Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 67, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 April 1907 — RETURN of the MORMONS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

RETURN of the MORMONS

Prom three States come reports of the proposed return of the Mormons to the upper Mississippi Valley, where" they held forth sixty years and more «go. Not only are missionaries being tent back to' Missouri, Illinois and lowa from Utah to carry on the awakening of Mormorism In the States iwhieh once attempted by force of arms to stamp it out, but the Utah branch of the church Is acquiring property rights and .officially recognizing the historic places which have been ignored before. Sometime ago the Utah Mormon elders of the northern and southern Illinois and lowa conference held their annual meeting in the old Mormon stronghold of Nauvoo, 111., from whence their fathers had been driven by force of arms sixty years ago. The Utah Mormons revisited the site of the original temple and of Joseph Smith's historic house and fraternized With the sons of the men who had persecuted him. Still more recently the Utah Mormons, twenty-one in number, made a pilgrimage to Carthage, 111., and purchased the old jail in which the founder of the church, Joseph Smith, and his brother, Hiram, had been killed. iWhether the jail is to remain simply a shrine for pilgrimages or is to be converted into a modern tabernacle has not yet been disclosed. Utah Mormons In large numbers have recently revisited places in Lee County, lowa, Garden Grove and KanesviUe, in the Western part of the State, where the original Mormons settled after being driven cut of Nauvoo, and before going en masse across the plains to Salt Lake City. In Missouri, Illinois and lowa more Mormon proselyting has been carried on in the past year than ever before. There is a general awakening of Interest in the places which once knew Mormonism, but stamped It out. No •ttempt is being made to return secretly. The deed to the Carthage jail property reads: “To Joseph P. Smith, In trust for the Church of Jesus Christ ■of the Latter-Day Saints, residing in the city and county of Salt Lake, in the State of Utah.” The Nauvoo reunion was remark*ble in many ways. It was the first official revisiting of the first great ■stronghold of Mormonism. Seventy ciders were in attendance for three days, were given the freedom of the •quaint old town and “had a fine spiritual and social time” on the testimony

•of a Nauvoo newspaper. In lowa the revival of Interest has teen especially marked. lowa is the headquarters „of the monogamous branch of Mormonism headed by Joseph Smith, a son of the original prophet and seer. The two branches of the church are at enmity, but on the occasion of the recent Are In Lamoni, where many valuable records of the lowa church were destroyed, sincere expressions of sympathy were received from the Utah branch. Valuable papers handed down from Joseph Smith I. to his son, Joseph Smith 11., and Intended for transmission on to Frederick Smith, the future head of the lowa and Missouri Latter-Day Saints, were destroyed. Early Hormoiitam. This revival of Interest In MormonIsm and the apparent coming together In a friendly feeling of the Utah and the Mississippi valley branches of the church founded by Joseph Smith serves to recall the story of Mormon settlement and occupation in Missouri, Illinois and lowa more than a half century ago, the persecutions of the time which drove the Mormons westward, and that remarkable heglra across the plains of 16,000 people which is one of the most romantic and unsual pictures In the panorama of American history. The first attempt to found a colony of the followers of Joseph Smith, after his remarkable discovery In New York of the sacred tablets and the glasses by which to translate them, was made at Kirkland, Ohio, with the aid of Sidney Rigdon, an eloquent preacher of the Christian, or Oampbelllte, church. On April 6, 1830, these two men organized the church of Lat-ter-Day Saints, . Then came the epochal revelation to Joseph Smith. The Mormons were commanded to found a colony In the far west and build a temple In this New Jerusalem. A location was chosen In the vicinity of Independence, Mo., and there the devout converts strong In their faith, moved. A large tract of land was secured. bouses were built, farms opened and the foundation laid for the temple. But while Missouri was a New Jerusalem to the Mormons, Missouri did not yearn for the company

