Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Nauvoo Music And Concert Hall, Darrell Babidge

BYU Studies Quarterly

On many an evening in 1845, anyone near the corner of Woodruff and Young Streets in Nauvoo, Illinois, would have heard music coming from the newly constructed Music and Concert Hall (fig. 1). The following year, the music making abruptly stopped as thousands of Nauvoo residents fled from mob violence, abandoned the city, and began their journey westward to the Great Salt Lake. Today on the same corner is an empty grassy area where children often play. This article seeks to tell the history of the Nauvoo Music and Concert Hall. This hall points to the lifeblood of music and …

The Nauvoo Temple Bells, Shannon M. Tracy, Glen M. Leonard, Ronald G. Watt

BYU Studies Quarterly

June 27, 2002. Nauvoo, Illinois. 6:00 p.m. Six long chimes ring from a bell located within the Nauvoo Temple tower to signal the first of many dedicatory services for the newly rebuilt Nauvoo Temple. The sound seems to announce a rebirth of dreams long wanting to be fulfilled. Now, for the first time in over a century and a half, a bell rings in the dedicated house of the Lord that sits atop the bluff overlooking the neatly planned streets of the lower city. As was its predecessor, this temple was built for the perfecting of the Saints in the …

Administrative Records: Council Of Fifty, Minutes, March 1844–January 1846, James B. Allen

BYU Studies Quarterly

Everything You Could Ever Want to Know about the Council of Fifty in Nauvoo” would be a well-suited subtitle for this highly anticipated volume. As the editors note, Joseph Smith and his closest associates saw the Council of Fifty “as the beginning of the literal kingdom of God on earth” (xxiii). It functioned secretly in Nauvoo from March 1844 to January 1846 and then later for three short periods in Utah. Historians have long been aware of this council, also called the “Kingdom of God,” and some have pieced together from various journals and other reliable sources considerable information about …

Psalms Of Nauvoo: Early Mormon Poetry, Gerrit Van Dyk

BYU Studies Quarterly

Hal Robert Boyd and Susan Easton Black, eds., Psalms of Nauvoo: Early Mormon Poetry (Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center, 2015)

Understanding The Council Of Fifty And Its Minutes, Ronald K. Esplin

BYU Studies Quarterly

Students of early Mormon history have long known about the once-secretive Council of Fifty in Nauvoo and learned much about it.1 However, the records of the council were never available for research until now. The closest I came to the records of the Council of Fifty before the First Presidency made them available for the Joseph Smith Papers was in about 1977. Elder Joseph Anderson of the Seventy, then serving as executive director of the Historical Department, had served for decades as secretary to the First Presidency. When premeeting conversation around a conference table one day turned to the Council …

Minutes Of The Afternoon Meeting Of The Council Of Fifty, April 11, 1844, Matthew J. Grow, Ronald K. Esplin, Mark Ashurst-Mcgee, Gerrit J. Dirkmaaat, Jeffrey D. Mahas

BYU Studies Quarterly

In his essay “Understanding the Council of Fifty and Its Minutes,” on the previous pages in this issue, Ronald K. Esplin overviews the history of the Council of Fifty and the three books in which William Clayton recorded its minutes. He tells what these minutes add to our understanding of Church leaders’ concerns about outreach to American Indians, Joseph Smith’s presidential campaign, and the desire to claim religious liberty. The text presented and annotated below is excerpted from The Joseph Smith Papers, Administrative Records: Council of Fifty, Minutes, March 1844–January 1846.

Nauvoo & Hancock County, Illinois: A Guide To Family History And Historical Sources, Gerrit Van Dyk

BYU Studies Quarterly

Nauvoo & Hancock County, Illinois: A Guide to Family History and Historical Sources, by Kip Sperry. Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, 2014.

The Closedown Of Lds Iowa Settlements In 1852 That Completed The Nauvoo Exodus And Jampacked The Mormon Trail, William G. Hartley

BYU Studies Quarterly

After the Mormons were forced out of Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1846, many temporarily settled around Kanesville (now Council Bluffs), Iowa. The first Mormon pioneers founded Salt Lake City in 1847, but five years later, many thousands of Mormons were still in Iowa, trying to collect resources to make the long trek across the Great Plains. They lacked food, wagons, and other supplies they would need.

