
Presidency. The Twelve allowed this question to remain unsettled
until the brethren were gathered at Winter Quarters, Iowa, after
their expulsion from Nauvoo, and Young had returned from his
first trip to Salt Lake valley. The matter was taken up at a
council at Orson Hyde's house on December 5, 1847, and it was
decided, but not without some opposing views, to reorganize the
church according to the original plan, with a First Presidency
and Patriarch. In accordance with this plan, a conference was
held in the log tabernacle at Winter Quarters on December 24, and
Young was elected President and John Smith Patriarch. Young
selected Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards to be his
counsellors, and the action of this conference was confirmed in
Salt Lake City the following October. Young wrote immediately
after his election, "This is one of the happiest days of my
life."

The vacancies in the Twelve caused by these promotions, and by
Wight's apostasy, were not filled until February 12, 1849, in
Salt Lake City, when Lorenzo Snow, Erastus Snow, C. C. Rich, and
F. D. Richards were chosen.

CHAPTER XVIII. Renewed Trouble For The Mormons--"The Burnings"

The death of the prophet did not bring peace with their outside
neighbors to the Mormon church. Indeed, the causes of enmity were
too varied and radical to be removed by any changes in the
leadership, so long as the brethren remained where they were.

In the winter of 1844-1845 charges of stealing made against the
Mormons by their neighbors became more frequent. Governor Ford,
in his message to the legislature, pronounced such reports
exaggerated, but it probably does the governor no injustice to
say that he now had his eye on the Mormon vote. The non-Mormons
in Hancock and the surrounding counties held meetings and
appointed committees to obtain accurate information about the
thefts, and the old complaints of the uselessness of tracing
stolen goods to Nauvoo were revived. The Mormons vigorously
denied these charges through formal action taken by the Nauvoo
City Council and a citizens' meeting, alleging that in many cases
"outlandish men" had visited the city at night to scatter
counterfeit money and deposit stolen goods, the responsibility
for which was laid on Mormon shoulders.

It is not at all improbable that many a theft in western Illinois
in those days that was charged to Mormons had other authors; but
testimony regarding the dishonesty of many members of the church,
such as we have seen presented in Smith's day, was still
available. Thus, Young, in one of his addresses to the conference
assembled at Nauvoo about two months after Smith's death, made
this statement: "Elders who go to borrowing horses or money, and
running away with it, will be cut off from the church without any
ceremony. THEY WILL NOT HAVE SO MUCH LENITY AS HERETOFORE."*

* Times and Seasons, Vol. V, p. 696.

A lady who published a sketch of her travels in 1845 through
Illinois and Iowa wrote:--

"We now entered a part of the country laid waste by the
desperadoes among the Mormons. Whole farms were deserted, fields
were still covered with wheat unreaped, and cornfields stood
ungathered, the inhabitants having fled to a distant part of the
country . . . . Friends gave us a good deal of information about
the doings of these Saints at Nauvoo--said that often, when their
orchards were full of fruit, some sixteen of these monsters would
come with bowie knives and drive the owners into their houses
while they stripped their trees of the fruit. If these rogues
wanted cattle they would drive off the cattle of the Gentiles."*

* "Book for the Married and Single," by Ann Archbold.

A trial concerning the title to some land in Adams County in that
year brought out the fact that there existed in the Mormon church
what was called a "Oneness." Five persons would associate and
select one of their members as a guardian; then, if any of the
property they jointly owned was levied on, they would show that
one or more of the other five was the real owner.

While the Mormons continued to send abroad glowing pictures of
the prosperity of Nauvoo, less prejudiced accounts gave a very
different view. The latter pointed out that the immigrants, who
supplied the only source of prosperity, had expended most of
their capital on houses and lots, that building operations had
declined, because houses could be bought cheaper than they could
be built, and that mechanics had been forced to seek employment
in St. Louis. Published reports that large numbers of the poor in
the city were dependent on charity received confirmation in a
letter published in the Millennial Star of October 1, 1845, which
said that on a fast-day proclaimed by Young, when the poor were
to be remembered, "people were seen trotting in all directions to
the Bishops of the different wards" with their contributions.