25 years ago today - Aug 31, 1993
Lynne Kanavel Whitesides, Mormon Women's Forum president, receives a letter from Bishop Virgil Merrill stating that a disciplinary council for apostasy is scheduled. Whitesides has regularly spoken on women and priesthood, Mother in Heaven, and other feminist issues. When she asks her bishop who her accusers are she is informed that there were none but her own words from public addresses, of which he had transcripts and cassette recordings. To prepare her defense, she asks which of her statements would be used; she was told that she knew what she said. Merrill had been contacted repeatedly by a general authority concerning Whitesides and had been sent materials, such as copies of news reports about her. When he receives a full transcript of a television interview Whitesides had given, with yellow highlighted passages, he immediately sets a date for the disciplinary council. 150 friends hold a vigil on the lawn during the disciplinary council. Whitesides is disfellowshipped and reports that Merrill had said that the support of so many friends had an impact on him. The day after the Whitesides's disciplinary council LDS historian D. Michael Quinn receives a letter from his stake president notifying him of his disciplinary council on the charges of "apostasy and conduct unbecoming a member."
85 years ago today - Aug 31, 1933
[J. Reuben Clark]
Discussed with Brothers George Albert, Melvin J. and Joseph Fielding the M.I.A. manuals. Made objection to Merrill-Brandley Manual. Said we were in the hands of group of radicals, and that I resented it. Neither George Albert nor Bro Ballard had read manual. I volunteered to read every Manual next year before it was printed.
[Source: The Diaries of J. Reuben Clark, 1933-1961, Abridged, Digital Edition, Salt Lake City, Utah 2015]
Discussed with Brothers George Albert, Melvin J. and Joseph Fielding the M.I.A. manuals. Made objection to Merrill-Brandley Manual. Said we were in the hands of group of radicals, and that I resented it. Neither George Albert nor Bro Ballard had read manual. I volunteered to read every Manual next year before it was printed.
[Source: The Diaries of J. Reuben Clark, 1933-1961, Abridged, Digital Edition, Salt Lake City, Utah 2015]
125 years ago today - Aug 31, 1893 (Thursday)
The Supreme Court of Utah handed down a decision in the Church suits, to the effect that the government, under the escheat clause of the Edmunds-Tucker law of 1887, was entitled to confiscate the Gardo House, the coal lands and the Church farm; but that the Historians' office and the Tithing yard were excluded and legally the property of the Church. The case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
[Source: Jenson, Andrew, Church Chronology]
[Source: Jenson, Andrew, Church Chronology]
140 years ago today - Aug 31, 1878
[William S. Sayre]
... a man whose name, to the best of my recollection, was Richards, got into the Stage house when on <<the>> rout & Said he resided at Palmira, & had been to Quages, which was in the town of Colesville a few miles from South Bainbridge village to See Jos[eph] Smith, who had resided in Palmira, & had found a gold bible & stone in which he looked & was thereby enabled to translate the very ancient chara[c]ters which <<he>> found in the bible. He Said Smith was poor & was living in a house which had only one room <<in which he could keep [for?]>> & Smith had a sheet put up in one corner & went behind it from observation when he was writing the bible. He Said Smith kept the bible hid or covered up & put it in a hat & had the Stone which <<he>> found in Pal=mira & look[e]d through it & then wrote what he read in the bible. He Said <<he>> would not let him see the bible but let him feel of it when it was covered up. Smith read to him a good deal of the bible & he repeated to those in the Stage verse after verse of what Smith had read to him; & I afterwards remem=bered Some of the names <<& language>> when I read the Mormon bible. An other gentleman in <<the>> Stage who knew Richards, Said he [Richards] was a man of Some property & had lent Smith money, & he had been trying to get pay. That he was Crazy on the subject of religion & Smith had duped him into a belief that [there] was a prospect [of return] & [that he] had found [that] the books history [was] on the lost tribes of Israel. ...
[At the top of the page] He [Joseph Smith] soon pretended to be a fortune teller & capable of looking into futurity. This was done by placing a stone in his hat & then looking into it drawn over his face so as to exclude the light. In this way he pretended also to discover hidden treasures of gold in the earth, & many even so credulous & deluded as to dig for gold in locating [locations] indicated by him. ... but these false pretensions & deceptions was soon exposed & he was prosecuted as an imposter & taken before Joseph P. Chamberlin Esq. a justice of the peace, when he was defended by two old pettyfoggers com=monly called Elder Reed & general Davidson, pritty well known in those days. Jo. was allowed to escape punishment by leaving the town. His his subsequent career in Ohio & Illinois is matter of history[."]
[Source: William S. Sayre to James T. Cobb, 31 August 1878, Theodore A. Schroeder Papers, Archives, Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin., as cited in Dan Vogel, Early Mormon Documents: William S. Sayre To James T. Cobb]
... a man whose name, to the best of my recollection, was Richards, got into the Stage house when on <<the>> rout & Said he resided at Palmira, & had been to Quages, which was in the town of Colesville a few miles from South Bainbridge village to See Jos[eph] Smith, who had resided in Palmira, & had found a gold bible & stone in which he looked & was thereby enabled to translate the very ancient chara[c]ters which <<he>> found in the bible. He Said Smith was poor & was living in a house which had only one room <<in which he could keep [for?]>> & Smith had a sheet put up in one corner & went behind it from observation when he was writing the bible. He Said Smith kept the bible hid or covered up & put it in a hat & had the Stone which <<he>> found in Pal=mira & look[e]d through it & then wrote what he read in the bible. He Said <<he>> would not let him see the bible but let him feel of it when it was covered up. Smith read to him a good deal of the bible & he repeated to those in the Stage verse after verse of what Smith had read to him; & I afterwards remem=bered Some of the names <<& language>> when I read the Mormon bible. An other gentleman in <<the>> Stage who knew Richards, Said he [Richards] was a man of Some property & had lent Smith money, & he had been trying to get pay. That he was Crazy on the subject of religion & Smith had duped him into a belief that [there] was a prospect [of return] & [that he] had found [that] the books history [was] on the lost tribes of Israel. ...
[At the top of the page] He [Joseph Smith] soon pretended to be a fortune teller & capable of looking into futurity. This was done by placing a stone in his hat & then looking into it drawn over his face so as to exclude the light. In this way he pretended also to discover hidden treasures of gold in the earth, & many even so credulous & deluded as to dig for gold in locating [locations] indicated by him. ... but these false pretensions & deceptions was soon exposed & he was prosecuted as an imposter & taken before Joseph P. Chamberlin Esq. a justice of the peace, when he was defended by two old pettyfoggers com=monly called Elder Reed & general Davidson, pritty well known in those days. Jo. was allowed to escape punishment by leaving the town. His his subsequent career in Ohio & Illinois is matter of history[."]
[Source: William S. Sayre to James T. Cobb, 31 August 1878, Theodore A. Schroeder Papers, Archives, Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin., as cited in Dan Vogel, Early Mormon Documents: William S. Sayre To James T. Cobb]
145 years ago today - Aug 31, 1873
Brigham Young preaches: "Now, where a man in this Church says, "I don't want but one wife, I will live my religion with one," he will perhaps be saved in the celestial kingdom; but when he gets there he will not find himself in possession of any wife at all. He has had a talent that he has hid up. He will come forward and say, "Here is that which thou gavest me, I have not wasted it, and here is the one talent," and he will not enjoy it, but it will be taken and given to those who have improved the talents they received, and he will find himself without any wife, and he will remain single for ever and ever. . . . I recollect a sister conversing with Joseph Smith on this subject. She told him: "Now, don't talk to me; when I get into the celestial kingdom, if I ever do get there, I shall request the privilege of being a ministering angel; that is the labor that I wish to perform. I don't want any companion in that world; and if the Lord will make me a ministering angel, it is all I want." Joseph said, "Sister, you talk very foolishly, you do not know what you will want." He then said to me: "Here, brother Brigham, you seal this lady to me." I sealed her to him. This was my own sister according to the flesh." Brigham Young's sister, Fanny, became Joseph Smith's last plural wife on Nov 2, 1843.
145 years ago today - Aug 31, 1873
[Brigham Young]
There was a certain woman brought to Father Adam whose name was Eve, because she was the first woman, and she was given to him to be his wife; I am not disposed to give any farther knowledge concerning her at present. There is no doubt but that he left many companions. The great and glorious doctrine that pertains to this I have not time to dwell upon; neither should I at present if I had time. He understood this whole machinery or system before he came to this earth; and I hope my brethren and sisters will profit by what I have told them.
[Source: Journal of Discourses. Liverpool, England, 1853-86. 16:160-171; Deseret News. Also Deseret Evening News, Deseret News Weekly, Deseret News Semi- Weekly, and Deseret News Extra, Salt Lake City, in The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, Ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Smith-Pettit Foundation, Salt Lake City (2009), http://bit.ly/BY-discourses]
There was a certain woman brought to Father Adam whose name was Eve, because she was the first woman, and she was given to him to be his wife; I am not disposed to give any farther knowledge concerning her at present. There is no doubt but that he left many companions. The great and glorious doctrine that pertains to this I have not time to dwell upon; neither should I at present if I had time. He understood this whole machinery or system before he came to this earth; and I hope my brethren and sisters will profit by what I have told them.
[Source: Journal of Discourses. Liverpool, England, 1853-86. 16:160-171; Deseret News. Also Deseret Evening News, Deseret News Weekly, Deseret News Semi- Weekly, and Deseret News Extra, Salt Lake City, in The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, Ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Smith-Pettit Foundation, Salt Lake City (2009), http://bit.ly/BY-discourses]
145 years ago today - Aug 31, 1873
President B Young Spoke 1 Hour & 18 Minutes. In his remarks He said that a Man who did not have but one wife in the Resurrection that woman will not be his but [be] taken from him & given to another But he may be saved in the kingdom of God but be single to all Eternity. Mother Eve was the Daughter of Adam.
[Source: Wilford WoodruffÂ's Journal. 9 Vols. Scott G. Kenney, ed. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1983-85. 7:152, in The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, Ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Smith-Pettit Foundation, Salt Lake City (2009), http://bit.ly/BY-discourses]
[Source: Wilford WoodruffÂ's Journal. 9 Vols. Scott G. Kenney, ed. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1983-85. 7:152, in The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, Ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Smith-Pettit Foundation, Salt Lake City (2009), http://bit.ly/BY-discourses]
175 years ago today - Aug 31, 1843
Joseph begins moving into the Nauvoo Mansion. Up until this time the Smiths (Joseph, Emma, and four children) have been living in the same log house Joseph purchased from Hugh White in 1839. The mansion is a 22-room L-shaped building. The Smith family takes over six rooms and the rest are for entertaining visitors to Nauvoo. Fifteen days after moving into the mansion, Joseph gives notice that he is no longer able to provide free facilities, but thereafter the mansion will operate as a hotel. Joseph lives at the mansion until his death. At this time the men in Nauvoo are donating one day out of ten to work on the temple and Nauvoo House. The sisters are donating 1 percent of their weekly money for those structures.
[Source: Conkling, Christopher J., Joseph Smith Chronology]
[Source: Conkling, Christopher J., Joseph Smith Chronology]
180 years ago today - Aug 31, 1838
Joseph Smith "beats his fists together" and angrily tells Mormon John Corrill (who had publicly expressed disagreement with a recent revelation on the United Order), "if you tell about the streets again that you do not believe this or that revelation[,] I will walk on your neck Sir." After Corrill had abandoned his belief in Mormonism he was nevertheless extremely generous in helping the Mormons during their Missouri difficulties.
10 years ago today - 8/30/2008
[Proposition-8]
mormonsfor8.com goes up connecting donor names to LDS membership. Mormons accounted for not quite 2% of California's population, yet are credited with raising more than half of the $32+ million donations to protectmarriage. Similar to the "grass roots" response to Virginia's battle over extending the ratification deadline for the ERA: Mormons made up 0.5% of the state's population, yet accounted for 85% of the anti-ERA letters to state legislators.
[Source: Mormons for Marriage: A Prop 8 Timeline, http://mormonsformarriage.com/?page_id=68]
mormonsfor8.com goes up connecting donor names to LDS membership. Mormons accounted for not quite 2% of California's population, yet are credited with raising more than half of the $32+ million donations to protectmarriage. Similar to the "grass roots" response to Virginia's battle over extending the ratification deadline for the ERA: Mormons made up 0.5% of the state's population, yet accounted for 85% of the anti-ERA letters to state legislators.
[Source: Mormons for Marriage: A Prop 8 Timeline, http://mormonsformarriage.com/?page_id=68]
120 years ago today - Aug 30, 1898 (Tuesday)
[Church Historian Andrew Jenson]
"The sessions of the Utah Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church closed at Manti, Sanpete Co. Before adjourning, resolutions were passed, replete with "garbled statements and absolute falsehoods concerning the 'Mormon' Church.""
[Source: Jenson, Andrew, Church Chronology]
"The sessions of the Utah Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church closed at Manti, Sanpete Co. Before adjourning, resolutions were passed, replete with "garbled statements and absolute falsehoods concerning the 'Mormon' Church.""
[Source: Jenson, Andrew, Church Chronology]
180 years ago today - Aug 30, 1838
Governor Boggs, having heard of Lyman Wight's defiance of the law officers, orders General Atchison (Joseph's former lawyer) to call out 400 of the militia in preparation against the Mormons.
[Source: Conkling, Christopher J., Joseph Smith Chronology]
[Source: Conkling, Christopher J., Joseph Smith Chronology]
40 years ago today - Aug 29, 1978-Tuesday
[Leonard Arrington]
Maureen [Beecher] came in today and said she had a long talk with Becky Cornwall. They had to "talk through" their positions on the "prayer for the extension of ERA" campaign. [[Some LDS women were urging a prayer campaign in support of the movement to extend the ERA ratification deadline.]] Two or three points: First, it was not Becky's idea. She was put up to it by Jan Tyler and Sonia Johnson. An inner light told her at the time it was not the right thing to do but she was persuaded to do it and thought she ought to "stand out on the front line." So she went ahead and did it, but as soon as the mail started coming in she realized it was the wrong thing to do, and her inner light told her that she must disengage herself from the movement immediately. She realized this would be a Benedict Arnold thing to do, but her inner light told her it was the right thing and so she went ahead and told Jan that she was resigning from it and that she was now carrying on the campaign in the same way that Maureen and Jill and others are doing. Maureen felt free to tell her about our conversation at the meeting with Lavina [Fielding Anderson] and Jay Todd the other day in which I mentioned that I don't agree with the campaign but defended her staunchly as a person, even though she had done it, and indicated in the strongest language that this did not affect our friendship in any way. Becky was glad to hear that. Becky indicated to Maureen that she missed Grace and hoped to be with her again soon.
[Source: Confessions of a Mormon historian : the diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997, Gary James Bergera, editor, Signature Books, 2018]
Maureen [Beecher] came in today and said she had a long talk with Becky Cornwall. They had to "talk through" their positions on the "prayer for the extension of ERA" campaign. [[Some LDS women were urging a prayer campaign in support of the movement to extend the ERA ratification deadline.]] Two or three points: First, it was not Becky's idea. She was put up to it by Jan Tyler and Sonia Johnson. An inner light told her at the time it was not the right thing to do but she was persuaded to do it and thought she ought to "stand out on the front line." So she went ahead and did it, but as soon as the mail started coming in she realized it was the wrong thing to do, and her inner light told her that she must disengage herself from the movement immediately. She realized this would be a Benedict Arnold thing to do, but her inner light told her it was the right thing and so she went ahead and told Jan that she was resigning from it and that she was now carrying on the campaign in the same way that Maureen and Jill and others are doing. Maureen felt free to tell her about our conversation at the meeting with Lavina [Fielding Anderson] and Jay Todd the other day in which I mentioned that I don't agree with the campaign but defended her staunchly as a person, even though she had done it, and indicated in the strongest language that this did not affect our friendship in any way. Becky was glad to hear that. Becky indicated to Maureen that she missed Grace and hoped to be with her again soon.
[Source: Confessions of a Mormon historian : the diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997, Gary James Bergera, editor, Signature Books, 2018]
95 years ago today - Aug 29, 1923
Sister Lee, we lay our hands upon your head in the name of the Lord, and inasmuch as you have been chosen to act as the presiding woman in the temple, working in harmony with and under the direction of President [Edward J.] Wood, we bless you ... as you come in contact with women... to answer the questions which they may ask ... and to direct the labors of other women ... we seal upon you, and set you apart to this work in the name of Jesus Christ, our Redeemer. Amen.
[Source: Typescript dated Aug. 29, 1923, in the Anthony W. Ivins Papers, Utah State Historical Society, in Anderson, Devery; The Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846-2000: A Documentary History, http://amzn.to/TempleWorship]
[Source: Typescript dated Aug. 29, 1923, in the Anthony W. Ivins Papers, Utah State Historical Society, in Anderson, Devery; The Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846-2000: A Documentary History, http://amzn.to/TempleWorship]
125 years ago today - Aug 29, 1893 (Tuesday)
The Tabernacle choir and a number of friends (about four-hundred souls altogether) left Salt Lake City on a special train, for Chicago, Ill., whither the choir went to compete in a singing contest at the World's Fair. Presidents Wilford Woodruff, Geo. Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith were with the party.