of the religious enthusiasts. The citizens of the western part of the State became intensely hostile to the new sect, and finally a, large mob gathered, attacked its printing office, and other buildings, and flogged some of the Mormon leaders. Driven from Missouri. Matters finally became so bad that Governor Boggs called out the State militia and volunteers, 5,000 strong, under Gen. J. B. Clark, with orders “to exterminate the Mormons or drive them beyond the borders of the State:" Little time was lost in obeying the instructions. A large number of the Mormon leaders were arrested, their families driven from their homes at the point of the bayonets and the entire Independence colony hurriedly sent destitute out upon the bleak prairie, without even tents to protect them from the driving storms. The rivers and creeks were unbridged and filled with floating ice; the snow was deep, impeding progress. Many of the Mormons were killed, ethers desperately wounded, families were separated, women and children sick and dying for want of food, shelter and proper care. The oxen, which were the outcasts’ only teams, died of starvation. Disease and death claimed daily victims, This was In November, 1838. The plight of the Mormon outcasts was pitiable. Quitting Ohio voluntarily and being driven out of Missouri, the Mormons straggled across the Mississippi river and the Missouri boundary line Into Illinois and lowa. Some of them settled in Lee County, lowa, near the present site of Keokuk and Montrose, but the larger number crossed over Into Illinois, erecting temporary shelter for the winter. Across the Mississippi from Montrose was the little town of Commerce, started by New York speculators; this the Mormon refugees purchased, changing its name to Nauvoo. Joseph Smith, their prophet, came from imprisonment in Missouri, and pronounced Nauvoo the official seat of the church. Nauvoo soon became quite a city, famous all over America and In foreign lands. Evil Dan for Nanvoo. An alleged revelation, in 1843, permitting a plurality of wives, raised a storm of indignation In the surrounding settlements. It became bruited about, moreover, that the Mormons were harboring criminals and violating State and federal laws. Clashes and riots followed and the situation quickly became as bad in Illinois as It had been In Missouri. Finally, Gov. Ford, of Illinois, ordered out the State militia and also sent a force of ten men to Nauvoo to arrest Smith and his leading followers, assuring them they would be given a speedy and impartial trial. Protection from violence also was guaranteed. Joseph Smith and his council surrendered and were taken to the Hancock Jail, at Carthage, June 23, 1844. Smith Is said to have had a premonition concerning his fate, predicting that he would be “murdered in cold

blood.” He gad Its brother were booked on a charge of treason. Following the Incarceration of the Mormon leaders, Gov. Ford disbanded all but three companies of the militia, leaving One to guard the prisoners, and sending the others to Nauvoo. The slight guard over the Carthage jail decided the most reckless opponents of Mormonism to make an attack. About 150 blackened their faces and assembled at Carthage about 5 p. m. on June 27, 1844. Here they learned that only eight of the soldiers were actually on guard at the Jail. This little detachment made no resistance when the jail was stormed. Hiram Smith was shot dead. A few minutes later Joseph, the prophet, fired his revolvers and succeeded in wounding four of the assallthrough a window was killed by the mob below. These troublous times soon gave way to worse ,the conflicts between the Mormons and their opponents being almost continual. the futility 6f trying to remain where they were was borne in on the Mormons. In the fall of 1845 they began to dispose of their property and prepared to emigrate westward into lowa. The trail of the Mormons across lowa could be followed for years by the graves that marked the pathway of their journey through Van Buren, David, Appanoose, Decatur and Union counties. More than 400 men, women and children who died from the effects of exposure and hardships of the exodus of 1846-47 were buried in the Mormon cemetery at Mount Plsgab. In 188 S the Utah Mormons caused a monument to be erected here in memory of the dead, who, for the most part, lie in unmarked graves. In 1847 Brigham Young led an expedition from lowa over the plains t 4 Salt lake, where he selected a location for the future home of the church. Iqt June, 1848, the second expedition, consisting of 623 -wagons and nearly 2,000 persons, joined the Salt lake colony. In the fifty years that have passed Mormons have been absent from their old haunts in the Mississippi valleyr History will never repeat itself to the extent of seeing once more Mormon occupation and persecution; but evidence multiplies on every side showing that the Mormons of Utah are looking longingly and peaceably on the spots where their fathers founded the faith. —St. Louis Globe-Democrat.