American Crucifixion

by Alex Beam

  245“successor of Judas Iscariot”: Millennial Star, vol. 8, p. 123.

  246Strang . . . raised the stakes: Speek, “God Has Made Us a Kingdom,” p. 46.

  247“Bishop Reuben Miller reports”: Entry for January 23, 1846, George D. Smith, ed., An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995).

  247Bishop Miller was “considerably bewildered”: January 30, 1846, Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses (Liverpool and London: F. D. and S. W. Richards, 1854), available online at http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/JournalOfDiscourses3/id/9599/rec/1.

  248“Behold James J. Strang hath cursed”: Millennial Star, vol. 7, p. 157.

  248“I do not know of ten persons”: Quinn, Mormon Hierarchy, p. 211.

  248prominent Saints rallied to Strangism: Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery, Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1994), p. 232.

  249Halcyon Order of the Illuminati: Speek, “God Has Made Us a Kingdom,” pp. 47, 53.

  249Strang summoned his followers: Ibid., pp. 121–122.

  250the plates made him do it: Ibid., p. 164.

  251Discrediting Sidney Rigdon: Roberts, ed., History of the Church, vol. 7, p. 269.

  252“He seemed sane”: Van Wagoner, Sidney Rigdon, pp. 356, 399.

  252had placed much of his property: B. H. Roberts, The Rise and Fall of Nauvoo (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1900), p. 111.

  252“Presidency . . . belongs to William”: John Taylor, “The John Taylor Nauvoo Journal, January 1845–September 1845,” BYU Studies 23 (3) (1983).

  253“mean enough to steal”: Devery Anderson and Gary Bergera, Joseph Smith’s Quorum of the Anointed, 1842–1845: A Documentary History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2005), p. 162.

  254“enemies and outcasts”: Arrington, Brigham Young, p. 123.

  254“The mob is upon us”: Brigham Young, “Proclamation to Col. Levi Williams and Mob Party,” available online at http://archive.org/stream/proclamationtoco00unse#page/n0/mode/2up.

  255publishing upbeat excerpts: Nauvoo Neighbor, September 17, 1845.

  256“time of our exodus”: Glen Leonard, Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, a People of Promise (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2002), p. 544.

  14. THIS WORLD AND THE NEXT

  259“The Marquis of Downshire”: Journal History (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints), April 10, 1844.

  260“We are now conducted”: Robert Wicks and Fred Foister, Junius and Joseph: Presidential Politics and the Assassination of the First Mormon Prophet (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2005), p. 237.

  261“Its fate is fixed”: New York Times, January 20, 1862.

  262most-stolen book: Debra J. Marsh, “Respectable Assassins: A Collective Biography and Socio-Economic Study of the Carthage Mob,” master’s thesis, University of Utah, December 2009, p. 4.

  263“the Mormon curse”: B. H. Roberts, ed., History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2nd ed., rev., vol. 6 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1978), p. 532.

  264“naturally base, corrupt and cruel”: Salt Lake Tribune, July 31, 1887.

  265Sharp offered some judicious: Minutes, Hancock County Pioneer Association, August 1, 1870.

  265“Everybody loved Judge Sharp”: “In Memoriam,” from Huntington Library, Pasadena, California; other cites from Dallin Oaks and Marvin Hill, Carthage Conspiracy (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1979), p. 218ff.

  266desultory fate of Governor . . . Ford: John Francis Snyder, “Governor Ford and His Family,” Journal of the Illinois Historical Society 3 (1910), and by the same author, “Death of Governor Ford’s Daughter,” Journal of the Illinois Historical Society 3 (1910).

  266“weeds, tall grass and brush”: N. B. Lundwall, The Fate of the Persecutors of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Private edition, 1952), p. 301.

  266Ford’s “troubled destiny”: “Joseph the Seer,” Hinckley remarks, June 26, 1994, available online at https://www.lds.org/ensign/1994/09/joseph-the-seer?lang=eng.

  267“I am Mad”: Annette Hampshire, “Thomas Sharp and Anti-Mormon Sentiment in Illinois, 1842–1845,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 72 (May 1979), p. 93.