[Source: Jenson, Andrew, Church Chronology]
[Source: Jenson, Andrew, Church Chronology]
130 years ago today - Aug 29, 1888
[Franklin D. Richards]
Government has what represents $800,000 of our Church property in its Receiver's hands'- has inflicted perhaps $200-000 fines and caused us to pour out moneylike water to payAttorneys for best legal defence we can get & now J[ohn]. W. Y[oung]. thinks we should advance money to help assure Dem[ocratic]. party we are sincere in our politics.
[Source: Franklin D. Richards Diary, as quoted in Minutes of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1910-1951, Privately Published, Salt Lake City, Utah 2010]
Government has what represents $800,000 of our Church property in its Receiver's hands'- has inflicted perhaps $200-000 fines and caused us to pour out moneylike water to payAttorneys for best legal defence we can get & now J[ohn]. W. Y[oung]. thinks we should advance money to help assure Dem[ocratic]. party we are sincere in our politics.
[Source: Franklin D. Richards Diary, as quoted in Minutes of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1910-1951, Privately Published, Salt Lake City, Utah 2010]
160 years ago today - Aug 29, 1858
[Brigham Young]
On the subject of the Union of the States, the President said 'I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, but I tell you, that if the Congress will do justice to this people the Union will be preserved; but if they trample upon our rights, and interfere unconstitutionally with our privileges they will fall, they will separate.' He said that it would by Mormon influence in good substantial men that the Union would be supported.
[Source: Brigham Young Office Journals, in The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, Ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Smith-Pettit Foundation, Salt Lake City (2009), http://bit.ly/BY-discourses]
On the subject of the Union of the States, the President said 'I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, but I tell you, that if the Congress will do justice to this people the Union will be preserved; but if they trample upon our rights, and interfere unconstitutionally with our privileges they will fall, they will separate.' He said that it would by Mormon influence in good substantial men that the Union would be supported.
[Source: Brigham Young Office Journals, in The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, Ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Smith-Pettit Foundation, Salt Lake City (2009), http://bit.ly/BY-discourses]
175 years ago today - Aug 29, 1843. Tuesday.
[William Clayton]
President Joseph at my house with Miss W[oo]d[wor]th [Joseph Smith's 16-year-old plural wife].
[Source: George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton, Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, Salt Lake City, 1995, http://bit.ly/WilliamClayton]
President Joseph at my house with Miss W[oo]d[wor]th [Joseph Smith's 16-year-old plural wife].
[Source: George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton, Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, Salt Lake City, 1995, http://bit.ly/WilliamClayton]
175 years ago today - Aug 29, 1843
[David White quoting Joseph Smith]
... The Lord does reveal himself to me. I know it. He revealed himself first to me when I was about fourteen years old, a mere boy. I will tell you about it. There was a reformation among the different religious denominations in the neighborhood where I lived, and I became serious, and was desirous to know what Church to join. While thinking of this matter, I opened the Testament promiscuously on these words, in James, `Ask of the Lord who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not [James 1:5].' I just determined I'd ask him. I immediately went out into the woods where my father had a clearing, and went to the stump where I had stuck my axe when I had quit work, and I kneeled down, and prayed, saying, `O Lord, what Church shall I join?' Directly I saw a light, and then a glorious personage in the light, and then another personage, and the first personage said to the second, "Behold my beloved Son, hear him." I then, addressed this second person, saying, "O Lord, what Church shall I join." He replied, "don't join any of them, they are all corrupt." The vision then vanished, and when I came to myself, I was sprawling on my back; and it was some time before my strength returned. When I went home and told the people that I had a revelation, and that all the churches were corrupt, they persecuted me, and they have persecuted me ever since. They thought to put me down, but they hav'nt succeeded, and they can't do it. . . .
[Source: David White, "The Prairies, Nauvoo, Joe Smith, the Temple, the Mormons, &c.," Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette 58 (15 September 1843): 3. Reprinted in (New York) Spectator, 23 September 1843., as cited in Dan Vogel, Early Mormon Documents: Joseph Smith Interview With David White]
... The Lord does reveal himself to me. I know it. He revealed himself first to me when I was about fourteen years old, a mere boy. I will tell you about it. There was a reformation among the different religious denominations in the neighborhood where I lived, and I became serious, and was desirous to know what Church to join. While thinking of this matter, I opened the Testament promiscuously on these words, in James, `Ask of the Lord who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not [James 1:5].' I just determined I'd ask him. I immediately went out into the woods where my father had a clearing, and went to the stump where I had stuck my axe when I had quit work, and I kneeled down, and prayed, saying, `O Lord, what Church shall I join?' Directly I saw a light, and then a glorious personage in the light, and then another personage, and the first personage said to the second, "Behold my beloved Son, hear him." I then, addressed this second person, saying, "O Lord, what Church shall I join." He replied, "don't join any of them, they are all corrupt." The vision then vanished, and when I came to myself, I was sprawling on my back; and it was some time before my strength returned. When I went home and told the people that I had a revelation, and that all the churches were corrupt, they persecuted me, and they have persecuted me ever since. They thought to put me down, but they hav'nt succeeded, and they can't do it. . . .
[Source: David White, "The Prairies, Nauvoo, Joe Smith, the Temple, the Mormons, &c.," Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette 58 (15 September 1843): 3. Reprinted in (New York) Spectator, 23 September 1843., as cited in Dan Vogel, Early Mormon Documents: Joseph Smith Interview With David White]
10 years ago today - Aug 28, 2008
The Church announced that more than 140 million copies of the Book of Mormon, published in 107 languages, had been distributed since its publication in 1830. Seven major editions of the book had been published up to this time.
[Source: Church News: Historical Chronology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, http://www.ldschurchnewsarchive.com/articles/58765/Historical-chronology-of-The-Church-of-Jesus-Christ-of-Latter-day-Saints.html]
[Source: Church News: Historical Chronology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, http://www.ldschurchnewsarchive.com/articles/58765/Historical-chronology-of-The-Church-of-Jesus-Christ-of-Latter-day-Saints.html]
25 years ago today - Aug 28, 1993
Apostle Russell M. Nelson represents the LDS church at the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago, exactly 100 years after it rejected the first Mormon delegation.
[Source: The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database ( http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase )]]
[Source: The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database ( http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase )]]
40 years ago today - Aug 28, 1978-Monday
[Leonard Arrington]
Fred Collier ... asked Davis [Bitton], "What have you heard on the revelation of June 9?" Davis asked him what he had heard. He told Davis what he had heard from Boyd Packer's testimony in a testimony meeting and about Bro. [Bruce R.] McConkie's speech to his family, and he said that Elder Packer in bearing his testimony said that Jesus himself had appeared at the June 1 meeting of the Quorum of the Twelve and the First Presidency. In speaking of it he [Packer] was all choked up and said now he could testify that Jesus was a person of body, parts, and passions-a person of flesh and blood, and that Jesus himself had been seen by the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve in that meeting, and indicated his desire to have them accept the blacks into the priesthood.
[Source: Confessions of a Mormon historian : the diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997, Gary James Bergera, editor, Signature Books, 2018]
Fred Collier ... asked Davis [Bitton], "What have you heard on the revelation of June 9?" Davis asked him what he had heard. He told Davis what he had heard from Boyd Packer's testimony in a testimony meeting and about Bro. [Bruce R.] McConkie's speech to his family, and he said that Elder Packer in bearing his testimony said that Jesus himself had appeared at the June 1 meeting of the Quorum of the Twelve and the First Presidency. In speaking of it he [Packer] was all choked up and said now he could testify that Jesus was a person of body, parts, and passions-a person of flesh and blood, and that Jesus himself had been seen by the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve in that meeting, and indicated his desire to have them accept the blacks into the priesthood.
[Source: Confessions of a Mormon historian : the diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997, Gary James Bergera, editor, Signature Books, 2018]
130 years ago today - Aug 28, 1888
Minerva Bernetta Kohlhepp (Teichert), later a gifted artist and the first woman to paint a mural in a temple (the world room in the Manti Temple), is born in Ogden, Utah.
135 years ago today - Late August, 1883
[James E. Talmage]
Applies and is accepted to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
[Source: Chronology of the Life and Work of James E. Talmage, J. Trevor Antley, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MJsHY83JZL_n6CjWq11y1trT_CVXMMXAx2uYOWAwn0c/edit#heading=h.2zfdaoa]
Applies and is accepted to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
[Source: Chronology of the Life and Work of James E. Talmage, J. Trevor Antley, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MJsHY83JZL_n6CjWq11y1trT_CVXMMXAx2uYOWAwn0c/edit#heading=h.2zfdaoa]
175 years ago today - Aug 28, 1843. Monday.
[William Clayton]
...President Joseph met Ms [[Flora]] W[oo]d[wor]th at my house. [[Earlier in the week, Emma forced Flora (Joseph's 16-year-old plural wife) to return Joseph's gift of a gold watch, after which Flora rushed into a marriage with a local non-Mormon.]]
[Source: George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton, Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, Salt Lake City, 1995, http://bit.ly/WilliamClayton]
...President Joseph met Ms [[Flora]] W[oo]d[wor]th at my house. [[Earlier in the week, Emma forced Flora (Joseph's 16-year-old plural wife) to return Joseph's gift of a gold watch, after which Flora rushed into a marriage with a local non-Mormon.]]
[Source: George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton, Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, Salt Lake City, 1995, http://bit.ly/WilliamClayton]
185 years ago today - prob. late Aug 1833
Former Mormon Doctor Philastus Hurlbut began short series of lectures on the "true origin of Mormonism" in and around Kirtland.
[Source: Broadhurst, Dale R., Mormon Chronology, http://olivercowdery.com/history/morchrn2.htm]
[Source: Broadhurst, Dale R., Mormon Chronology, http://olivercowdery.com/history/morchrn2.htm]
25 years ago today - Aug 27, 1993
Opening exercises for Sunday school, including the hymn practice, were to be eliminated. An opening prayer was to be offered in each class instead. The schedule in which Sunday school was held first was also been eliminated. The Sunday block plan was to commence with either sacrament meeting, or the meetings of the priesthood quorums and Auxiliaries.
[Source: Correlation Timeline, Compiled by Lisle Brown]
[Source: Correlation Timeline, Compiled by Lisle Brown]
140 years ago today - Aug 27, 1878
[John Nuttle]
Traveled in great pain & got home about noon almost exhausted & went to bed when my Wives & the brethern administed [sic] to me & in the night I got some easier.
[Source: Diary Excerpts of L. John Nuttall, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
Traveled in great pain & got home about noon almost exhausted & went to bed when my Wives & the brethern administed [sic] to me & in the night I got some easier.
[Source: Diary Excerpts of L. John Nuttall, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
155 years ago today - 27 August 1863 ¿ Thursday
[George Q. Cannon]
We went and had a bath and then returned to dinner. At the baths in this country [Denmark] they have women to clean and keep the rooms and baths in order. They also help the bather, without distinction of sex, to wash his or her back. An offer of this kind was made to us at this bath; but Bro Winberg declined for us. We preferred violating such a custom; though I expect by such a refusal we obtained the credit of being either very simple or excessively squeamish.
[Source: The Journal of George Q. Cannon, Church Historian's Press, https://churchhistorianspress.org/george-q-cannon]
We went and had a bath and then returned to dinner. At the baths in this country [Denmark] they have women to clean and keep the rooms and baths in order. They also help the bather, without distinction of sex, to wash his or her back. An offer of this kind was made to us at this bath; but Bro Winberg declined for us. We preferred violating such a custom; though I expect by such a refusal we obtained the credit of being either very simple or excessively squeamish.
[Source: The Journal of George Q. Cannon, Church Historian's Press, https://churchhistorianspress.org/george-q-cannon]
175 years ago today - Aug 27, 1843
Joseph Smith lectured on the three orders of priesthood, Aaronic, "Patriarchal Power" of Abraham which was "the greatest yet experienced in this church." And the forthcoming "perfect law of Theocracy": the "kingly powers" to "administer ... endless lives to the sons and daughters of Adam." This "perfect law," "the Highest and Holiest Order," was realized in new washing and anointing rituals initiated in September where Joseph and Emma were given this final "fullness of the priesthood," or "second anointing."
[Source: Brooke, John L. The Refiner's Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994. p.256]
[Source: Brooke, John L. The Refiner's Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994. p.256]
175 years ago today - Aug 27, 1843
During a sermon Joseph Smith refers to the succession promise to his son Joseph III.
[Source: Quinn, D. Michael, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, Appendix 7: Selected Chronology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830-47, http://amzn.to/origins-power]
[Source: Quinn, D. Michael, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, Appendix 7: Selected Chronology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830-47, http://amzn.to/origins-power]
175 years ago today - Aug 27, 1843
Apostle Orson Pratt identifies the Book of Mormon as "a History of nearly one half of the globe & the people that inhabited it, that it gave a history of all those cities that have been of late discovered by Catherwood and Stephens [explorers of remains of early American civilizations]."
175 years ago today - Aug 27, 1843
The Quorum of the Twelve meets with the Saints in New York in conference.Sunday. Joseph states that two weeks earlier a vote had been taken to disfellowship Sidney Rigdon. And although Gov. Carlin now denies any conspiracy with Rigdon, Joseph still believes there has been such a conspiracy. After these comments, Joseph gives a doctrinal sermon. Rigdon then takes the stand to defend himself, stating that he has seen Gov. Carlin only three times in his life and has never talked to a soul about the subject of a conspiracy to arrest Joseph. Sidney asks pardon for doing anything that would make Joseph come to this conclusion.
[Source: Conkling, Christopher J., Joseph Smith Chronology]
[Source: Conkling, Christopher J., Joseph Smith Chronology]
40 years ago today - 1978-08-26
For the first time the First Presidency defines the ERA [Equal Right Amendment] as a "moral issue"
[Source: Mormon Women's History Timeline, http://www1.chapman.edu/~remy/MoFem/mormonwomen.html]
[Source: Mormon Women's History Timeline, http://www1.chapman.edu/~remy/MoFem/mormonwomen.html]
65 years ago today - Aug 26, 1953
David O. McKay informs Utah's Congressional delegation that he does not want them to help European Mormons to immigrate to the United States. Instead the church president says that they should remain and build the church in their countries. Unlike earlier statements McKay strengthens this appeal by building European temples, the primary motive for moving to Utah.
[Source: The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database ( http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase )]]
[Source: The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database ( http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase )]]
95 years ago today - Aug 26, 1923
President Heber J. Grant dedicates the Alberta Temple (later the Cardston Alberta Temple) in Cardston after years of delay caused by World War I and economic setback in western Canada. It is the first temple dedicated in a non-US country, and was designed with Solomon's temple in mind.
110 years ago today - Wednesday, Aug 26, 1908
Minutes of the Council of the Twelve and of the First Presidency: Letter read from Elder Ralph A. Badger, late President of the South African Mission, dated this city 17th Inst., asking in substance the following questions: (1) What shall be done where people tainted with negro blood embrace the Gospel, the writer going on to say that such people are very numerous in South Africa and some are now members of the Church whose children associate with those of the white race who are members of the Church, the latter objecting to this being done. (2) The writer wished to know if the Gospel should be preached to the native tribes, and states that an old native missionary had become a member of the Church at Queenstown, and is anxious to start an active missionary work among the natives; that the son of a Zulu chief had also been baptized who had requested that missionary work be done among the Zulus.
With reference to the first question President [Joseph F.] Smith remarked that he did not know that we could do anything more in such cases than refer to the rulings of Presidents [Brigham] Young, [John] Taylor, [Wilford] Woodruff, and other presidencies, on this question, amounting to this, that people tainted with negro blood may he admitted to Church membership only. In this connection President Smith referred to Brother Abel, who was ordained a Seventy by Joseph Young [sic; Zebedee Coltrin], in the days of the Prophet Joseph [Smith], to whom Brother [Joseph] Young issued a Seventies certificate; but this ordination was declared null and void by the Prophet himself. Later Brother Abel appealed to President [Brigham] Young for the privilege of receiving his endowments and to have his wife and children sealed to him, a privilege President Young could not grant. Brother Abel renewed this application to President [John] Taylor with the same result, and still the same appeal was made to President Woodruff afterwards, who of course upheld the position taken by Presidents Young and Taylor. He later wrote to President Smith that he had received a patriarchal blessing under the hands of Father Joseph Smith, and he said he inferred that the blessing conveyed the idea that he was to be the connecting link between his race and those holding the priesthood. But notwithstanding the fact that he was a staunch member of the Church, Presidents Young, Taylor, and Woodruff all denied him the blessings of the House of the Lord.
The same efforts he said had been made by Aunt Jane to receive her endowments and be sealed to her husband and have her children sealed to their parents and her appeal was made to all the Presidents from President [Brigham] Young down to the present First Presidency. But President [George Q.] Cannon conceived the idea that, under the circumstances, it would be proper to permit her to go to the temple to be adopted to the Prophet Joseph Smith as his servant and this was done. This seemed to ease her mind for a little while but did not satisfy her, and she still pleaded for her endowments.
