. Holbrook left behind his wife Nancy, who a week later gave birth to their fourth child, and three small children ages seven, five, and two. Given that Brigham was blamed by Emma for being the inventor of plural marriage, he probably felt rather ill-used by her. But the youngest wife sealed to Smith was only 14 years old when she married him . Understanding how early Saints worked earnestly to build up the Church helps us better appreciate the value of their work. . Emma eventually forced them to leave, unable to bear the pain of having Joseph's plural wives . As was common in their day, the early Saints sang the printed lyrics to familiar tunes. [16] Baugh, A Call to Arms, 395; Reed Peck Manuscript, 29. Caroline said that at one point that winter, Joseph Smith got word to Emma to send him quilts or bed clothes. Winter exposure and food shortages in Caldwell County and during exodus caused health problems for many and a host of deaths during 1839. [49] Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery, Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984), 79. On March 21 Wilford Woodruff said the apostolic company passed through Huntsville and found the roads were full of Saints that were fleeing Missouri.[93] On April 24 they met three members of the Committee of Removal who had just been driven from Far West, who also joined them. Emma knew better, but she also knew that a polygamous history would not serve her needs. To his military leaders, it decreed, The Mormons must be treated as enemies and must be exterminated or driven from the state, if necessary for the public good.[2] Four days later, that order reached Church leaders and members in northwest Missouri. He did not court the women or put his proposals in romantic terms. This book contains copies of the individual and group petitions and provides excellent explanations about each of the petition drives and how the petitions were used by the Church to seek redress for its members. The Thomases complied. He sealed that witness with his life. In intense cold, Lydia recalled, they sometimes scraped away snow beside the wagon so they could put down their beds at night. [61] That same day, Eliza R. Snow and relatives, who had wintered seven miles from Far West, started for Illinois. Their difficult trip to Mississippi River took twelve days: We had snow and rain every day but 2. Eventually, however, she encountered a trial that became more than she thought she could handle. So, he said, Sold my cook stove and the only cow the mob had not killed. With that money he hired a man with a team to drive him, Lydia, and their three children east. The views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of FAIR, its officers, directors or supporters. . Alpheus Cutler placed it in position. While at LDS Living, she particularly enjoyed diving into the past and writing articles about little-known Church history stories or the Salt Lake Temple, though she wrote about a variety of topics. [87] Hartley, My Best for the Kingdom, 9192. Copyright 1997-2023 by The Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Time and again, she was uprooted, often without warning and frequently without time to pack her belongings. [9] The men split into two groups to avoid attention. According to historian Richard Bushman, Joseph saw polygamy simply as a way to join families together for eternity. After a quick Google search, I found out that PM probably stands for peculiar meter. I hadnt heard of that before, and it isnt in the current edition of the LDS hymnbook. 1 Why did Emma Smith leave the LDS Church? It would be 2 months before she could be confirmed as a member of the Church. Learn about and browse the pages of the first hymnal of the Church. Though there probably was an argument, the poisoning accusation was unfounded. Mobbers shot cows while girls were milking them. The biography was an instant commercial success, selling out its first two printings. William G. Hartley was a professor emeritus of history at Brigham Young University when this was published. She seems, among other things, to have been worried about providing for her children, as well as protecting them from the violence which had claimed Joseph. She was a schoolteacher and even owned items of value, including cows. I being barefooted and the ice so rough, I staggered all over. . [38] Larry C. Porter, Brigham Young and the Twelve in Quincy: A Return to the Eye of the Missouri Storm, 26 April 1839, in A City of Refuge: Quincy, Illinois, ed. Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features. He attended school as they courted, trying to live up to her. Church leaders told fugitive Charles C. Rich to flee north into the wilderness and take all that I Could find of the Brethren that was in the Crooked river Battle. So he and others left Far West at midnight on November 1. Accordingly, our goods were taken out. They waited until another team came for them. Carolines third task was to find some way to move the family and belongings from Missouri before spring. The exodus had no large, organized wagon trains. She is known in Church history for being well educated and was able to act as a scribe for Joseph when he was translating the plates because of it. The temple site has been salvaged and given modern landscaping, but no houses remain. . Delewski thinks she may have been the most promising of the Hale children because she had a rare additional year of schooling. Within three weeks, the press got wind of the authors ecclesiastical silencing and began to report about itthereby tripling sales of the book. Joseph Knights son Newel was Joseph Smiths close friendthe Prophet had performed his and Lydias wedding in Kirtland, and he had no followers more loyal than Newel and Lydia. What did Emma Emma do for the LDS Church? To do so, would be to act with extreme cruelty. In fear of threats that the bodies would be stolen or desecrated, coffins filled with sandbags were used in the public funeral of the two martyrs. [18] Diaries of William Huntington, typescript, in Miscellaneous Mormon Diaries, vol. He could scarcely refrain from weeping.