In 1852, the First Presidency sent Elder Ezra T. Benson to organize the scattered Saints into wagon trains. Benson was successful in sharing the message of urgency in gathering, and most of the Saints made …

Nauvoo Neighbor: The Latter-Day Saint Experience At The Mississippi River, 1843–1845, Susan E. Black

BYU Studies Quarterly

This excerpt from Susan Easton Black's new book introduces the Mormon newspaper the Nauvoo Neighbor and the significant role it played in Nauvoo between 1843 and 1845.

"Myself . . . I Consecrate To The God Of Heaven": Twenty Affidavits Of Consecration In Nauvoo, June–July 1842, Sherilyn Farnes, Mitchell K. Schaefer

BYU Studies Quarterly

Early in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Joseph Smith taught the Saints that the Lord had revealed a law of consecration, in which members would consecrate all their time, talents, and possessions to the Church and its purposes. It has been commonly believed that the law of consecration was not practiced in Nauvoo, where the Church was headquartered from 1839 to 1846. But the recent discovery of twenty affidavits of consecration, handwritten in the summer of 1842 by Latter-day Saints determined to follow an apostolic invitation to consecrate themselves and property to the Church, …

Nauvoo Polygamy: " . . But We Called It Celestial Marriage", Thomas G. Alexander

BYU Studies Quarterly

Although focusing on the introduction of plural marriage by Joseph Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy is also an analysis of the background of pre-Mormon polygamy, a consideration of the expansion of the institution, and the testimony of those who entered it. Significantly, it is the first attempt since Todd Compton's In Sacred Loneliness to provide a critical list and analysis of the women whom Joseph married. It is not, however, an attempt to provide a statistical analysis of plural marriage, and its consideration of the operation of plural family life is much shorter than we find in the works of Kathryn Daynes …

Excavating Nauvoo: The Mormons And The Rise Of Historical Archaeology In America, Richard K. Talbot, Benjamin C. Pykles

BYU Studies Quarterly

During a recent coordination meeting, an archaeologist employed by the state of Utah tried to explain how the science of archaeology can help Native Americans to know their history. In response, one of the Native American participants exclaimed, "We already know our history!" This statement sheds light on tensions that arise when reconstructing the past. To those living in a postmodern world, history can serve many purposes and many masters; for this particular Native American, the oral history that had been passed down generationally to her presented her past in a context and form with which she was accustomed and …

Transforming Swampland Into Nauvoo, The City Beautiful: A Civil Engineering Perspective, Kyle M. Rollins, Richard D. Smith, M. Brett Borup, E. James Nelson

BYU Studies Quarterly

The history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints includes a number of significant engineering accomplishments. The Salt Lake Tabernacle was designated a national historic landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers because of the innovative bridge truss system used to support its roof. Latter-day Saints also pioneered a technique known today as dynamic compaction in their efforts to improve the soil below the foundation of the St. George temple. A one-thousand-pound cannon was repeatedly dropped from a height of twenty to thirty feet to drive lava rock into the soil below the foundation level. One of …

Nauvoo's Temple Square, Lisle G. Brown

BYU Studies Quarterly

And ye shall build it on the place where you have contemplated building it, for that is the spot which I have chosen for you to build it. If ye labor with all your might, I will consecrate that spot that it shall be made holy.

—D&C 124:43-44

Artworks In The Celestial Room Of The First Nauvoo Temple, Jill C. Major

BYU Studies Quarterly

Because of the scant time the first Nauvoo temple was open for sacred ordinances, portraits of prominent Nauvoo citizens were borrowed to adorn the temple walls. Brigham Young and the temple portrait for display in the temple. The presence of these images demonstrates how carefully Brigham Young and the temple committee arranged every detail of the temple experience to make it meaningful and purposeful, even while they planned to abandon the City of Joseph. Knowing about the portraits also adds to our knowledge of the importance of art in the Nauvoo culture. What follows is an identification of the portraits …

Father Brigham In His Western Canaan, John K. Carmack

BYU Studies Quarterly

If you were to paint a word picture of Brigham Young by comparing him to an earlier spiritual leader, to whom would you compare him? Maybe the most dramatic comparison comes from that pivotal moment when he spoke to nearly five thousand Saints gathered in Nauvoo to select those who would take the reins of leadership in the restored Church. To many, including my own forbears, as he delivered his address he looked and sounded like Joseph Smith. Or perhaps, as Leonard Arrington did, you would compare him to Moses leading the children of Israel on a long and perilous …