President [Joseph F.] Smith then remarked that if we take this position without any reserve and refer such people to the curse pronounced upon Cainan, giving them to understand that they are descendants of Cainan, that the curse has not been removed, and that all of his race are deprived of the rights of the priesthood because of the decree of the Almighty, and until the Lord sees fit to remove that curse it would be for them to content themselves with the privilege of receiving the First Principles of the Gospel, thereby enabling them to become members of the Church, and thereafter live righteous lives, which will bring them far greater salvation in the Kingdom of God than any other so-called Christian religion is capable of doing for them. And in closing the President added that where the priesthood may have been bestowed upon men tainted with this blood, in all such cases their ordinations must be regarded as invalid. ...
As an item of information, the truth of which however President Smith said he could not vouch for, although it had come to him through the late President Jesse N. Smith, who claimed that it had come to him indirectly from the Prophet [Joseph Smith], that Ham's wife was an adulteress, and that she went into the ark pregnant from the seed of Cain, and in that way brought that blood through the flood, from whom sprang the early inhabitants of Egypt. Also that Ham finding that he was deprived of the rights of the priesthood, and becoming desperate in consequence of his condition, sought to emasculate his father and brothers and thereby usurp the rights of the priesthood for himself and posterity which wicked attempt renewed and intensified the curse of God upon him and his seed, in that they should be deprived of the priesthood and become servants of servants forever.
President [John R.] Winder moved that the Council endorse the former rulings of the first Presidency, which are the rulings of this Council. In connection with this motion it was understood that our Elders should not take the initiative in proselyting among the negro people, but if negroes or people tainted with negro blood apply for baptism themselves they might be admitted to Church membership in the understanding that nothing further can be done for them. It was also understood that the secretary was to get together the rulings of former councils on this question, also the public utterances of President [Brigham] Young and others on the same subject.
Motion put and carried.
[Source: George Albert Smith Papers, Manuscripts Division, Marriott Library, University of Utah; Marquardt, H. Michael, Mormon Central: Excerpts From Minutes of the Council of the Twelve and of the First Presidency, 1879-1947 http://www.xmission.com/~research/central/chorg2.htm]
With reference to the first question President [Joseph F.] Smith remarked that he did not know that we could do anything more in such cases than refer to the rulings of Presidents [Brigham] Young, [John] Taylor, [Wilford] Woodruff, and other presidencies, on this question, amounting to this, that people tainted with negro blood may he admitted to Church membership only. In this connection President Smith referred to Brother Abel, who was ordained a Seventy by Joseph Young [sic; Zebedee Coltrin], in the days of the Prophet Joseph [Smith], to whom Brother [Joseph] Young issued a Seventies certificate; but this ordination was declared null and void by the Prophet himself. Later Brother Abel appealed to President [Brigham] Young for the privilege of receiving his endowments and to have his wife and children sealed to him, a privilege President Young could not grant. Brother Abel renewed this application to President [John] Taylor with the same result, and still the same appeal was made to President Woodruff afterwards, who of course upheld the position taken by Presidents Young and Taylor. He later wrote to President Smith that he had received a patriarchal blessing under the hands of Father Joseph Smith, and he said he inferred that the blessing conveyed the idea that he was to be the connecting link between his race and those holding the priesthood. But notwithstanding the fact that he was a staunch member of the Church, Presidents Young, Taylor, and Woodruff all denied him the blessings of the House of the Lord.
The same efforts he said had been made by Aunt Jane to receive her endowments and be sealed to her husband and have her children sealed to their parents and her appeal was made to all the Presidents from President [Brigham] Young down to the present First Presidency. But President [George Q.] Cannon conceived the idea that, under the circumstances, it would be proper to permit her to go to the temple to be adopted to the Prophet Joseph Smith as his servant and this was done. This seemed to ease her mind for a little while but did not satisfy her, and she still pleaded for her endowments.
President [Joseph F.] Smith then remarked that if we take this position without any reserve and refer such people to the curse pronounced upon Cainan, giving them to understand that they are descendants of Cainan, that the curse has not been removed, and that all of his race are deprived of the rights of the priesthood because of the decree of the Almighty, and until the Lord sees fit to remove that curse it would be for them to content themselves with the privilege of receiving the First Principles of the Gospel, thereby enabling them to become members of the Church, and thereafter live righteous lives, which will bring them far greater salvation in the Kingdom of God than any other so-called Christian religion is capable of doing for them. And in closing the President added that where the priesthood may have been bestowed upon men tainted with this blood, in all such cases their ordinations must be regarded as invalid. ...
As an item of information, the truth of which however President Smith said he could not vouch for, although it had come to him through the late President Jesse N. Smith, who claimed that it had come to him indirectly from the Prophet [Joseph Smith], that Ham's wife was an adulteress, and that she went into the ark pregnant from the seed of Cain, and in that way brought that blood through the flood, from whom sprang the early inhabitants of Egypt. Also that Ham finding that he was deprived of the rights of the priesthood, and becoming desperate in consequence of his condition, sought to emasculate his father and brothers and thereby usurp the rights of the priesthood for himself and posterity which wicked attempt renewed and intensified the curse of God upon him and his seed, in that they should be deprived of the priesthood and become servants of servants forever.
President [John R.] Winder moved that the Council endorse the former rulings of the first Presidency, which are the rulings of this Council. In connection with this motion it was understood that our Elders should not take the initiative in proselyting among the negro people, but if negroes or people tainted with negro blood apply for baptism themselves they might be admitted to Church membership in the understanding that nothing further can be done for them. It was also understood that the secretary was to get together the rulings of former councils on this question, also the public utterances of President [Brigham] Young and others on the same subject.
Motion put and carried.
[Source: George Albert Smith Papers, Manuscripts Division, Marriott Library, University of Utah; Marquardt, H. Michael, Mormon Central: Excerpts From Minutes of the Council of the Twelve and of the First Presidency, 1879-1947 http://www.xmission.com/~research/central/chorg2.htm]
135 years ago today - 26 August 1883 - Sunday
[George Q. Cannon]
The news reached us today of the organization of a mob at Park City after hearing the news of the lynching of the negro at Salt Lake. This mob proceeded to Coalville and took from the jail a man who had been accused of the murder of a man of the name of Murphy. They took him back by rail to Park City and hung him.
[Source: The Journal of George Q. Cannon, Church Historian's Press, https://churchhistorianspress.org/george-q-cannon]
The news reached us today of the organization of a mob at Park City after hearing the news of the lynching of the negro at Salt Lake. This mob proceeded to Coalville and took from the jail a man who had been accused of the murder of a man of the name of Murphy. They took him back by rail to Park City and hung him.
[Source: The Journal of George Q. Cannon, Church Historian's Press, https://churchhistorianspress.org/george-q-cannon]
175 years ago today - Aug 26, 1843. Saturday.
[William Clayton]
...Hyrum and I rode up to my house and Joseph met Mrs. W[oo]d[wor]th and F[lora] [JS's 17-year-old plural wife, who had just married another man after Emma made her give back Joseph's gift of a gold watch] and conversed some time...President Joseph and I walked from my house to Sister [Elizabeth] Durfee's [plural wife of Joseph Smith] and thence to his house.
[Source: George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton, Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, Salt Lake City, 1995, http://bit.ly/WilliamClayton]
...Hyrum and I rode up to my house and Joseph met Mrs. W[oo]d[wor]th and F[lora] [JS's 17-year-old plural wife, who had just married another man after Emma made her give back Joseph's gift of a gold watch] and conversed some time...President Joseph and I walked from my house to Sister [Elizabeth] Durfee's [plural wife of Joseph Smith] and thence to his house.
[Source: George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton, Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, Salt Lake City, 1995, http://bit.ly/WilliamClayton]
175 years ago today - Aug 26, 1843 (Afternoon)
[Brigham Young]
Said the scriptures had been mystified to that degree that the greatest divine of the day is as ignorant as the dumb ass concerning the things of God.
[Source: Wilford WoodruffÂ's Journal. 9 Vols. Scott G. Kenney, ed. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1983-85. 2:279; General Church Minutes. Selected Collections from the Archives of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints DVD 1 (2002); The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, Ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Smith-Pettit Foundation, Salt Lake City (2009), http://bit.ly/BY-discourses]
Said the scriptures had been mystified to that degree that the greatest divine of the day is as ignorant as the dumb ass concerning the things of God.
[Source: Wilford WoodruffÂ's Journal. 9 Vols. Scott G. Kenney, ed. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1983-85. 2:279; General Church Minutes. Selected Collections from the Archives of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints DVD 1 (2002); The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, Ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Smith-Pettit Foundation, Salt Lake City (2009), http://bit.ly/BY-discourses]
180 years ago today - Aug 26, 1838
[Sally Parker]
I lived by his [Hyrum Smith's] Mother and and [she] wass wone [one] of the finest of wimen[.] always helping them that stood in need[.] she told me the [w]hole story[.] the plates wass in the house and some times in the woods for eight months and on account of peopel trying to get them[.] they had to hide them[.] wonce [once] they hid them under the hearth[.] they took up the brick and put them in and put the bricks back[.] the old lady told me this hur self with tears in hur eyes, and they ran down hur cheeks too[.] she put hur hand upon hur stomack and said she [ha]s the peace of god that rested upon us all that time[.] she said it wass a heaven below[.] I axter [asked her] if she saw the plates[.] she said no it wass not for hur to see them but she hefted and handled them and I believed all she said for I lived by hur eight months and she wass wone [one] of the best of wimen ...
[Source: Sally Parker to John Kempton, 26 August 1838, in private possession (microfilm, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah)., as cited in Dan Vogel, Early Mormon Documents: Sally Parker To John Kempton]
I lived by his [Hyrum Smith's] Mother and and [she] wass wone [one] of the finest of wimen[.] always helping them that stood in need[.] she told me the [w]hole story[.] the plates wass in the house and some times in the woods for eight months and on account of peopel trying to get them[.] they had to hide them[.] wonce [once] they hid them under the hearth[.] they took up the brick and put them in and put the bricks back[.] the old lady told me this hur self with tears in hur eyes, and they ran down hur cheeks too[.] she put hur hand upon hur stomack and said she [ha]s the peace of god that rested upon us all that time[.] she said it wass a heaven below[.] I axter [asked her] if she saw the plates[.] she said no it wass not for hur to see them but she hefted and handled them and I believed all she said for I lived by hur eight months and she wass wone [one] of the best of wimen ...
[Source: Sally Parker to John Kempton, 26 August 1838, in private possession (microfilm, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah)., as cited in Dan Vogel, Early Mormon Documents: Sally Parker To John Kempton]
115 years ago today - Aug 25, 1903; Tuesday
[Joseph F. Smith presidency to John McAllister]
Complaints have reached us from Presidents of Stakes that persons doing temple work have been advised by temple workers to speak to the President of their Stake about obtaining their Second Anointing. This must not be done, or suggested by any one laboring in our temples. None but Stake Presidents have the right to suggest and recommend persons to obtain their Second Annointings....
[Source: Joseph F. Smith, John R. Winder, and Anthon H. Lund to John D. T. McAllister, LDS Archives]
Complaints have reached us from Presidents of Stakes that persons doing temple work have been advised by temple workers to speak to the President of their Stake about obtaining their Second Anointing. This must not be done, or suggested by any one laboring in our temples. None but Stake Presidents have the right to suggest and recommend persons to obtain their Second Annointings....
[Source: Joseph F. Smith, John R. Winder, and Anthon H. Lund to John D. T. McAllister, LDS Archives]
120 years ago today - Aug 25, 1898; Thursday
During the summer of 1898 a number of Elder [B. H.] Roberts' friends urged him to become a candidate for Congress. Complying with the rule of the Church, that before accepting any nomination for political office or engaging in other business that would interfere with their work in the ministry, the brethren should obtain the consent of the authorities of the Church, the matter of Elder Roberts being released from his duties in the ministry in order to accept the aforesaid nomination, was presented to the Presidency and to the Council of the Apostles, and they unanimously approved of his being released for this purpose, whereupon Elder Roberts became a candidate before the Democratic Convention, and was nominated on the first ballot. The convention was a stormy one, and much opposition developed against Elder Roberts on the part of a number of Gentiles, who were in the convention. Indeed, it had been intimated before the convention convened that open war would be made upon him on account of his plural family relations. At the time Elder Roberts heard of this threat, he called at the office of the Presidency of the Church, with the view of presenting the matter to the brethren and ascertaining if such a controversy should be risked. At the time Presidents [Wilford] Woodruff and [George Q.] Cannon were in California, but the matter was presented to President Joseph F. Smith, who, in substance, said that he did not think we were under the necessity of paying any attention to the threats of our enemies with relation to that subject; and stated that the same matter had been brought up in the office the day previous, when several of the Apostles were present, and they also were of that mind; and, hence, Elder Roberts continued his efforts among his political friends, and secured the nomination, as above stated.
[Source: Excerpt from the Minutes of the First Council of the Seventy, February 7, 1900]
[Source: Excerpt from the Minutes of the First Council of the Seventy, February 7, 1900]
125 years ago today - 25 August 1893 - Friday
[George Q. Cannon]
The First Presidency had some conversation with President Lorenzo Snow respecting Temple ordinances. A practice has gained ground in some of the Temples of not permitting any one to act as proxy in the sealing ordinance or in adoptions who had not been sealed or adopted himself or herself. After reviewing the whole subject, President Woodruff decided, and we all acquiesced in the decision, that a person who had had his or her endowments could officiate in all the ordinances excepting the [[2 words redacted, probably 'second anointing']] even though they had not been sealed or adopted themselves before.
[Source: The Journal of George Q. Cannon, Church Historian's Press, https://churchhistorianspress.org/george-q-cannon]
The First Presidency had some conversation with President Lorenzo Snow respecting Temple ordinances. A practice has gained ground in some of the Temples of not permitting any one to act as proxy in the sealing ordinance or in adoptions who had not been sealed or adopted himself or herself. After reviewing the whole subject, President Woodruff decided, and we all acquiesced in the decision, that a person who had had his or her endowments could officiate in all the ordinances excepting the [[2 words redacted, probably 'second anointing']] even though they had not been sealed or adopted themselves before.
[Source: The Journal of George Q. Cannon, Church Historian's Press, https://churchhistorianspress.org/george-q-cannon]
135 years ago today - 25 August 1883 ¿ Saturday
[George Q. Cannon]
A dispatch had just been received from Salt Lake City to the effect that Captain Andrew Burt, chief of Police and Marshal of that city, had been shot and almost instantly killed by a negro desperado while endeavoring to arrest him. An infuriated mob had seized the negro and hung him, and his body was afterwards dragged through the streets. I was greatly pained at this news. The death of Captain Burt was a very shocking occurrence; for he has a large family who were dependent upon him for support, and besides he has been a most excellent officer, greatly respected in that capacity, and one of the best Bishops in Salt Lake City, he being Bishop of the 21^st Ward. But the hanging of the negro, and the treatment of his corps afterwards, shocked me greatly. I have a deep-rooted and invincible hatred of mobocracy in every form. I cannot justify it. The impressions made upon me in my boyhood by the acts of the mob are ineradicable, and I have felt that I would fight a mob endeavoring to take a criminal and wreak vengeance upon him to the death.
[Source: The Journal of George Q. Cannon, Church Historian's Press, https://churchhistorianspress.org/george-q-cannon]
A dispatch had just been received from Salt Lake City to the effect that Captain Andrew Burt, chief of Police and Marshal of that city, had been shot and almost instantly killed by a negro desperado while endeavoring to arrest him. An infuriated mob had seized the negro and hung him, and his body was afterwards dragged through the streets. I was greatly pained at this news. The death of Captain Burt was a very shocking occurrence; for he has a large family who were dependent upon him for support, and besides he has been a most excellent officer, greatly respected in that capacity, and one of the best Bishops in Salt Lake City, he being Bishop of the 21^st Ward. But the hanging of the negro, and the treatment of his corps afterwards, shocked me greatly. I have a deep-rooted and invincible hatred of mobocracy in every form. I cannot justify it. The impressions made upon me in my boyhood by the acts of the mob are ineradicable, and I have felt that I would fight a mob endeavoring to take a criminal and wreak vengeance upon him to the death.
[Source: The Journal of George Q. Cannon, Church Historian's Press, https://churchhistorianspress.org/george-q-cannon]
140 years ago today - Aug 25, 1878
Aurelia Rogers holds the first meeting in Farmington, Utah, of her independently devised program for children. Not until 19 June 1880 does this become an official churchwide Primary program with Louie B. Felt as its first president.
[Source: The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database ( http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase )]]
[Source: The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database ( http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase )]]
155 years ago today - Aug 25, 1863
President Young spoke with great Plainness and Power. He Called upon His Councillors & the Twelve to wake up & get rid of there selfishness & get the spirit of God & Edify the people. He Called upon the whole people to Covenant with uplifted hands to Heaven to obey his Council which we all did.