[105], Once safely in Illinois, the Saints still had some unfinished business related to their expulsion from Missouri. And Brigham, his relationship with Emma strained at best, did not bother to separate the inflammatory rhetoric of Babbitt's letters from the less dramatic probabilities. As a youth she learned to canoe on the Susquehanna River and became accomplished with horses. No one could have recognized them as the prosperous Yankees they had once been in New York before embracing Mormonism. Levi Ward Hancock continued as a President of the Seventy, marched to California in the Mormon Battalion, was a pioneer in Manti and southern Utah, and served as a patriarch. rev. [1] William G. Hartley, Almost Too Intolerable a Burthen: The Winter Exodus from Missouri, 18381839, Journal of Mormon History 18 (Fall 1992): 640. To fulfill their instruction, some members of the Twelve left Quincy on April 18, 1839, to travel secretly to Far West. [63] Eliza R. Snow, an Immortal: Selected Works by Eliza R. Snow (Salt Lake City: Nicholas G. Morgan Sr., 1957), 1011. John and his son Orrice walked. My family . Emma, be patient, you shall have all of your children, he assured her gently. Six of 11 children had died: Alvin, twins Thadeus and Louisa, Joseph Murdock, Don Carlos and Thomas. The first night, our wagon tipped over into the creek. Anson Call. One mobber shot a cow and, while it was still alive, skinned off a strip of hide from its nose to its tail, and tied his horse to a stump with it. We had not the privilege of hunting our cattle and horses.[14] Newel Knight noted that because the Saints were unarmed, they became prey for small parties of armed men insulting our women, driving off our stock, and plundering. To him it seemed as though all hell was aroused to do us injury.[15] Newels cousin Reed Peck said that some horses, wagons and much other property were stolen from the Mormons by some of the militia who were villains enough to plunder.[16] By late November, most crops around Far West were unharvested, and potatoes still in the ground were frose solid. Soldiers rifled through homes, Albert Rockwood said, and our sheep & hogs, & horses [are] drove off before our eyes by the Missourians who come in small companies well armed.[17], In neighboring Daviess County, Missouri militia ordered all the Saints out and gave William Huntington and eleven other Mormons four weeks to round up the Latter-day Saints livestock, wagons, and personal property. Her husband Joseph Smith had been killed in 1844, and after his death Emma Smith decided to remain in Nauvoo. a much-debated stair-pushing catfight with Eliza R. Snow. Succeeded Smith as leader of the LDS Church. [114] John Lowe Butler became a trusted workhorse for Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, serving as one of Josephs official, ordained bodyguards and later as a bishop in Spanish Fork, Utah. Abraham agreed to drive the Butlers wagon and two-horse team for Caroline, and Caroline let the Smoots put their baggage in the Butler wagon. [75] Wandle Mace Autobiography, typescript, 3132, Perry Special Collections. Your email address will not be published. There was scarcely a day while we were on the road that it did not either snow or rain, son John said. In 1984, Linda wrote, with Valeen Tippetts Avery, Mormon Enigma:Emma Hale Smith, which has stood for nearly three decades as the definitive biography of Emma. Mormons had a divorce rate of about 1 percent. Joseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805 - June 27, 1844) was an American religious leader and the founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement.At the age of 24, Smith published the Book of Mormon and by the time of his death, 14 years later, he had attracted tens of thousands of followers. Far West Saints met in a public meeting on January 26 to consider measures to expedite the move out of state, given the seeming impossibility of moving in consequence of the extreme poverty of many.[29] A seven-man committee was appointed to find out how many needed help and how much help members could give to those in need. He was not, however, a member of her familys faith and in fact, had received a vision at age fourteen telling him not to join any existing church because none were completely right. [51] Elder Heber C. Kimball sent his family with the Youngs. When those families reached Illinois early in 1839, they were poor, worn out, and ragged looking. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. A few days later, Martha gave birth to a son she named after the Prophet. All rights reserved. Thats likely why its content was acceptable for the Ensign nearly a century after the Church had begun distancing itself from polygamy. During that period, the place was a hive of activity; Joseph Smith and his wife, Emma, and Oliver Cowdery were boarding with the Whitmers, and other people (including curiosity-seekers) were constantly coming and going. That party came to include Brigham Young, Orson Pratt, and John Taylor. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. [90] Diaries of William Huntington, 8; Isaac Leany Petition in Johnson, ed., Mormon Redress Petitions, 485. While Joseph was in jail, Emma made the decision to flee with the rest of the Saints to Quincy. The author analyzes such factors as social/political issues, gender, race . Delewski also explored the effect the practice of plural marriage had on Emma and Joseph Smith's relationship. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. When the river opened, the Thomases used two boats to move their effects across, while Daniel and son Morgan, twelve, stayed behind to ferry the cow across later. Later, when Brigham Young was the prophet, the practice would be refined so that the first wife had to approve each subsequent wife, but as we also see in the Bible, refinements of new practices often come over time as prophets continue to pray for guidance.