“A Man That You Could Not Help Likeing”: Joseph Smith And Nauvoo Portrayed In A Letter By Susannah And George W. Taggart, Ronald O. Barney

BYU Studies Quarterly

The Prophet Joseph Smith's call for members of The Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints to gather to Nauvoo, Illinois, had a wide effect once the settlement acquired the trappings of civilization. What had been the obscure riverside village of Commerce soon evidenced expansion and progress: new inhabitants and bustling construction. Among those who gathered to Nauvoo were Washington and Susannah Taggart, who converted to Mormonism in 1841 or 1842 in Peterborough, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire. Taught the gospel by Elder Eli P. Maginn, the Taggarts soon planned their departure for the Mormon capital. Their eldest son, George Washington Taggart …

The Mormons Of The Wisconsin Territory: 1835-1848, David L. Clark

BYU Studies Quarterly

Upriver from Nauvoo, Wisconsin Territory became home to all kinds of Saints—faithful, independent, or apostate—who played interesting roles in the development of this frontier region.

Cultures In Conflict: A Documentary History Of The Mormon War In Illinois Edited By John E. Hallwas And Roger D. Launius, Glen M. Leonard

BYU Studies Quarterly

John E. Hallwas and Roger D. Launius, eds. Cultures in Conflict: A Documentary History of the Mormon War in Illinois. Logan: Utah State University, 1995. x, 369 pp. Illustrations, map, bibliographic note, index. $37.95.

In Their Own Words: Women And The Story Of Nauvoo By Carol Cornwall Madsen, Michelle Stott

BYU Studies Quarterly

Carol Cornwall Madsen. In Their Own Words: Women and the Story of Nauvoo. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1994. xii; 266 pp. Illustrations, notes, index. $14.95.

Conversation In Nauvoo About The Corporeality Of God, Jacob Neusner

BYU Studies Quarterly

Religion scholar Jacob Neusner looks at the corporeal nature of God through the lens of Mormonism and Judaism. He addresses anthropomorphism and incarnation, and concludes that the way to know God is through “our relationship with him, not through our act of the incarnation of God in heart and mind and soul.” Neusner appreciates the powerful doctrine of God’s corporeality taught by the Prophet Joseph Smith in the 1842 King Follett Sermon, which says that men may converse with God “as one man converses with another.” He says, “In the formative documents of the Torah in its oral version, that …

Family Land And Records Center In Nauvoo, Susan Easton Black

BYU Studies Quarterly

The Family Land and Records Center is a research center in Nauvoo with many documents available to assist those interested in family history. The records center has documents of residents of Nauvoo, Iowa, and Illinois, from 1839 to 1845. These records include burial records, industry records, temple ordinance records, property records, tax records, occupational records, court records, and more. As of 2013, the Land and Records Office can be found at http://www.historicnauvoo.net/2010/01/land-and-records-office/.

Susan Easton Black, "Family Land and Records Center in Nauvoo" BYU Studies 36, no. 1.

Picturing The Nauvoo Legion, Glen M. Leonard

BYU Studies Quarterly

Now out of favor as a subject for artists, the Nauvoo Legion was in the last century both vilified and commemorated in images where some uniforms and settings are surprisingly accurate.

How Large Was The Population Of Nauvoo?, Susan Easton Black

BYU Studies Quarterly

Various estimates have been given by many historians for the population of Nauvoo from 1839 to 1846. Admittedly, demographic descriptions of that era are riddled with statistical inadequacies, yet while these difficulties have been recognized by historians, they have not been resolved to the extent possible through research.

Officers And Arms: The 1843 General Return Of The Nauvoo Legion's Second Cohort, Richard L. Saunders

BYU Studies Quarterly

The Nauvoo Legion was probably more a skeleton organization than the fully manned and impressively equipped force memorialized by popular artists and writers.

William Law: Biographical Essay, Nauvoo Diary, Correspondence, Interview By Lyndon W. Cook, Scott H. Faulring

BYU Studies Quarterly

No abstract provided.

A Note On Nauvoo Theater, Noel A. Carmack

BYU Studies Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Doctrine And The Temple In Nauvoo, Larry C. Porter, Milton V. Backman Jr.

BYU Studies Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Nauvoo Stake, Priesthood Quorums, And The Church's First Wards, William G. Hartley

BYU Studies Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Conflict In The Countryside: The Mormon Settlement At Macedonia, Illinois, Susan Sessions Rugh

BYU Studies Quarterly

No abstract provided.