He told the people to go to & build graneries & Continue to lay up grain untill they had bread to last them seven years & not sell their grain to any body untill they had done this & stop sending their bread Stuff to the gold mines & Stop going to the gold mines to stay at home & attend to there own business. Stop carrying grain to the distilleries to be made into whiskey. Stop making whiskey & stop drinking whiskey. And if you will do this I promise you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that you will suffer no famine.
[Source: Wilford Woodruff's Journal: 1833-1898 Typescript, Volumes 1-9, Edited by Scott G. Kenney, Signature Books 1993, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
He told the people to go to & build graneries & Continue to lay up grain untill they had bread to last them seven years & not sell their grain to any body untill they had done this & stop sending their bread Stuff to the gold mines & Stop going to the gold mines to stay at home & attend to there own business. Stop carrying grain to the distilleries to be made into whiskey. Stop making whiskey & stop drinking whiskey. And if you will do this I promise you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that you will suffer no famine.
[Source: Wilford Woodruff's Journal: 1833-1898 Typescript, Volumes 1-9, Edited by Scott G. Kenney, Signature Books 1993, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
165 years ago today - Aug 25, 1853
[Hosea Stout]
In the evening a large party of saints met at Br B. Moreys for social chat among whom was Br J. M. Horner & also C. W. Wandle returning missionary from Australia.
While here we tried the experiment of Spirit Rappings which was duly responded to and several communications passed the principal of which I do not understand I was declared a negative medium but more of this when I know more for I am sure a novice
[Source: Diaries of Hosea Stout]
In the evening a large party of saints met at Br B. Moreys for social chat among whom was Br J. M. Horner & also C. W. Wandle returning missionary from Australia.
While here we tried the experiment of Spirit Rappings which was duly responded to and several communications passed the principal of which I do not understand I was declared a negative medium but more of this when I know more for I am sure a novice
[Source: Diaries of Hosea Stout]
45 years ago today - Aug 24, 1973-Friday
[Leonard Arrington]
Eldred G. Smith [LDS Presiding Patriarch] says President [Heber J.] Grant took away all rights of patriarch to preside over the other patriarchs. He has nothing to do with them-not notified. No quorum. Says this is not consistent with Doctrine and Covenants nor with Church history and traditions. Says Heber J. took away after death of Hyrum G. [Smith], who is father of Eldred G. The Twelve are jealous of their prerogatives. Says he would talk to me about this. Also about flag he has which Mormon Battalion brought west. Think I'll send him a copy of Mike [Quinn]'s piece on patriarchs and ask him to tell me if it was true and accurate.
Eldred says he has been in trouble the past 26 years because he insists he presides over other patriarchs and the Twelve won't let him.
[Source: Confessions of a Mormon historian : the diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997, Gary James Bergera, editor, Signature Books, 2018]
Eldred G. Smith [LDS Presiding Patriarch] says President [Heber J.] Grant took away all rights of patriarch to preside over the other patriarchs. He has nothing to do with them-not notified. No quorum. Says this is not consistent with Doctrine and Covenants nor with Church history and traditions. Says Heber J. took away after death of Hyrum G. [Smith], who is father of Eldred G. The Twelve are jealous of their prerogatives. Says he would talk to me about this. Also about flag he has which Mormon Battalion brought west. Think I'll send him a copy of Mike [Quinn]'s piece on patriarchs and ask him to tell me if it was true and accurate.
Eldred says he has been in trouble the past 26 years because he insists he presides over other patriarchs and the Twelve won't let him.
[Source: Confessions of a Mormon historian : the diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997, Gary James Bergera, editor, Signature Books, 2018]
120 years ago today - Aug 24, 1898
George H. Hudson is the first Mormon to die in combat during a U.S. War. As a private in Battery B of the Utah Light Artillery, he is killed by Filipinos during the Philippine Insurrection at the conclusion of the Spanish-American War of 1898. The Filipinos want true independence, not to be a new colony of the United States.
[Source: The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database ( http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase )]]
[Source: The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database ( http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase )]]
125 years ago today - Aug 24, 1893
The First Presidency and apostles vote to "save Bro. [Leonard G.] Hardy from the penitentiary, and take steps to get the means to meet the amount of his defalcations" from Salt Lake County. Son of the former Presiding Bishopric counselor and a local bishop himself, general authorities want to protect embezzler Hardy's appointment by the courts as a receiver for the LDS church's confiscated properties.
[Source: The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database ( http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase )]]
[Source: The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database ( http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase )]]
155 years ago today - Aug 24, 1863
President Kimball made a few remarks, instructing the people to lay up their grain against a time of famine, admonished them to be obedient to the counsels of the priesthood. President Young followed upon the same subjects, and endeavored to show them the propriety of regulating the prices of the grain they raise, and making speculators pay a good price for all the grain they got from them. -- Brigham City, Utah
[Source: Deseret News, in The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, Ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Smith-Pettit Foundation, Salt Lake City (2009), http://bit.ly/BY-discourses]
[Source: Deseret News, in The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, Ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Smith-Pettit Foundation, Salt Lake City (2009), http://bit.ly/BY-discourses]
170 years ago today - Aug 24, 1848
Along the pioneer trail Heber C. Kimball and his son-in-law Horace Howard open the two-day-old grave of the infant son of Horace and Kimball's daughter Helen Marr Kimball Smith Howard (a widow of Joseph Smith) to see if it had been buried prematurely. They determine that it had not been.
175 years ago today - Aug 24, 1843
William Clayton writes in his journal: "At night I asked mother [his mother in law] if M[argaret Moon-his plural wife] might sleep with Ruth [Moon-his legal wife and sister of Margaret] and me. She appeared very rebellious and would not consent but said we might do as we had a mind."
110 years ago today - Aug 23, 1908
U.S. immigration officials send nine Mormon immigrants back to England because they admit belief in the LDS doctrine of plural marriage.
[Source: The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database ( http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase )]]
[Source: The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database ( http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase )]]
155 years ago today - Aug 23, 1863
President Young stated the object of the meeting to be the consideration of taking immediate possession of Bear Lake Valley by sending a company of men there this fall. ... President Young then spoke as follows: The Twelve have been used up, they are tired out with hard labor, and now the time has come that they can do more good at home than they can by going abroad to preach the gospel. ... tithing is to sustain the priesthood, to build Temples and feed the poor, but this is not good policy so far as we are concerned; I think it is much better for us to sustain ourselves. ... As yet I have said nothing to anyone except to brother Benson. Now if you will keep this matter to yourselves nobody will know anything about it, but otherwise it will be telegraphed to old Abe Lincoln bysome of these officers, and then it will be made a reservation of immediately to prevent us getting it. Now you may excuse me or not, but he is a damned old scamp and villain, and I don't believe that Phoraoh of old was any worse, or any wickeder. ...
[Source: Minutes, as quoted in Minutes of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1910-1951, Privately Published, Salt Lake City, Utah 2010]
[Source: Minutes, as quoted in Minutes of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1910-1951, Privately Published, Salt Lake City, Utah 2010]
155 years ago today - Aug 23, 1863 (Evening)
[Brigham Young]
We calculate to be the kings of these mountains. Now let us go ahead and occupy them'- -- Logan, Utah
[Source: Brigham Young Collection, Archives, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, in The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, Ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Smith-Pettit Foundation, Salt Lake City (2009), http://bit.ly/BY-discourses]
We calculate to be the kings of these mountains. Now let us go ahead and occupy them'- -- Logan, Utah
[Source: Brigham Young Collection, Archives, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, in The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, Ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Smith-Pettit Foundation, Salt Lake City (2009), http://bit.ly/BY-discourses]
175 years ago today - Aug 23, 1843. Wednesday.
[William Clayton]
...President Joseph told me that he had difficulty with E[mma] yesterday. She rode up to Woodworths with him and called while he came to the Temple. When he returned she was demanding the gold watch of F[lora Ann, Joseph Smith's 17-year-old plural wife. Joseph had given the watch to Flora]. He reproved her for her evil treatment. On their return home she abused him much and also when he got home. He had to use harsh measures to put a stop to her abuse but finally succeeded...
[Later in the day, Flora Ann married non-Mormon Carlos Gove].
[Source: George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton, Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, Salt Lake City, 1995, http://bit.ly/WilliamClayton]
...President Joseph told me that he had difficulty with E[mma] yesterday. She rode up to Woodworths with him and called while he came to the Temple. When he returned she was demanding the gold watch of F[lora Ann, Joseph Smith's 17-year-old plural wife. Joseph had given the watch to Flora]. He reproved her for her evil treatment. On their return home she abused him much and also when he got home. He had to use harsh measures to put a stop to her abuse but finally succeeded...
[Later in the day, Flora Ann married non-Mormon Carlos Gove].
[Source: George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton, Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, Salt Lake City, 1995, http://bit.ly/WilliamClayton]
175 years ago today - Aug 23, 1843
[Nauvoo Neighbor]
Obituary: Death of Mary Ann Young -- Editorial -- Daughter of Elder Brigham Young, who is now on a mission in the East.
[Source: http://boap.org/LDS/Nauvoo-Neighbor]
Obituary: Death of Mary Ann Young -- Editorial -- Daughter of Elder Brigham Young, who is now on a mission in the East.
[Source: http://boap.org/LDS/Nauvoo-Neighbor]
175 years ago today - Aug 23, 1843 - Wednesday
[Joseph Smith]
Fined Mary Huxhan $3,00 on confessi[o]n for selling spirits. [This was the third case in four days relating to the city's temperance ordinance. Ten days earlier, JS stated he was taking action against the illegal selling of liquor at various establishments in the city.]
[Source: "President Joseph Smith's Journal," Journal, 4 vols., Dec. 1842-June 1844 (Williard Richards)]
Fined Mary Huxhan $3,00 on confessi[o]n for selling spirits. [This was the third case in four days relating to the city's temperance ordinance. Ten days earlier, JS stated he was taking action against the illegal selling of liquor at various establishments in the city.]
[Source: "President Joseph Smith's Journal," Journal, 4 vols., Dec. 1842-June 1844 (Williard Richards)]
180 years ago today - Thurs. [August] 23 [1838]
[Samuel D. Tyler]
Elder G. Snow observing that I was in pain & without my speaking a word he laid his hand upon my legs & spake in an unknown tongue perhaps 15 or twenty words; he then said Amen. Is the pain gone, said he? At that moment I first perceived that I was entirely free of the pain for the Lord had taken it from me & I noticed it not before he asked me, for my mind had soared above pain & I was thinking of the words spoken. Now the interpretation I did not know, because I have not the gift of interpetation. But I believe that he meekly entreated the Lord for me & the Lord heard & answered him.
[Source: Journal of Samuel D. Tyler]
Elder G. Snow observing that I was in pain & without my speaking a word he laid his hand upon my legs & spake in an unknown tongue perhaps 15 or twenty words; he then said Amen. Is the pain gone, said he? At that moment I first perceived that I was entirely free of the pain for the Lord had taken it from me & I noticed it not before he asked me, for my mind had soared above pain & I was thinking of the words spoken. Now the interpretation I did not know, because I have not the gift of interpetation. But I believe that he meekly entreated the Lord for me & the Lord heard & answered him.
[Source: Journal of Samuel D. Tyler]
15 years ago today - Aug 22, 2003
Utah and Arizona officials hold a summit in St. George to discuss polygamy issues.
[Source: Gartner, Hana, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Timeline: History of Polygamy]
[Source: Gartner, Hana, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Timeline: History of Polygamy]
25 years ago today - Aug 22, 1993
The Salt Lake Tribune reports on a survey showing that 55 percent of Utah's residents favor the right of persons to commit suicide under any circumstances. For persons with terminal diseases, 65 percent of Utahns favor physician-assisted suicide.
[Source: The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database ( http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase )]]
[Source: The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database ( http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase )]]
40 years ago today - Aug 22, 1978-Tuesday
[Leonard Arrington]
Elder Packer [[Arrington probably meant Marion D. Hanks and not Packer.]] said he would recommend it [the Mormon history book _Story of the Latter-day Saints_, which was eventually banned] to the full board, and, if the board will permit it, he will volunteer to go to Elder Mark Petersen and try to persuade him that it should go through a second printing for that purpose-putting it in the kit. He said Elder Petersen, while quick to form opinions, can be persuaded to a different opinion, while this is not true of Elder [Ezra Taft] Benson. But Elder Petersen, if persuaded, might persuade Elder Benson. Lowell felt reasonably optimistic. The main task is to persuade Elder [Marvin J.] Ashton at their board meeting tomorrow to let Elder Hanks do this.
[Source: Confessions of a Mormon historian : the diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997, Gary James Bergera, editor, Signature Books, 2018]
Elder Packer [[Arrington probably meant Marion D. Hanks and not Packer.]] said he would recommend it [the Mormon history book _Story of the Latter-day Saints_, which was eventually banned] to the full board, and, if the board will permit it, he will volunteer to go to Elder Mark Petersen and try to persuade him that it should go through a second printing for that purpose-putting it in the kit. He said Elder Petersen, while quick to form opinions, can be persuaded to a different opinion, while this is not true of Elder [Ezra Taft] Benson. But Elder Petersen, if persuaded, might persuade Elder Benson. Lowell felt reasonably optimistic. The main task is to persuade Elder [Marvin J.] Ashton at their board meeting tomorrow to let Elder Hanks do this.
[Source: Confessions of a Mormon historian : the diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997, Gary James Bergera, editor, Signature Books, 2018]
140 years ago today - Aug 22, 1878
[John Nuttle]
We examined the effects of the Lightening stroke on the tower of the Temple. which had done some damage to repair which would cost some $200.00 . . .
[Source: Diary Excerpts of L. John Nuttall, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
We examined the effects of the Lightening stroke on the tower of the Temple. which had done some damage to repair which would cost some $200.00 . . .
[Source: Diary Excerpts of L. John Nuttall, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
155 years ago today - Aug 22, 1863
[Wilford Woodruff]
We held a Conference with the People of Cash valley. Met in a large Bowery. W Woodruff spoke in the morning /and fore told the Building of the temple in Logan By prophesy/ followed by President Young /who said Br Woodruff spoke By Revelation"
[Remarks by Woodruff]
When these Boys & girls meet to gether thirty years hence in 1898 & Convers to gether upon the scenes of this visit, what will be their Conversation? It will be sumthing like the following: O what a great Change has taken place since the Prophet Brigham Young & the Apostles visited us in Logan in 1868. Then it was a New Country with but few inhabitants not more than ten thousand People in all Cash valley. Then we had No Tabernacle or Temple in this valley. Now we have a great Tabernacle & a great Temple built on the high Bench of Logan & we Can be drawn on the top of its Towers by machinery whare we Can view the glory of this valley filled with Cities & magnificet Palaces & Towers occupied by one Million of the Saints of God who Can Come up to the Temple on Logan Bench & get their Endowments & Blessings in their turn. ... Then we had no shade trees in our streets. Now our streets are adorned with the mulbury tree from which we make our silk which now adorns our Bodies & the Bodies of our Children.
Then the Apostle E T Benson & Bishop Maughn Presided over us. Since then they have gone with Presidet Young others to Jackson Co Mo to Build the great Temple & the New Jerrusalem.
... Then [in 1868] the Nation felt Strong & Powerful. Since then it has been broken to peaces. That visit was before the destruction of the City of New York By the Sea Heaving itself beyong its bounds & washing the inhabitants into the Sea & they were drowned. It was Before Albany was utterly Destroyed by fire. It was before Boston was sunk with an Earthquake. It was before Chicago was struck with lightning & burned with fire & Brimstone for their Abominations. It was before the many Millions of the People of the United States & other Nations of the Earth were destroyed with their Cities By the Great Judgments of God Because of their great sins & wickedness in the sight of Heaven & Earth.
This was Before the United States became so weakened & Broaken to peaces that they Called upon Brigham Young to take the Presidency of the United States to save the Constitution & the remnant of the Nation from utter destruction. If this will not be the Conversation of those little Children who were in the procession with their Banners to welcome the prophet & Apostles on their Enterance into this City, thirty years from this it will be sumthing like it.
At the Close of the meeting Presidet Young said my remarks were given By Revelation.
[Source: Wilford Woodruff's Journal: 1833-1898 Typescript, Volumes 1-9, Edited by Scott G. Kenney, Signature Books 1993, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
We held a Conference with the People of Cash valley. Met in a large Bowery. W Woodruff spoke in the morning /and fore told the Building of the temple in Logan By prophesy/ followed by President Young /who said Br Woodruff spoke By Revelation"
[Remarks by Woodruff]
When these Boys & girls meet to gether thirty years hence in 1898 & Convers to gether upon the scenes of this visit, what will be their Conversation? It will be sumthing like the following: O what a great Change has taken place since the Prophet Brigham Young & the Apostles visited us in Logan in 1868. Then it was a New Country with but few inhabitants not more than ten thousand People in all Cash valley. Then we had No Tabernacle or Temple in this valley. Now we have a great Tabernacle & a great Temple built on the high Bench of Logan & we Can be drawn on the top of its Towers by machinery whare we Can view the glory of this valley filled with Cities & magnificet Palaces & Towers occupied by one Million of the Saints of God who Can Come up to the Temple on Logan Bench & get their Endowments & Blessings in their turn. ... Then we had no shade trees in our streets. Now our streets are adorned with the mulbury tree from which we make our silk which now adorns our Bodies & the Bodies of our Children.