  267Backenstos resolved to move: Harold Schindler, Orrin Porter Rockwell: Man of God, Son of Thunder (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1966), p. 146; and Thomas Gregg, History of Hancock County, Illinois, together with an outline history of the State, and a digest of State laws (Chicago: Chapman, 1880), p. 341.

  268“the gallows was cheated”: Salt Lake Tribune, June 11, 1878.

  269Rockwell’s funeral: Schindler, Orrin Porter Rockwell, p. 363ff.

  269more than one cowboy ballad: Ibid., p. 359ff.

  269“Her face was thin”: Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery, Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1994), pp. 296–297.

  270“she could go to Heaven”: Glen Leonard, Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, a People of Promise (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2002), p. 635.

  271“I am convinced”: Paul Edwards, “The Sweet Singer of Israel: David Hyrum Smith,” BYU Studies 12 (2) (1972), p. 6.

  271two pages of questions: This interview can be found in “Last Testimony of Sister Emma,” Saints’ Herald 26 (October 1, 1879).

  275tenth anniversary celebration: LaJean Purcell Carruth, transcriber, “John Taylor’s June 27, 1854, Account of the Martyrdom,” BYU Studies 50 (3) (2011), p. 39.

  275the featured speaker . . . Apostle John Taylor: For the full transcription of his remarks that day, see John G. Turner, Brigham Young, Pioneer Prophet (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012), p. 172.

  276a ninety-six-page account: Mark H. Taylor, “John Taylor: Witness to the Martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith,” in Champion of Liberty: John Taylor, ed. Mary Jane Woodger (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2009).

  GLOSSARY

  Bishop: Ward manager, monitors tithing by church members, distributes donated goods to immigrants and needy families.

  Bogus making: Counterfeiting.

  Council of Fifty: A secret body, appointed by Joseph Smith, intended to rule over Christ’s Kingdom of God after the Second Coming.

  Danites: Mormon vigilante force, formed in response to anti-Mormon violence in Missouri.

  Disfellowship; excommunication: Church punishment for religious transgressions.

  Elder: A male church member who has received the priesthood endowment.

  Endowment: A temple ritual, introduced in Nauvoo, required for men and women to become full members of the church.

  Exaltation: Highest degree of glory in the eternal Mormon afterlife.

  General Authorities: Church leaders, including the First Presidency, the church’s ruling triumvirate, composed of Joseph Smith and a first and a second counselor. Other General Authorities are The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, led by Brigham Young.

  Gentiles: All non-Mormons, except for Jews and “Lamanites,” a Book of Mormon race.

  Golden tablets; Book of Mormon: Joseph Smith said he created the Book of Mormon from golden plates found in upstate New York. Other sacred Mormon texts include The Pearl of Great Price, a collection of scripture, and Doctrine and Covenants, Smith’s revelations.

  Jack-Mormon: A Gentile who sympathized with the Mormons. Today, it means a lapsed Mormon.

  Keys, or the keys of the priesthood: The right to exercise power in the church.

  Mormon War of 1838: Missourians’ successful attempt to expel the state’s 5,000 Mormons.

  Nauvoo City Council, Nauvoo High Council: Two bodies that, respectively, managed the city’s temporal and spiritual affairs.

  Nauvoo Expositor: Mormon dissident newspaper, destroyed by Joseph Smith.

  Nauvoo Legion: The standing Mormon militia in Illinois, about 2,000–3,000 strong.

  Old settlers: In both Missouri and Illinois, the preexistin
g populations—not Native Americans—who were generally hostile to Mormons.

  Saints, or the Latter-day Saints: Followers of Joseph Smith, also known as the Mormons.

  Second Anointing: Temple rite introduced in Nauvoo, assuring select couples eternal life.

  “Spiritual wife” doctrine; “plural wife” doctrine: Polygamy, also called the “principle.” Wives and husbands were “sealed for time,” meaning united in this life, or “sealed for time and eternity.”

  Stake, ward: Ecclesiastical districts, roughly equivalent to dioceses and parishes.

  Temple: Holy place of Mormon worship, larger, more grandiose, and more spiritually significant than a church. Gentiles may enter a Mormon church, but not a temple.

  Temple garments: Light underclothes worn by Mormons who have received their endowment.

  Tithing: Voluntary donations, generally fixed at 10 percent of income or net worth, to the church.

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