Then the Apostle E T Benson & Bishop Maughn Presided over us. Since then they have gone with Presidet Young others to Jackson Co Mo to Build the great Temple & the New Jerrusalem.
... Then [in 1868] the Nation felt Strong & Powerful. Since then it has been broken to peaces. That visit was before the destruction of the City of New York By the Sea Heaving itself beyong its bounds & washing the inhabitants into the Sea & they were drowned. It was Before Albany was utterly Destroyed by fire. It was before Boston was sunk with an Earthquake. It was before Chicago was struck with lightning & burned with fire & Brimstone for their Abominations. It was before the many Millions of the People of the United States & other Nations of the Earth were destroyed with their Cities By the Great Judgments of God Because of their great sins & wickedness in the sight of Heaven & Earth.
This was Before the United States became so weakened & Broaken to peaces that they Called upon Brigham Young to take the Presidency of the United States to save the Constitution & the remnant of the Nation from utter destruction. If this will not be the Conversation of those little Children who were in the procession with their Banners to welcome the prophet & Apostles on their Enterance into this City, thirty years from this it will be sumthing like it.
At the Close of the meeting Presidet Young said my remarks were given By Revelation.
[Source: Wilford Woodruff's Journal: 1833-1898 Typescript, Volumes 1-9, Edited by Scott G. Kenney, Signature Books 1993, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
175 years ago today - Aug 22, 1843
Flora Woodworth said that she "felt condemned for" her "rash" decision "in a reckless moment" to marry a young non-Mormon. Flora had impulsively married Carlos Gove the day after her confrontation on 22 August 1843 with Emma Smith, who jealousy demanded the gold watch her husband had given to Flora. Flora then had two subsequent trysts with the 37-year-old Prophet in William Clayton's house later that week.
[Source: "Evidence For The Sexual Side of Joseph Smith's Polygamy," Comments by D. Michael Quinn on Session #2A "Reconsidering Joseph Smith's Marital Practices," Mormon History Association's Annual Conference, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 29 June 2012 (unabbreviated version, revised during July)]
[Source: "Evidence For The Sexual Side of Joseph Smith's Polygamy," Comments by D. Michael Quinn on Session #2A "Reconsidering Joseph Smith's Marital Practices," Mormon History Association's Annual Conference, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 29 June 2012 (unabbreviated version, revised during July)]
175 years ago today - Aug 22, 1843
Mormons in New York City ask: "Is it right for a priest to be appointed to accompany a teacher to the house of each member." Brigham Young responds, "Yes, any officer from a high priest to a deacon may visit the Church or members, and be set apart for this purpose." This is the earliest instruction on what would become known in pioneer Utah as "block teaching" or "ward teaching," or "home teaching," now called "ministering."
175 years ago today - Aug 21, 1843
Joseph Smith's personal secretary, William Clayton, writes: "E[mma] asked if I handed 2 letters to Joseph which she showed me. I had not done it. I satisfied her I had not. They appeared to be from E[liza] R[oxcy] Snow and President Joseph found them in his pocket. E[mma] seemed vexed and angry." Joseph had taken Eliza R. Snow as a plural wife on Jun 29, 1842.
175 years ago today - Aug 21, 1843
He revealed himself first to me when I was about fourteen years old, a mere boy. I will tell you about it. There was a reformation among the different religious denominations in the neighborhood where I lived, and I became serious and was desirous to know whatChurch to join. While thinking of this matter, I opened the Testament promiscuously on these words, in James, "Ask of the Lord who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not [James 1:5]." I just determined I'd ask him. I immediately went out into the woods where my father had a clearing, and went to the stump where I had stuck my axe when I had quit work, and I kneeled down, and prayed, saying, "0 Lord, what Church shall I join?" Directly I saw a light, and then a glorious personage in the light, and then another personage, and first personage said to the second, "Behold my beloved Son, hear him." I then, addressed this second person, saying, "0 Lord, what Church shall I join." He replied, "don't join any of them, they are all corrupt." The vision then vanished and when I came to myself, I was sprawling on my back; and it was some time before my strength returned. When I went home and told the people that I had a revelation, and that all the churches were corrupt, theypersecuted me, and they have persecuted me ever since. They thought to put me down, but they hav'nt succeeded, and they can't do it"
[Source: Interview, JS by David Nye White, Nauvoo, IL, 21 Aug. 1843; in David Nye White, "The Prairies, Joe Smith, the Temple, the Mormons, &c.," Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette, 15 Sept. 1843; A Documented History of Joseph Smith's First Vision, http://beggarsbread.org/2013/04/01/a-documented-history-of-joseph-smiths-first-vision/]
[Source: Interview, JS by David Nye White, Nauvoo, IL, 21 Aug. 1843; in David Nye White, "The Prairies, Joe Smith, the Temple, the Mormons, &c.," Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette, 15 Sept. 1843; A Documented History of Joseph Smith's First Vision, http://beggarsbread.org/2013/04/01/a-documented-history-of-joseph-smiths-first-vision/]
30 years ago today - Aug 20, 1988
A First Presidency statement condemns the Hollywood film 'The Last Temptation of Christ.' The opening of the film in Salt Lake City is delayed when an unknown person(s) use a knife to rip the theater screens to shreds.
[Source: The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database ( http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase )]]
[Source: The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database ( http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase )]]
175 years ago today - Aug 20, 1843. Sunday.
[William Clayton]
M[argaret] came up stairs to me ...P.M. I went to Sister Booths and had some conversation about S[ara]h A[nn] at Sister B's request. I have evidence that S[arah] A[nn] is true to me and desire to receive her [via plural marriage]. I also had talk with M[ary] Aspen who is in trouble. P[arley] P. P[ratt] has through his wife made proposals to her but she is dissatisfied. Sister P[ratt] is obstinate. When P[arley] went away Sister P. cautioned A. against me and said the Twelve would have more glory than me &c. I tried to comfort her and told her what her privilege was.
[Source: George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton, Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, Salt Lake City, 1995, http://bit.ly/WilliamClayton]
M[argaret] came up stairs to me ...P.M. I went to Sister Booths and had some conversation about S[ara]h A[nn] at Sister B's request. I have evidence that S[arah] A[nn] is true to me and desire to receive her [via plural marriage]. I also had talk with M[ary] Aspen who is in trouble. P[arley] P. P[ratt] has through his wife made proposals to her but she is dissatisfied. Sister P[ratt] is obstinate. When P[arley] went away Sister P. cautioned A. against me and said the Twelve would have more glory than me &c. I tried to comfort her and told her what her privilege was.
[Source: George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton, Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, Salt Lake City, 1995, http://bit.ly/WilliamClayton]
180 years ago today - Aug 20, 1838
[Missouri War]
One hundred armed men ride into DeWitt and threaten Mormons.
[Source: LeSueur, Stephen C., The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri, Appendix: Chronology of Events in Missouri, 1838-1839]
One hundred armed men ride into DeWitt and threaten Mormons.
[Source: LeSueur, Stephen C., The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri, Appendix: Chronology of Events in Missouri, 1838-1839]
10 years ago today - August 19
[Proposition-8]
The controversial authors name is stripped from "nine consequences" and an anonymous document, called "Six Consequences if Prop. 8 Fails" begins circulating the internet, mostly on Mormon-related blogs. The document was filled with dishonest claims that are later rebutted for the few who would listen. Some blogs reference that it was provided by Mormon Gary Lawrence, the California "LDS Grassroots Director" for Prop 8. "Six Consequences" also starts to become widely available within Mormon congregations and as handouts during canvassing.
[Source: Latter-Day Army: Details of Mormons and Prop 8, http://www.stopthemormons.com/?p=486]
The controversial authors name is stripped from "nine consequences" and an anonymous document, called "Six Consequences if Prop. 8 Fails" begins circulating the internet, mostly on Mormon-related blogs. The document was filled with dishonest claims that are later rebutted for the few who would listen. Some blogs reference that it was provided by Mormon Gary Lawrence, the California "LDS Grassroots Director" for Prop 8. "Six Consequences" also starts to become widely available within Mormon congregations and as handouts during canvassing.
[Source: Latter-Day Army: Details of Mormons and Prop 8, http://www.stopthemormons.com/?p=486]
85 years ago today - Aug 19, 1933
Mary Ellen Wood (Smoot), later the thirteenth general president of the Relief Society, is born in Ogden, Utah.
130 years ago today - Aug 19, 1888
[Abraham H. Cannon]
"Had quite a time with Junior (his son of Sarah), who refused to say "Amen" after I had asked the blessing. After whipping and scolding him for about 20 minutes, he yielded and obeyed. He shows great firmness in his resolves, which will, I hope, always be good."
[Source: Abraham H. Cannon Journal Excerpts, http://www.amazon.com/Apostles-Record-Journals-Abraham-1889-1896/dp/B000MFD1K4]
"Had quite a time with Junior (his son of Sarah), who refused to say "Amen" after I had asked the blessing. After whipping and scolding him for about 20 minutes, he yielded and obeyed. He shows great firmness in his resolves, which will, I hope, always be good."
[Source: Abraham H. Cannon Journal Excerpts, http://www.amazon.com/Apostles-Record-Journals-Abraham-1889-1896/dp/B000MFD1K4]
175 years ago today - Aug 19, 1843 - Saturday
[Joseph Smith]
<about> 200 citezins assembled in Carthage to consult about the Mormons. [[This "great meeting of anti-Mormons . . . without distinction of party" had been called the previous Saturday to consider whether Mormons who had been elected to various county offices should be allowed to retain those offices.]]
[Source: "President Joseph Smith’s Journal," Journal, 4 vols., Dec. 1842â€"June 1844 (Williard Richards)]
<about> 200 citezins assembled in Carthage to consult about the Mormons. [[This "great meeting of anti-Mormons . . . without distinction of party" had been called the previous Saturday to consider whether Mormons who had been elected to various county offices should be allowed to retain those offices.]]
[Source: "President Joseph Smith’s Journal," Journal, 4 vols., Dec. 1842â€"June 1844 (Williard Richards)]
175 years ago today - Aug 19, 1843
[Brigham Young]
Brother George A. and I stayed overnight with Brother Atkinson, who lived in a very large frame house, said to have stood 150 years, which was so infested with bedbugs that we could not sleep. Brother George A. Smith gave it as his legal opinion that there were bedbugs there which had danced to the music at the Battle of Trenton, as their heads were perfectly grey. We took our blankets and retreated to the further end of the room, and, as the bugs followed us, I lit a candle, and as they approached, caught them and burnt them in the candle, and thus spent the night.
[Source: Manuscript History of Brigham Young, 1801-1844, ed. Elden Jay Watson (Salt Lake City: Smith Secretarial Service, 1968).]
Brother George A. and I stayed overnight with Brother Atkinson, who lived in a very large frame house, said to have stood 150 years, which was so infested with bedbugs that we could not sleep. Brother George A. Smith gave it as his legal opinion that there were bedbugs there which had danced to the music at the Battle of Trenton, as their heads were perfectly grey. We took our blankets and retreated to the further end of the room, and, as the bugs followed us, I lit a candle, and as they approached, caught them and burnt them in the candle, and thus spent the night.
[Source: Manuscript History of Brigham Young, 1801-1844, ed. Elden Jay Watson (Salt Lake City: Smith Secretarial Service, 1968).]
40 years ago today - 40 years ago - Aug 18, 1978-Friday
[Leonard Arrington]
Earl Olson telephoned this morning to say that Elder Boyd Packer had telephoned him to say that he had read the Primary manuscript, thought it was fine, but did have one principal concern, which was that we need to suggest or to say throughout that the Primary operated under the guidance and direction of the priesthood. I told Earl I would take care of it, and I told Carol [Cornwall Madsen] to put at least one phrase to that effect in every chapter in the book. She agreed to do so. Usually when people keep wanting things like this to be said in a secular institution, this would suggest a certain insecurity. Maybe the priesthood do feel insecure about innovations being made and policies being determined without explicit recognition of the role of the priesthood in doing so.
Swearing Elders-Reminiscences
... Sometime in the late 1940s, possibly about 1949, Sterling McMurrin and some friends at the University of Utah began meeting once a month at lunchtime to talk about the Church. Since the Church does not have an avenue for intellectual discussion about the gospel in Sunday School or priesthood or sacrament meetings, they simply got together to discuss their research and writing and thought about theology, history, practice, and other aspects of Mormonism. Above all, they wished to provide an opportunity for people writing master's and doctor's theses and books and articles to present these, or summarize these, before a group of interested peers.
... I did not see this group as anti-Mormon or anti-gospel or anti-religion in any sense. To me, the discussions provided intellectual support for our traditional beliefs and practices. To say this another way-and it may sound incredible-my own testimony was bolstered as the result of attending these sessions. I found there was an intellectual side to Mormonism and took pleasure in learning more about it. I learned much from these brethren. ... One member of the Quorum of the Twelve, Elder Adam S. Bennion, knew of the group and was sympathetic with it, and I remember one glorious evening when he agreed to meet with us and give us a talk. He chose to build bridges between some members of our group and some of the more critical "orthodox" Brethren. As to the name "Swearing Elders," I think that was simply a joke. The notices of meetings which I received used the term "Mormon Seminar." Some people referred to it as McMurrin's Seminar, since he was either the original organizer or a leading member. I think the term "Swearing Elders" was probably a take-off on an expression which had been used in Mormon folklore for a long time, "Smoking Deacons." ...
As the years passed by, the major concern of these people seemed to be the problems which arose out of the denial of priesthood to blacks. This certainly was a preoccupation of McMurrin and Lowell Bennion. This, as I recall, was in the late '50s. At any rate, I do not know that the group continued into the '60s. It served its purpose at the end of World War II, and as the years went by some dropped out of the Church, some moved away, some came to hold administrative offices and couldn't spare the time; then of course Dialogue was founded and provided a forum without these meetings. Similarly the Mormon History Association was organized. I do not know of any meetings of this group after, say, 1965. ...
[Source: Confessions of a Mormon historian : the diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997, Gary James Bergera, editor, Signature Books, 2018]
Earl Olson telephoned this morning to say that Elder Boyd Packer had telephoned him to say that he had read the Primary manuscript, thought it was fine, but did have one principal concern, which was that we need to suggest or to say throughout that the Primary operated under the guidance and direction of the priesthood. I told Earl I would take care of it, and I told Carol [Cornwall Madsen] to put at least one phrase to that effect in every chapter in the book. She agreed to do so. Usually when people keep wanting things like this to be said in a secular institution, this would suggest a certain insecurity. Maybe the priesthood do feel insecure about innovations being made and policies being determined without explicit recognition of the role of the priesthood in doing so.
Swearing Elders-Reminiscences
... Sometime in the late 1940s, possibly about 1949, Sterling McMurrin and some friends at the University of Utah began meeting once a month at lunchtime to talk about the Church. Since the Church does not have an avenue for intellectual discussion about the gospel in Sunday School or priesthood or sacrament meetings, they simply got together to discuss their research and writing and thought about theology, history, practice, and other aspects of Mormonism. Above all, they wished to provide an opportunity for people writing master's and doctor's theses and books and articles to present these, or summarize these, before a group of interested peers.
... I did not see this group as anti-Mormon or anti-gospel or anti-religion in any sense. To me, the discussions provided intellectual support for our traditional beliefs and practices. To say this another way-and it may sound incredible-my own testimony was bolstered as the result of attending these sessions. I found there was an intellectual side to Mormonism and took pleasure in learning more about it. I learned much from these brethren. ... One member of the Quorum of the Twelve, Elder Adam S. Bennion, knew of the group and was sympathetic with it, and I remember one glorious evening when he agreed to meet with us and give us a talk. He chose to build bridges between some members of our group and some of the more critical "orthodox" Brethren. As to the name "Swearing Elders," I think that was simply a joke. The notices of meetings which I received used the term "Mormon Seminar." Some people referred to it as McMurrin's Seminar, since he was either the original organizer or a leading member. I think the term "Swearing Elders" was probably a take-off on an expression which had been used in Mormon folklore for a long time, "Smoking Deacons." ...
As the years passed by, the major concern of these people seemed to be the problems which arose out of the denial of priesthood to blacks. This certainly was a preoccupation of McMurrin and Lowell Bennion. This, as I recall, was in the late '50s. At any rate, I do not know that the group continued into the '60s. It served its purpose at the end of World War II, and as the years went by some dropped out of the Church, some moved away, some came to hold administrative offices and couldn't spare the time; then of course Dialogue was founded and provided a forum without these meetings. Similarly the Mormon History Association was organized. I do not know of any meetings of this group after, say, 1965. ...
[Source: Confessions of a Mormon historian : the diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997, Gary James Bergera, editor, Signature Books, 2018]
40 years ago today - 40 years ago - Aug 18, 1978
Mormon feminist Sonia Johnson cables Utah Senators Orrin Hatch and Jake Garn: "Since you have announced your intention to filibuster when the ERA extension bills comes before the Senate, I am announcing my intention to begin fasting on the Capitol steps in Washington as soon as the filibuster begins-a genuine Mormon fast, without food or liquid-and to continue until you stop talking or I die." Johnson later applies for a permit to stand on the front steps of the Capitol building. "Mormons Against ERA" in reply announce their intentions to hold family home evening on the Capitol steps. Garn and Hatch decide not to filibuster. Johnson writes "I rather think that neither the church nor the Utah senators were willing to chance the sensational headlines: 'Mormon Woman Dies of Mormon Senator's Prolixity.'" Fifteen months later Johnson is excommunicated.
In a talk at BYU Apostle Bruce R. McConkie discusses the recent revelation granting "all worthy males" the priesthood. "The Lord could have sent messengers from the other side to deliver it, but he did not. He gave the revelation by the power of the Holy Ghost. Latter-day Saints have a complex: many of them desire to magnify and build upon what has occurred, and they delight to think of miraculous things. And maybe some of them would like to believe that the Lord himself was there, or that the Prophet Joseph Smith came to deliver the revelation (see Time, 7 Aug. 1978, p. 55), which was one of the possibilities. Well, these things did not happen." He further states, "Forget everything that I have said, or what President Brigham Young or President George Q. Cannon or whomsoever has said in days past that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world. We get our truth and our light line upon line and precept upon precept. We have now had added a new flood of intelligence and light on this particular subject, and it erases all the darkness and all the views and all the thoughts of the past. They don't matter any more. It doesn't make a particle of difference what anybody ever said about the Negro matter before the first day of Jun of this year."
In a talk at BYU Apostle Bruce R. McConkie discusses the recent revelation granting "all worthy males" the priesthood. "The Lord could have sent messengers from the other side to deliver it, but he did not. He gave the revelation by the power of the Holy Ghost. Latter-day Saints have a complex: many of them desire to magnify and build upon what has occurred, and they delight to think of miraculous things. And maybe some of them would like to believe that the Lord himself was there, or that the Prophet Joseph Smith came to deliver the revelation (see Time, 7 Aug. 1978, p. 55), which was one of the possibilities. Well, these things did not happen." He further states, "Forget everything that I have said, or what President Brigham Young or President George Q. Cannon or whomsoever has said in days past that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world. We get our truth and our light line upon line and precept upon precept. We have now had added a new flood of intelligence and light on this particular subject, and it erases all the darkness and all the views and all the thoughts of the past. They don't matter any more. It doesn't make a particle of difference what anybody ever said about the Negro matter before the first day of Jun of this year."
110 years ago today - Aug 18, 1908
[George F. Richards]
At this meeting the place of burial of Joseph & Hyrum Smith was discussed. Pres[ident]. Jos[eph]. F. Smith said they were first buried in the Nauvoo House or Mansion, I do not just know which not having been there, They were afterward at the instance of _________ moved to the old Smith Home/basement Lot. Afterward at the instance of Emma Smith they were moved to a grove some distance either up or down the river I forget the name of the grove & whether up or down the river. Hibbard grove. They were afterward moved back to the Smith Lot where there are others of the family buried. pres[ident]. Smith's mother was an eye witness to the burial moving of the bodies from the Smith Lot to the Hibbard grove mentioned which event took place in the night. Emma had told the Patriarch's wife that she intended to have it done that night and the day previous told her it would not be done but about eleven o'clock that night the Patriarch's wife, Jos[eph]. F. Smith's mother felt impressed & following those impressions went to the spot and found them in the act of removing the bodies. The following day Pres[ident]. Jos[eph]. F. Smith then a boy went to the place and found the open graves of as I remember it Don Carlos Smith. A corner of the lid was broken in and he looked into the casket and saw the face and the worms crawling. Some years ago when Jos[eph]. Smith [III] the Son of the Prophet and head of the Re-organite Church moved to Independence he wrote to John Smith the Eldest living Son of the Patriarch Hyrum stating his intention to move his father's bones to Independence [Missouri] and asking permission to move Hyrum's remains. John & Jos[eph]. F. [Smith] half brothers conferred to-gether and answered that if he Joseph wished to move his father they supposed he had a right to but that he was not to move the remains of their father but should he Joseph decide to move his father's remains they desired to be notified for the time that they might have a representative there and they would move the remains of their father Hyrum to Utah. Nothing more came of it. At the time of Emma Smith's burial a certain man, I forget his name, said he saw Joseph slip off the distances to determine where the Prophet was buried and when they came to dig the grave they dug too close the Prophet's grave and uncovered a part of the casket. All this shows the buried to be at that place in Nauvoo [Illinois]. The purpose of Emma having the bodies of the Prophet and Patriarch moved from the Home lot to the grave and of deceiving the wife of the Patriarch was to keep the knowledge of the whereabouts of their burial from the Twelve.
[Source: George F. Richards, Diary, as quoted in Minutes of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1835-1951, Electronic Edition, 2015]
At this meeting the place of burial of Joseph & Hyrum Smith was discussed. Pres[ident]. Jos[eph]. F. Smith said they were first buried in the Nauvoo House or Mansion, I do not just know which not having been there, They were afterward at the instance of _________ moved to the old Smith Home/basement Lot. Afterward at the instance of Emma Smith they were moved to a grove some distance either up or down the river I forget the name of the grove & whether up or down the river. Hibbard grove. They were afterward moved back to the Smith Lot where there are others of the family buried. pres[ident]. Smith's mother was an eye witness to the burial moving of the bodies from the Smith Lot to the Hibbard grove mentioned which event took place in the night. Emma had told the Patriarch's wife that she intended to have it done that night and the day previous told her it would not be done but about eleven o'clock that night the Patriarch's wife, Jos[eph]. F. Smith's mother felt impressed & following those impressions went to the spot and found them in the act of removing the bodies. The following day Pres[ident]. Jos[eph]. F. Smith then a boy went to the place and found the open graves of as I remember it Don Carlos Smith. A corner of the lid was broken in and he looked into the casket and saw the face and the worms crawling. Some years ago when Jos[eph]. Smith [III] the Son of the Prophet and head of the Re-organite Church moved to Independence he wrote to John Smith the Eldest living Son of the Patriarch Hyrum stating his intention to move his father's bones to Independence [Missouri] and asking permission to move Hyrum's remains. John & Jos[eph]. F. [Smith] half brothers conferred to-gether and answered that if he Joseph wished to move his father they supposed he had a right to but that he was not to move the remains of their father but should he Joseph decide to move his father's remains they desired to be notified for the time that they might have a representative there and they would move the remains of their father Hyrum to Utah. Nothing more came of it. At the time of Emma Smith's burial a certain man, I forget his name, said he saw Joseph slip off the distances to determine where the Prophet was buried and when they came to dig the grave they dug too close the Prophet's grave and uncovered a part of the casket. All this shows the buried to be at that place in Nauvoo [Illinois]. The purpose of Emma having the bodies of the Prophet and Patriarch moved from the Home lot to the grave and of deceiving the wife of the Patriarch was to keep the knowledge of the whereabouts of their burial from the Twelve.
[Source: George F. Richards, Diary, as quoted in Minutes of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1835-1951, Electronic Edition, 2015]
175 years ago today - Aug 18, 1843. Friday.
[William Clayton]
President Joseph instructed S[amue]l James in the order of the Holy Priesthood [IE plural marriage] ... I had some conversation with Brother [Newel] Whitney and have learned that Farrs family are conspiring with Walkers boys and girls and they with E[mma Smith] to accomplish my downfall. I find they are my secret enemies but I fear them not for God who knows the secrets of all hearts knows mine also. I told M[argaret] of this and ascertained that she had acknowledged to A[aron] that I had slept with her and if it never had been done (our union) it should not be. This of course has given him a plea and a weapon against me. [William had taken Aaron's finance' Margaret as a plural wife while Aaron was on a mission.]
[Source: George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton, Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, Salt Lake City, 1995, http://bit.ly/WilliamClayton]
President Joseph instructed S[amue]l James in the order of the Holy Priesthood [IE plural marriage] ... I had some conversation with Brother [Newel] Whitney and have learned that Farrs family are conspiring with Walkers boys and girls and they with E[mma Smith] to accomplish my downfall. I find they are my secret enemies but I fear them not for God who knows the secrets of all hearts knows mine also. I told M[argaret] of this and ascertained that she had acknowledged to A[aron] that I had slept with her and if it never had been done (our union) it should not be. This of course has given him a plea and a weapon against me. [William had taken Aaron's finance' Margaret as a plural wife while Aaron was on a mission.]
[Source: George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton, Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, Salt Lake City, 1995, http://bit.ly/WilliamClayton]
175 years ago today - Aug 18, 1843
Joseph Smith instructs Samuel James in the principle of plural marriage.
[Source: Hales, Brian C., Joseph Smith's Polygamy: History and Theology, 3 vols., Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2013 (www.JosephSmithsPolygamy.com)]
[Source: Hales, Brian C., Joseph Smith's Polygamy: History and Theology, 3 vols., Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2013 (www.JosephSmithsPolygamy.com)]
10 years ago today - August 17
[Proposition-8]
A somewhat mysterious and hard to decipher group called the Eagle Foundation joins the Prop 8 forces. It apparently is the evolution of the Eagle PAC which was formed to get Mormons financially involved in politics. One of the main players in Eagle, Bart Marcois, founded and chaired the RNC Advisory Council on LDS Outreach, and was responsible for massive volunteer surge team deployments nationwide in the 2004 and 2006 campaign cycles. He apparently used his talent for grass-root Mormon organizing for the Prop 8 campaign. The Prop 8 campaign reportedly paid Eagle $130,000 in October.
[Source: Latter-Day Army: Details of Mormons and Prop 8, http://www.stopthemormons.com/?p=486]
A somewhat mysterious and hard to decipher group called the Eagle Foundation joins the Prop 8 forces. It apparently is the evolution of the Eagle PAC which was formed to get Mormons financially involved in politics. One of the main players in Eagle, Bart Marcois, founded and chaired the RNC Advisory Council on LDS Outreach, and was responsible for massive volunteer surge team deployments nationwide in the 2004 and 2006 campaign cycles. He apparently used his talent for grass-root Mormon organizing for the Prop 8 campaign. The Prop 8 campaign reportedly paid Eagle $130,000 in October.
[Source: Latter-Day Army: Details of Mormons and Prop 8, http://www.stopthemormons.com/?p=486]
35 years ago today - Aug 17, 1983-Wednesday
[Leonard Arrington]
This summer Carol Lynn arranged for [her 15-year-old daughter] Emily to spend a week with some church young people in Provo Canyon, a little beyond Sun Dance. A good experience. Then Carol Lynn joined her for Sunday-a worship service They had Elder Hartman Rector to speak to them. It proved to be a disaster. He gets up to speak and tells them about all the evil forces, Satan's way: abortion, birth control, homosexuality. These are all Satanic. No birth control except willpower for birth control. Satan himself is a homosexual and homosexuality is peculiarly satanic for that reason. And so on. Emily [whose father is gay], who was sitting with other girls, got rigid, then ran over to sit by her mother and started sobbing. Her mother suggested they leave, but she wouldn't. Insisted on staying through it, sobbing. Her mother, after the meeting, tried to talk to her, explaining that Elder Rector was not necessarily preaching church doctrine, but giving his own view, etc. Her daughter finally calmed down.
[Source: Confessions of a Mormon historian : the diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997, Gary James Bergera, editor, Signature Books, 2018]
This summer Carol Lynn arranged for [her 15-year-old daughter] Emily to spend a week with some church young people in Provo Canyon, a little beyond Sun Dance. A good experience. Then Carol Lynn joined her for Sunday-a worship service They had Elder Hartman Rector to speak to them. It proved to be a disaster. He gets up to speak and tells them about all the evil forces, Satan's way: abortion, birth control, homosexuality. These are all Satanic. No birth control except willpower for birth control. Satan himself is a homosexual and homosexuality is peculiarly satanic for that reason. And so on. Emily [whose father is gay], who was sitting with other girls, got rigid, then ran over to sit by her mother and started sobbing. Her mother suggested they leave, but she wouldn't. Insisted on staying through it, sobbing. Her mother, after the meeting, tried to talk to her, explaining that Elder Rector was not necessarily preaching church doctrine, but giving his own view, etc. Her daughter finally calmed down.
[Source: Confessions of a Mormon historian : the diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997, Gary James Bergera, editor, Signature Books, 2018]
40 years ago today - Aug 17, 1978-Thursday
[Leonard Arrington]
Yesterday afternoon Alice Smith, our friend of many years from Logan (Mrs. W. Whitney Smith) spent a full hour talking with me about women in the Church. She has been a member of the General Board of the Relief Society for about 18 years and is fairly sure that she will be released in the near future because of this long service. She came in to see me, I suppose, because we were personal friends and because she knew I was interested in the history of women in the Church.
Alice had just returned from regional meetings in Roanoke, Virginia. This plus things she has heard the Brethren say and things she has read give her great anxiety. She is very discouraged and doesn't see any reason for hope about the future role of women in the Church. She is surely not a feminist; she is very much a traditionalist. But the tradition as she understands it gives women an equal, though not similar, role with men-equal but different. She has read through many times the early minutes of the Relief Society in which Joseph Smith made comments. She is also aware of the changes in these minutes that were made by George A. Smith in the 1850s. And it is this revised form that has been published by the Relief Society ever since. It is that revision which the Brethren have read and which they quote from. There are significant differences. [[For instance, George A. Smith changed Joseph Smith's statement to the Relief Soci- ety in April 1842, "I turn the [priesthood] key to you" to "I now turn the key in your behalf." ]] She sees the role of women being constricted from the 1850s up to the present. She thinks Joseph Smith's vision of woman and her role is what should be our guide, and she wishes somehow we could give that particular emphasis.
Alice says that we are gradually losing our women. She says this was clear in Virginia, where the attendance of women at Relief Society meeting and at Sacrament meeting is dropping substantially. She has obtained statistics for the whole church which show the same thing happening. Attendance of women at Relief Society is considerably lower than attendance at Priesthood meeting, and attendance of women at Sacrament meeting is lower than for men. Whereas men run around 40-45 percent, women are now averaging about 35 percent. This is compared with, say, 45 percent five years ago for the women. She attributes this to the Relief Society in particular and the Church in general not meeting the needs of the women. I asked her for particulars on this, and she feels it is not a result of particular things as much as the general attitude of women feeling inferior. Item: Women are not now permitted to pray in Sacrament meeting. Ten years ago women were permitted to close Sacrament meeting while a man was supposed to open it. Item: Women used to be permitted to bless other women. This [was] particularly true of midwives who were permitted-indeed, encouraged-to administer to women who were about to undergo childbirth or who had other illnesses. This has not been true for 30 or 40 years. Item: Few if any bishops or stake presidents would permit a woman to join or to stand as observer at the blessing of her baby. This was once permitted where the woman requested it. Item: The women once had their own magazine and therefore an avenue of communicating with each other. This has not been true since 1970. Item: The women once had their own money and therefore had a certain autonomy in what they did. It was hard to get the money; they had to hold bazaars and sponsor stands at fairs and put on plays and musicals and solicit donations, but at least they were permitted to do this and had a certain independence because they controlled their money. They have not had this privilege in the last ten years. Item: Once upon a time women were invited to speak in General Conference. No woman has been invited in recent years to speak in the open sessions; and despite the importance of women in the Welfare program, only one woman is permitted to speak in the Welfare session of General Conference; namely, the [Relief Society] president, who has seven minutes. Everybody knows that the influence of women on children and young people is stronger than that of men simply because they are around them more. Everybody knows that if the father is inactive and the mother is active, the children will be active, whereas if the father is active and the mother inactive the children will rarely be active. The influence of the mother on children and the youth is determining. If we are denigrating women and their position we will soon lose the youth, and when we lose the youth our future is dim. Sister Smith hoped that I could give her just one example of some action in recent years which has raised the position of women in the Church. If I discover any such thing now or in the days to come she wants me to write her. Some of the General Authorities are quoting statements by Brigham Young which suggest the inferiority of women. Alice says that President [Harold B.] Lee, under whom the magazine and the money were taken away from the Relief Society, was accustomed to using a quotation from President Joseph F. Smith about woman and her role, and she said that if he had used the paragraph which follows that quotation the net effect of the quotation is nullified. [[Lee believed women should support their husbands and raise children. See, e.g., "Maintain Your Place as a Woman," Ensign, Feb. 1972.]] She suggests that Belva Ashton is equally concerned on these matters but that neither Alice nor Belva have any effective voice. She says that neither the presidency nor the board members have access to the First Presidency nor to the Quorum of the Twelve. The advisors to the Relief Society now are this General Priesthood Committee with Dean Larsen as chairman and with Brother Worthlin [Joseph B. Wirthlin] as the particular Relief Society coordinator or advisor. Brother Worthlin presumably has access to Brother Larsen. Brother Larsen presumably has access to some member of the Twelve, and that member of the Twelve presumably has access to the Twelve as a group, which in turn has access to the First Presidency. But relatively speaking, things do not work that way. Brother Wirthlin passes on to Brother Larsen what he feels Brother Larsen wants. Brother Larsen passes on to the member of the Twelve what he feels the Twelve want, and the result is that what the Relief Society really wants is never seen by the First Presidency. Nor are the Relief Society presidency permitted to make an end run around to the First Presidency. There is the strongest admonition that they must not do that. The result is that the First Presidency are asked to approve policies for the Relief Society on the assumption that they are approved by the Relief Society presidency when as a matter of fact they have been watered down and are not at all what the Relief Society presidency wants. I asked Alice why it was that the Relief Society presidency did not feel like they could go directly to the [First] Presidency on some matters that they feel strongly about and let the Presidency know how they really feel. I said, "I feel sure that Belle Spafford did this." She said that is true; Belle did. She said Sister Spafford was a strong personality; she made her desires known, and she got away with it. That, however, is not the characteristic of the three members of the presidency. Janath Cannon is scared to death; Sister [Marian Richards] Boyer is not sharp enough to see all the problems and to be articulate in expressing them. Barbara Smith just is not the kind of a strong personality. Her husband [Douglas] is a strong personality and high in the circle of influential persons in the Church. And he would not be able to understand this problem
with respect to women. As for Barbara, she senses it, she feels it, but she was trained in her home and in her marriage with the idea of women being submissive and obedient. It just would not occur to her to be pushy.
I asked Alice what we could do to improve this situation-to have a helpful influence. She said that it would be helpful if we continue to stress in our historical writing the broader and more influential role of women in early Church history and the views of the Prophet Joseph Smith. But she is impatient and does not think that influence will be very strong or very immediate. What else? Well, nothing really. I guess she hoped that I would have conversations with people and might express a concern, but she surely does not realize how little influence we have in that way. Alice says that she hasn't lost her testimony in any way, but she feels depressed about the future of the Church because of the way they are treating women as inferior beings or second-class citizens. I tried to bring up the positive role of Exponent II, and she said that it has so few readers. She said the Relief Society board members were not permitted to subscribe to Exponent II, and so she and a few others who want to subscribe do so under the names of their husbands.
Alice loves the Church too much to be unconcerned about this matter. When she is released from the board, which she thinks will be soon, she then wants to publish two or three things, possibly in Exponent II, that will help to call attention to these concerns.
Alice is not at all exercised over the "priesthood question;" that, is she has never thought that women ought to hold the priesthood, and thinks that that is an extraneous issue. She thinks not [m]any women want to hold the priesthood. It is just that they be regarded as equals-as not inferior. It is just that women ought to participate in the decision-making process that affects them. They ought to have some say in the direction of the ward, the stake, and the Church generally. There is a statement which Susa Young Gates made in the Relief Society Bulletin-the predecessor of the Relief Society Magazine-in which she says, "Women do not hold the priesthood. They ought to face this calmly and express it thoroughly and calmly to their daughters."
Whatever problems the Relief Society has today, they are probably not equal to those of the 1920s when they were under the Presiding Bishopric. That, according to Jill [Mulvay Derr], who has studied that period of Relief Society history, was the most frustrating of all-worse than the situation today where they don't have direct access to the Twelve or the First Presidency. [[For more, see Beecher and Anderson, eds., Sisters in Spirit.]]
[Source: Confessions of a Mormon historian : the diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997, Gary James Bergera, editor, Signature Books, 2018]
Yesterday afternoon Alice Smith, our friend of many years from Logan (Mrs. W. Whitney Smith) spent a full hour talking with me about women in the Church. She has been a member of the General Board of the Relief Society for about 18 years and is fairly sure that she will be released in the near future because of this long service. She came in to see me, I suppose, because we were personal friends and because she knew I was interested in the history of women in the Church.
Alice had just returned from regional meetings in Roanoke, Virginia. This plus things she has heard the Brethren say and things she has read give her great anxiety. She is very discouraged and doesn't see any reason for hope about the future role of women in the Church. She is surely not a feminist; she is very much a traditionalist. But the tradition as she understands it gives women an equal, though not similar, role with men-equal but different. She has read through many times the early minutes of the Relief Society in which Joseph Smith made comments. She is also aware of the changes in these minutes that were made by George A. Smith in the 1850s. And it is this revised form that has been published by the Relief Society ever since. It is that revision which the Brethren have read and which they quote from. There are significant differences. [[For instance, George A. Smith changed Joseph Smith's statement to the Relief Soci- ety in April 1842, "I turn the [priesthood] key to you" to "I now turn the key in your behalf." ]] She sees the role of women being constricted from the 1850s up to the present. She thinks Joseph Smith's vision of woman and her role is what should be our guide, and she wishes somehow we could give that particular emphasis.
Alice says that we are gradually losing our women. She says this was clear in Virginia, where the attendance of women at Relief Society meeting and at Sacrament meeting is dropping substantially. She has obtained statistics for the whole church which show the same thing happening. Attendance of women at Relief Society is considerably lower than attendance at Priesthood meeting, and attendance of women at Sacrament meeting is lower than for men. Whereas men run around 40-45 percent, women are now averaging about 35 percent. This is compared with, say, 45 percent five years ago for the women. She attributes this to the Relief Society in particular and the Church in general not meeting the needs of the women. I asked her for particulars on this, and she feels it is not a result of particular things as much as the general attitude of women feeling inferior. Item: Women are not now permitted to pray in Sacrament meeting. Ten years ago women were permitted to close Sacrament meeting while a man was supposed to open it. Item: Women used to be permitted to bless other women. This [was] particularly true of midwives who were permitted-indeed, encouraged-to administer to women who were about to undergo childbirth or who had other illnesses. This has not been true for 30 or 40 years. Item: Few if any bishops or stake presidents would permit a woman to join or to stand as observer at the blessing of her baby. This was once permitted where the woman requested it. Item: The women once had their own magazine and therefore an avenue of communicating with each other. This has not been true since 1970. Item: The women once had their own money and therefore had a certain autonomy in what they did. It was hard to get the money; they had to hold bazaars and sponsor stands at fairs and put on plays and musicals and solicit donations, but at least they were permitted to do this and had a certain independence because they controlled their money. They have not had this privilege in the last ten years. Item: Once upon a time women were invited to speak in General Conference. No woman has been invited in recent years to speak in the open sessions; and despite the importance of women in the Welfare program, only one woman is permitted to speak in the Welfare session of General Conference; namely, the [Relief Society] president, who has seven minutes. Everybody knows that the influence of women on children and young people is stronger than that of men simply because they are around them more. Everybody knows that if the father is inactive and the mother is active, the children will be active, whereas if the father is active and the mother inactive the children will rarely be active. The influence of the mother on children and the youth is determining. If we are denigrating women and their position we will soon lose the youth, and when we lose the youth our future is dim. Sister Smith hoped that I could give her just one example of some action in recent years which has raised the position of women in the Church. If I discover any such thing now or in the days to come she wants me to write her. Some of the General Authorities are quoting statements by Brigham Young which suggest the inferiority of women. Alice says that President [Harold B.] Lee, under whom the magazine and the money were taken away from the Relief Society, was accustomed to using a quotation from President Joseph F. Smith about woman and her role, and she said that if he had used the paragraph which follows that quotation the net effect of the quotation is nullified. [[Lee believed women should support their husbands and raise children. See, e.g., "Maintain Your Place as a Woman," Ensign, Feb. 1972.]] She suggests that Belva Ashton is equally concerned on these matters but that neither Alice nor Belva have any effective voice. She says that neither the presidency nor the board members have access to the First Presidency nor to the Quorum of the Twelve. The advisors to the Relief Society now are this General Priesthood Committee with Dean Larsen as chairman and with Brother Worthlin [Joseph B. Wirthlin] as the particular Relief Society coordinator or advisor. Brother Worthlin presumably has access to Brother Larsen. Brother Larsen presumably has access to some member of the Twelve, and that member of the Twelve presumably has access to the Twelve as a group, which in turn has access to the First Presidency. But relatively speaking, things do not work that way. Brother Wirthlin passes on to Brother Larsen what he feels Brother Larsen wants. Brother Larsen passes on to the member of the Twelve what he feels the Twelve want, and the result is that what the Relief Society really wants is never seen by the First Presidency. Nor are the Relief Society presidency permitted to make an end run around to the First Presidency. There is the strongest admonition that they must not do that. The result is that the First Presidency are asked to approve policies for the Relief Society on the assumption that they are approved by the Relief Society presidency when as a matter of fact they have been watered down and are not at all what the Relief Society presidency wants. I asked Alice why it was that the Relief Society presidency did not feel like they could go directly to the [First] Presidency on some matters that they feel strongly about and let the Presidency know how they really feel. I said, "I feel sure that Belle Spafford did this." She said that is true; Belle did. She said Sister Spafford was a strong personality; she made her desires known, and she got away with it. That, however, is not the characteristic of the three members of the presidency. Janath Cannon is scared to death; Sister [Marian Richards] Boyer is not sharp enough to see all the problems and to be articulate in expressing them. Barbara Smith just is not the kind of a strong personality. Her husband [Douglas] is a strong personality and high in the circle of influential persons in the Church. And he would not be able to understand this problem
with respect to women. As for Barbara, she senses it, she feels it, but she was trained in her home and in her marriage with the idea of women being submissive and obedient. It just would not occur to her to be pushy.
I asked Alice what we could do to improve this situation-to have a helpful influence. She said that it would be helpful if we continue to stress in our historical writing the broader and more influential role of women in early Church history and the views of the Prophet Joseph Smith. But she is impatient and does not think that influence will be very strong or very immediate. What else? Well, nothing really. I guess she hoped that I would have conversations with people and might express a concern, but she surely does not realize how little influence we have in that way. Alice says that she hasn't lost her testimony in any way, but she feels depressed about the future of the Church because of the way they are treating women as inferior beings or second-class citizens. I tried to bring up the positive role of Exponent II, and she said that it has so few readers. She said the Relief Society board members were not permitted to subscribe to Exponent II, and so she and a few others who want to subscribe do so under the names of their husbands.
Alice loves the Church too much to be unconcerned about this matter. When she is released from the board, which she thinks will be soon, she then wants to publish two or three things, possibly in Exponent II, that will help to call attention to these concerns.
Alice is not at all exercised over the "priesthood question;" that, is she has never thought that women ought to hold the priesthood, and thinks that that is an extraneous issue. She thinks not [m]any women want to hold the priesthood. It is just that they be regarded as equals-as not inferior. It is just that women ought to participate in the decision-making process that affects them. They ought to have some say in the direction of the ward, the stake, and the Church generally. There is a statement which Susa Young Gates made in the Relief Society Bulletin-the predecessor of the Relief Society Magazine-in which she says, "Women do not hold the priesthood. They ought to face this calmly and express it thoroughly and calmly to their daughters."
Whatever problems the Relief Society has today, they are probably not equal to those of the 1920s when they were under the Presiding Bishopric. That, according to Jill [Mulvay Derr], who has studied that period of Relief Society history, was the most frustrating of all-worse than the situation today where they don't have direct access to the Twelve or the First Presidency. [[For more, see Beecher and Anderson, eds., Sisters in Spirit.]]
[Source: Confessions of a Mormon historian : the diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997, Gary James Bergera, editor, Signature Books, 2018]
65 years ago today - Aug 17, 1953
[J. Reuben Clark]
Richard G. Grant, son of Walter A. Grant who works in the PBO, called about a subject that is worrying him a great deal: woman's position in the home, in life, towards authority and toward polygamy; he cannot understand the inequality toward woman; that she cannot hold the Priesthood; whereas man can have more than one wife sealed to him, a woman can only have one husband. ...
Bro. Grant said he had worried about it until it is affecting his sanity, that he had talked it over with his bishop and others and they had not been able to satisfy them, and he just did not think it was just. Pres. Clark asked him if that was the only injustice in the world.
To the specific question of "why", Pres. Clark said: "I do not know. I do not think anybody else knows. The Lord did not set it up that way. Why he did not, you can theorize about it, but you won't get anywhere on it ... I do not worry about things that I can't understand or explain and I do not worry about things I can't change."
Bro. Grant said, "I guess that is the answer."
In the evening, Pres. Clark said that Bro. Grant had called on Luacine, that he was a friend of hers, that his problem seemed to be that he wanted to get married but the girl won't marry him, because she is afraid he will have another wife in the Hereafter besides her.
[Source: The Diaries of J. Reuben Clark, 1933-1961, Abridged, Digital Edition, Salt Lake City, Utah 2015]
Richard G. Grant, son of Walter A. Grant who works in the PBO, called about a subject that is worrying him a great deal: woman's position in the home, in life, towards authority and toward polygamy; he cannot understand the inequality toward woman; that she cannot hold the Priesthood; whereas man can have more than one wife sealed to him, a woman can only have one husband. ...
Bro. Grant said he had worried about it until it is affecting his sanity, that he had talked it over with his bishop and others and they had not been able to satisfy them, and he just did not think it was just. Pres. Clark asked him if that was the only injustice in the world.
To the specific question of "why", Pres. Clark said: "I do not know. I do not think anybody else knows. The Lord did not set it up that way. Why he did not, you can theorize about it, but you won't get anywhere on it ... I do not worry about things that I can't understand or explain and I do not worry about things I can't change."
Bro. Grant said, "I guess that is the answer."
In the evening, Pres. Clark said that Bro. Grant had called on Luacine, that he was a friend of hers, that his problem seemed to be that he wanted to get married but the girl won't marry him, because she is afraid he will have another wife in the Hereafter besides her.
[Source: The Diaries of J. Reuben Clark, 1933-1961, Abridged, Digital Edition, Salt Lake City, Utah 2015]
125 years ago today - 17 August 1893 ¿ Thursday
[George Q. Cannon]
[A man from Provo] desired to see me, Brother Lyman communicating his wishes. He is in transgression. A young woman that he wanted to marry, but was prevented from marrying by the issuance of the Manifesto, he has become too intimate with, and she is now pregnant. We gave him counsel what to do. He expressed himself willing to make any confession that was required and to do anything, to any extent, for he truly repented of what he had done. ...
In the evening I had a meeting with my family and laid before them a little of my financial situation, and told them that I had been forced to the conclusion, owing to my financial straits, to stop the dining room and the employment of the help needed there, and for each branch of my family to do their own cooking and supply themselves, excepting flour and vegetables. ... I had regretted it exceedingly, for several reasons, but particularly because of the work that it imposed upon them, which I had been desirous to save them from and also the loss of the opportunity of meeting together morning and evening and having family prayers.
[Source: The Journal of George Q. Cannon, Church Historian's Press, https://churchhistorianspress.org/george-q-cannon]
[A man from Provo] desired to see me, Brother Lyman communicating his wishes. He is in transgression. A young woman that he wanted to marry, but was prevented from marrying by the issuance of the Manifesto, he has become too intimate with, and she is now pregnant. We gave him counsel what to do. He expressed himself willing to make any confession that was required and to do anything, to any extent, for he truly repented of what he had done. ...
In the evening I had a meeting with my family and laid before them a little of my financial situation, and told them that I had been forced to the conclusion, owing to my financial straits, to stop the dining room and the employment of the help needed there, and for each branch of my family to do their own cooking and supply themselves, excepting flour and vegetables. ... I had regretted it exceedingly, for several reasons, but particularly because of the work that it imposed upon them, which I had been desirous to save them from and also the loss of the opportunity of meeting together morning and evening and having family prayers.
[Source: The Journal of George Q. Cannon, Church Historian's Press, https://churchhistorianspress.org/george-q-cannon]
160 years ago today - Aug 17, 1858
[Hosea Stout]
... Was invited by Judge Eckles to day to his room[.] He gave me a letter from one Wm R Yancey to him stating that one John Beal had been castrated in Ogden lately for adultery with E. Lishs wife. He requested me to make the proper inquiry and ferrit the matter out and have the parties engaged in it brought to justice[.] He also spoke of several other cases of larceny which he wanted hunted up and punished
[Source: Diaries of Hosea Stout]
... Was invited by Judge Eckles to day to his room[.] He gave me a letter from one Wm R Yancey to him stating that one John Beal had been castrated in Ogden lately for adultery with E. Lishs wife. He requested me to make the proper inquiry and ferrit the matter out and have the parties engaged in it brought to justice[.] He also spoke of several other cases of larceny which he wanted hunted up and punished
[Source: Diaries of Hosea Stout]
160 years ago today - Aug 17, 1858
Apostle George A. Smith, after extensive consultation with leaders of Mountain Meadows Massacre, writes official account which details their movements on day of massacre but not their participation in it. Begins conspiracy to obstruct justice.
[Source: The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database ( http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase )]]
[Source: The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database ( http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase )]]
180 years ago today - Aug 17, 1838
It is stated in the Canton, Ohio, Repository, that this people to the number of about 200, with 57 waggons filled with furniture, cattle, &c. have left Geauga [county, Ohio], on their way to the "promised land" in Missouri. They pitch their tent in the open field at night after the manner of the ancient Israelites.
[Source: Kenney, Scott, Saints Without Halos, "Mormon History 1830-1844," http://web.archive.org/web/20120805163534/saintswithouthalos.com/dirs/d_c.phtml]
[Source: Kenney, Scott, Saints Without Halos, "Mormon History 1830-1844," http://web.archive.org/web/20120805163534/saintswithouthalos.com/dirs/d_c.phtml]
10 years ago today - August 16
[Proposition-8]
"The First of three Saturday precinct walks are to be held under the direction of the Regional Directors." Jeff Flint, a strategist with Protect Marriage, spoke about this period after the campaign, estimating that Mormons made up 80 percent to 90 percent of the early volunteers who walked door-to-door in election precincts. [ProtectMarriage coalition says 15,000 first weekend; second weekend 25,000 door-to-door walkers were out.]
[Source: Latter-Day Army: Details of Mormons and Prop 8, http://www.stopthemormons.com/?p=486]
"The First of three Saturday precinct walks are to be held under the direction of the Regional Directors." Jeff Flint, a strategist with Protect Marriage, spoke about this period after the campaign, estimating that Mormons made up 80 percent to 90 percent of the early volunteers who walked door-to-door in election precincts. [ProtectMarriage coalition says 15,000 first weekend; second weekend 25,000 door-to-door walkers were out.]
[Source: Latter-Day Army: Details of Mormons and Prop 8, http://www.stopthemormons.com/?p=486]
130 years ago today - Aug 16, 1888
He [Joseph Smith] had a large roll of paper rolled up in a valise which he carried with him, which he claimed to [Joseph] Knight was a translation from these plates and constituted the revelation. He farther showed this manuscript to Knight, which he claimed was translated by himself by looking through the Urim and Thummim while he sat behind a blanket hung across a room in order that the sacred records might be kept from profane eyes, and read off the "Book of Mormon," or Golden Bible as he sometimes called it, to Oliver Cowdery who wrote it down. He showed the certificate to Knight, which was attached, and read it to him as follows. ... After reading this off to Knight[,] Smith saw he had made a convert to his new religion. He took up the silver bows and looked in them steadily for a few minutes when he says: "Lo! I see feathers! I see feathers, a stump, a fence, a field. Yes, indeed, between this and Jericho is a stump covered with feathers, at the south east side of which is a pot of gold. Perhaps the treasure was buried there by Captain Kidd." ... Well, Smith and Knight arranged to get a neighbor or two and go up there and get the treasure on the following morning. Little sleep was found in that house the remainder of that night and in the morning Knight had his men with shovels, picks and bars ready for the crusade. Before leaving Smith gave his charge to all the men, that not a word must be spoken while they were digging nor within 10 rods of the place where the treasure was, else it would vanish. They went toward Jericho, and when about three fourths of the way along Smith stopped his horse and said to the men, "This looks like the place." Knight climbed up on the fence and looking off toward the woods said, "I see a stump with feathers on it." Smith then told him "This is the place." They dug around the stump all that day but found no treasure to satisfy their craving natures, but went home tired and jaded. The following morning they returned to the toil when about noon one of the men struck his pick on something hard that gave a sound like the lid of a pot. Without consideration he said "I have struck it," when Smith exclaimed: "Fool! thou art, the pot of gold was there but thy voice hath caused it to vanish." And so as Smith said no gold or pot was found and the men returned home to reflect, not on the impossibility of gold not being there, but upon the foolishness of the neighbor.
[Source: "Impressions of the Work and Teachings of Joseph Smith, the Morman [sic], at Nineveh," Bainbridge (NY) Enterprise, 16 August 1888., as cited in Dan Vogel, Early Mormon Documents: Bainbridge (Ny) Enterprise]
[Source: "Impressions of the Work and Teachings of Joseph Smith, the Morman [sic], at Nineveh," Bainbridge (NY) Enterprise, 16 August 1888., as cited in Dan Vogel, Early Mormon Documents: Bainbridge (Ny) Enterprise]
140 years ago today - Aug 16, 1878 (Friday)
The tower of the St. George Temple was struck by lightning and slightly damaged.
[Source: Jenson, Andrew, Church Chronology]
[Source: Jenson, Andrew, Church Chronology]
150 years ago today - Aug 16, 1868
[Brigham Young]
said that the word Gentiles did not apply to Evry body out of the Church. It applyed to those who were rebellious against God & his gospel. There were many honorable men of the Earth who were not in the Church it did not apply to.
[Source: Wilford Woodruff's Journal: 1833-1898 Typescript, Volumes 1-9, Edited by Scott G. Kenney, Signature Books 1993, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
said that the word Gentiles did not apply to Evry body out of the Church. It applyed to those who were rebellious against God & his gospel. There were many honorable men of the Earth who were not in the Church it did not apply to.
[Source: Wilford Woodruff's Journal: 1833-1898 Typescript, Volumes 1-9, Edited by Scott G. Kenney, Signature Books 1993, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
160 years ago today - Aug 16, 1858
[Wilford Woodruff]
Furguson said that forty men went out under Lieut Lee to Chastize the Indians from Fort Bridger.
President Young said the Indians will ketch it yet. I want Enmity put between the wicked & the wicked. I do not Care one Groat about the whores who will go to the armey. They will not serve God or keep his laws and they may go to Hell. The people will prove themselves to be either good or Bad before the Lord.
[Source: Wilford Woodruff's Journal: 1833-1898 Typescript, Volumes 1-9, Edited by Scott G. Kenney, Signature Books 1993, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
Furguson said that forty men went out under Lieut Lee to Chastize the Indians from Fort Bridger.
President Young said the Indians will ketch it yet. I want Enmity put between the wicked & the wicked. I do not Care one Groat about the whores who will go to the armey. They will not serve God or keep his laws and they may go to Hell. The people will prove themselves to be either good or Bad before the Lord.
[Source: Wilford Woodruff's Journal: 1833-1898 Typescript, Volumes 1-9, Edited by Scott G. Kenney, Signature Books 1993, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
175 years ago today - Aug 16, 1843. Wednesday.
[William Clayton]
This A.M. Joseph told me that since E[mma] came back from St. Louis she had resisted the P[riesthood] in toto and he had to tell her he would relinquish all for her sake. She said she would [have] given him E[liza] and E[mily] P[artridge], but he knew if he took them she would pitch on him and obtain a divorce and leave him. He however told me he should not relinquish anything. O God deliver thy servant from iniquity and bondage.
[Source: George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton, Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, Salt Lake City, 1995, http://bit.ly/WilliamClayton]
This A.M. Joseph told me that since E[mma] came back from St. Louis she had resisted the P[riesthood] in toto and he had to tell her he would relinquish all for her sake. She said she would [have] given him E[liza] and E[mily] P[artridge], but he knew if he took them she would pitch on him and obtain a divorce and leave him. He however told me he should not relinquish anything. O God deliver thy servant from iniquity and bondage.
[Source: George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton, Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, Salt Lake City, 1995, http://bit.ly/WilliamClayton]
180 years ago today - Aug 16, 1838
Announcement that the Kirtland temple to be leased by Mr. Slater to be used as a Temple of Science. When the man backs out of the lease, Oliver Cowdery fills it, being opposed to Joseph Smith at this point
[Source: Kirtland Timeline â€" Kirtland Safety Society, the Bank of Monroe, Temple Dedication, Consecration, and significant historical events related, http://www.exploringmormonism.com/kirtland-timeline-kirtland-safety-society-the-bank-of-monroe-temple-dedication-consecration-and-significant-historical-events-related/]
[Source: Kirtland Timeline â€" Kirtland Safety Society, the Bank of Monroe, Temple Dedication, Consecration, and significant historical events related, http://www.exploringmormonism.com/kirtland-timeline-kirtland-safety-society-the-bank-of-monroe-temple-dedication-consecration-and-significant-historical-events-related/]
180 years ago today - Aug 16, 1838
Judge Morin and a sheriff come to arrest Joseph. He says he is always willing to submit to the laws of the land, but asks not to be tried in Daviess County because of his many enemies there. The sheriff decides not to serve the writ. Lyman Wight, however, defies the sheriff's authority, and when the story is published, state officials take immediate action against the Saints.
[Source: Conkling, Christopher J., Joseph Smith Chronology]
[Source: Conkling, Christopher J., Joseph Smith Chronology]
1988 Mid-August
100 millionth endowment performed for the dead.
[Source: Hemidakaota, "Church Chronology from 1800-2000," http://lds.net/forums/topic/10668-church-chronology-from-1800-2000-part-1/]
[Source: Hemidakaota, "Church Chronology from 1800-2000," http://lds.net/forums/topic/10668-church-chronology-from-1800-2000-part-1/]
Aug 15, 1978-Tuesday
[Leonard Arrington]
I learned today that our archives has received some of the papers of A. Hamer Reiser who was formerly secretary of the First Presidency of the Church. ... Brother Affleck suggests that "It would be conservative to say that the $26 million-plus was spent on purchases and services in the communities of Utah to an additional 2,000 persons or firms." In other words, he summarized, "at least 3,000 persons and firms in Utah did business with the Church in 1960 for a total of $44,847,000."
[Source: Confessions of a Mormon historian : the diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997, Gary James Bergera, editor, Signature Books, 2018]
I learned today that our archives has received some of the papers of A. Hamer Reiser who was formerly secretary of the First Presidency of the Church. ... Brother Affleck suggests that "It would be conservative to say that the $26 million-plus was spent on purchases and services in the communities of Utah to an additional 2,000 persons or firms." In other words, he summarized, "at least 3,000 persons and firms in Utah did business with the Church in 1960 for a total of $44,847,000."
[Source: Confessions of a Mormon historian : the diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997, Gary James Bergera, editor, Signature Books, 2018]
Aug 15, 1973-Wednesday
[Leonard Arrington]
Brother Anderson came into my office for a few minutes this morning. He said that President [Heber J.] Grant told him that Joseph F. Smith told President Grant about an informal, friendly conversation he had in Independence with Joseph Smith III [RLDS President]. Joseph Smith III leaned over to President Smith and said, "You know, I wish I knew for sure which one of us is right," and President Joseph F. replied, "I thank the Lord that I do know which one is right."
A close friend of Frederick M. Smith was Dr. Henry Russell. Dr. Russell told President Grant in the presence of Elder Anderson that he had said to Frederick M., "Do you mind if after you die I do your temple work for you?" President Smith hesitated a moment and said, "No, I guess that would be all right."
President Grant was talking with Frederick M. Smith one time and President Smith asked President Grant if he had ever seen the Lord. President Grant said no, but he had felt the presence of the Holy Spirit of the Lord after his call to be an apostle. At that time the Holy Spirit assured him that his call was from the Lord and after that experience he was reassured that he should be an apostle.
[Source: Confessions of a Mormon historian : the diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997, Gary James Bergera, editor, Signature Books, 2018]
Brother Anderson came into my office for a few minutes this morning. He said that President [Heber J.] Grant told him that Joseph F. Smith told President Grant about an informal, friendly conversation he had in Independence with Joseph Smith III [RLDS President]. Joseph Smith III leaned over to President Smith and said, "You know, I wish I knew for sure which one of us is right," and President Joseph F. replied, "I thank the Lord that I do know which one is right."
A close friend of Frederick M. Smith was Dr. Henry Russell. Dr. Russell told President Grant in the presence of Elder Anderson that he had said to Frederick M., "Do you mind if after you die I do your temple work for you?" President Smith hesitated a moment and said, "No, I guess that would be all right."
President Grant was talking with Frederick M. Smith one time and President Smith asked President Grant if he had ever seen the Lord. President Grant said no, but he had felt the presence of the Holy Spirit of the Lord after his call to be an apostle. At that time the Holy Spirit assured him that his call was from the Lord and after that experience he was reassured that he should be an apostle.
[Source: Confessions of a Mormon historian : the diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997, Gary James Bergera, editor, Signature Books, 2018]
Aug 15, 1903; Saturday
[John Nuttal]
At the office obtained Pres[ident]. Jos[eph]. F. Smiths signature to the applications for Trade mark for the Garment labels.
[Source: L. John Nuttall, Diary]
At the office obtained Pres[ident]. Jos[eph]. F. Smiths signature to the applications for Trade mark for the Garment labels.
[Source: L. John Nuttall, Diary]
Aug 15, 1883; Wednesday
[Anthony Ivins]
I went to Chalco today and after talking with the Judge secured Bro [Lino] Zarates release by paying a fine of $15.00 and promising that he would either provide bondsmen within 15 days or move away from Ozumba. [August 18, 1883: Saturday] This afternoon [Rafael] Martinez the man who had formerly came in from the state of Hidalgo with the letter from a Protestant congregation in that state returned ^and stated^ that six of the members of their congregation had been ar- rested and imprisoned on the charge of being connected with the society of the Black Hand. They were held two days and released on bonds. Bro. Martinez brought in a letter from the brethren which declared their intention to press forward.
[Source: Anderson, Elizabeth Oberdick, editor, Cowboy Apostle: The Diaries of Anthony W. Ivins: 1875-1932, Signature Books, Salt Lake City in association with the Smith-Pettit Foundation (2013) - http://bit.ly/AnthonyIvins]
I went to Chalco today and after talking with the Judge secured Bro [Lino] Zarates release by paying a fine of $15.00 and promising that he would either provide bondsmen within 15 days or move away from Ozumba. [August 18, 1883: Saturday] This afternoon [Rafael] Martinez the man who had formerly came in from the state of Hidalgo with the letter from a Protestant congregation in that state returned ^and stated^ that six of the members of their congregation had been ar- rested and imprisoned on the charge of being connected with the society of the Black Hand. They were held two days and released on bonds. Bro. Martinez brought in a letter from the brethren which declared their intention to press forward.
[Source: Anderson, Elizabeth Oberdick, editor, Cowboy Apostle: The Diaries of Anthony W. Ivins: 1875-1932, Signature Books, Salt Lake City in association with the Smith-Pettit Foundation (2013) - http://bit.ly/AnthonyIvins]
10 years ago today - 8/14/2008
[Proposition-8]
ZIP Code Supervisor Jack Slade writes: "I (Jack Slade) have been asked by my bishop to be a zip code supervisor in my area to organize volunteers to identify voters in my area who are voting in favor of this proposition. I learned during training sessions that the LDS church is the only member of the Protect Marriage group that will be performing this initial door-to-door voter identification. It is a solemn duty that we have been called to perform."
[Source: https://island.byu.edu/content/protect-marriage-yes-ca-prop-8; Mormons for Marriage: A Prop 8 Timeline, http://mormonsformarriage.com/?page_id=68]
ZIP Code Supervisor Jack Slade writes: "I (Jack Slade) have been asked by my bishop to be a zip code supervisor in my area to organize volunteers to identify voters in my area who are voting in favor of this proposition. I learned during training sessions that the LDS church is the only member of the Protect Marriage group that will be performing this initial door-to-door voter identification. It is a solemn duty that we have been called to perform."
[Source: https://island.byu.edu/content/protect-marriage-yes-ca-prop-8; Mormons for Marriage: A Prop 8 Timeline, http://mormonsformarriage.com/?page_id=68]
80 years ago today - Aug 14, 1938
The first Deseret Industries store opens with its dual purposes of providing low-cost used items as well as employment for disabled and elderly persons. Orson H. Hewlett patterns this after Goodwill Industries.
[Source: The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database ( http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase )]]
[Source: The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database ( http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase )]]
125 years ago today - 14 August 1893 - Monday
[George Q. Cannon]
In the afternoon I attended a lawn fete, which was given by the Woman's Suffrage clubs at Sister Dye's gardens-a very beautiful spot in the 20th ward. Among other, I gave an address, having been advertised to do so. My wife Carlie was there and we rode home together.
[Source: The Journal of George Q. Cannon, Church Historian's Press, https://churchhistorianspress.org/george-q-cannon]
In the afternoon I attended a lawn fete, which was given by the Woman's Suffrage clubs at Sister Dye's gardens-a very beautiful spot in the 20th ward. Among other, I gave an address, having been advertised to do so. My wife Carlie was there and we rode home together.
[Source: The Journal of George Q. Cannon, Church Historian's Press, https://churchhistorianspress.org/george-q-cannon]
145 years ago today - Aug 14, 1873
[Wilford Woodruff]
... we took Cars on the Utah southern rail road & rode to the Junction of the narrow gage to Granite. We there took a car rode up the Mountain to the Granite Station & there saw 75 or a 100 men splitting up into Blocks large Granite bolders 30 feet high & all these bolders when split up were loaded on to flat cars & landed in the Temple block in Salt Lake City a distance of some 20 miles.
[Source: Wilford Woodruff's Journal: 1833-1898 Typescript, Volumes 1-9, Edited by Scott G. Kenney, Signature Books 1993, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
... we took Cars on the Utah southern rail road & rode to the Junction of the narrow gage to Granite. We there took a car rode up the Mountain to the Granite Station & there saw 75 or a 100 men splitting up into Blocks large Granite bolders 30 feet high & all these bolders when split up were loaded on to flat cars & landed in the Temple block in Salt Lake City a distance of some 20 miles.
[Source: Wilford Woodruff's Journal: 1833-1898 Typescript, Volumes 1-9, Edited by Scott G. Kenney, Signature Books 1993, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
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