In order to understand this, we need to look at her personality and what she experienced prior to the death of Joseph.". 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. Given that Brigham was blamed by Emma for being the inventor of plural marriage, he probably felt rather ill-used by her. On January 16, the imprisoned First Presidency sent instructions to Heber C. Kimball and Brigham Young that said, Inasmuch as we are in prison, . "Joseph did not marry a wilting violet," Delewski said. Book Of Mormon Videos Why did Emma Smith leave the LDS Church?-----Our main goal is creating educational content. No one could have recognized them as the prosperous Yankees they had once been in New York before embracing Mormonism. [47] Dated entries in An Abridged Record of the Life of John Murdock, Taken from His Journal by Himself, typescript, n.p., n.d., Perry Special Collections. [50], The Young and Kimball families. [95] At that point, Brigham Young felt that the covenant to move the poor Saints had been fulfilled: We had entered into a covenant to see the poor Saints all moved out of Missouri to Illinois, that they might be delivered out of the hands of such vile persecutors, and we spared no pains to accomplish this object until the Lord gave us the desires of our heart. My God is it you Bro. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". Yet I knew little of these things, for our branch of the family was far removed from our Smith heritage. By Scott D. Pierce. 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. Jannalee worked as a writer and editor at LDS Living for seven years before hanging up her press badge and starting the journey of stay-at-home motherhood. Today, you can find her happily organizing and reorganizing her house, scrap booking, reading books to her sons, or still writing an occasional freelance article. Tied to her waist were heavy bags containing Josephs papers. Whatever the situation, Emma eventually found herself unable to cope with polygamy. [36] With Joseph Smiths approval, leaders in Far West decided to sell Church properties in Jackson County to help raise money for the exodus. Because Joseph Smith was in prison during the exodus, attention focuses here on Joseph Smith's parents, his wife Emma, Elders Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball, and four selected families: the John and Caroline Butler family, the Newel and Lydia Knight family, the Daniel and Martha Thomas family, and the Levi and Clarissa Hancock family. [6], In the exodus, Mormon militiamen were the first to leaveor rather escape. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Newel prayed for help, for I knew not how to extricate myself but as I had never been forsaken by my Heavenly Father I commited myself and family into his care. For a week they were stranded, but finally a man asked his son to drive the Knights the rest of the way. She moved from Pennsylvania to New York to Ohio to Missouri and then Illinois. She made an understandable effort to keep some of the property and this put her at odds with Brigham Young, since it was unclear which of those properties belonged to the church and which to her. Print. If Brigham Young had one constant character trait, it was his absolute faithfulness to Joseph Smith. We will look forward to reading more of your work. Emma Smith was the wife of the first Mormon prophet, Joseph Smith. [30] John Taylor, Alanson Ripley, Brigham Young, Theodore Turley, Heber C. Kimball, John Smith (the Prophets uncle), and Don C. Smith (the Prophets brother). 2022 FAIR Conference videos are now available to watch! 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. Its an improvement that shes discussed at all. With discomfort on both sides, she soon found herself outside the mainstream of the church. Many wished to be associated with the prophet for the eternal blessings they felt this would bring. Bushman reports that Emma and Joseph had many intense discussions about his polygamy and their relationship was periodically strained. Within three weeks, the press got wind of the authors ecclesiastical silencing and began to report about itthereby tripling sales of the book. February 11, 1843, is promoted as another date when Emma may have become aware of Joseph's plurality. Isaac Laney said the committee had moved all but thirty or forty families when armed men from Daviess County ordered him and others to be out of the County by the next Friday night which was giving us Six dayes for to do that that Requird a month. So the committee urgently hired teams and sent families to Tenneys Grove, twenty miles away, with a minimum of personal belongings. In total, these petitioners losses totaled $2,275,789an average of $3,761 per petitioner. Deseret News Archives, Deseret News Archives. [75] Wandle Mace Autobiography, typescript, 3132, Perry Special Collections. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. Understanding how early Saints worked earnestly to build up the Church helps us better appreciate the value of their work. The Apostles group arrived at Far West soon after midnight on April 26. the Gospel Doctrine manual for church history. We invite you to give back. She helped to care for Josephs mother and her mother-in-law noted that few women had endured as many trials as she had with so much grace. The biography Linda and Valeen published with Doubleday several years later was not so guarded, detailing Josephs many polygamous alliances, his repeated lies to Emma about those marriages, and her conflicts with his plural wivesincluding a much-debated stair-pushing catfight with Eliza R. Snow. They restarted on February 14 and reached the Mississippi two weeks later, on March 1, where they camped and waited for more than a week.[47]. Conflicts between church members and neighbors also continued to escalate, and eventually Young made the decision to relocate the church to the Salt Lake Valley. [14] Autobiography of Anson Call, typescript, 13, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University. While living at the Morley farm near Kirtland, Emma Smith gives birth to twins, who die shortly after birth. . At Adam-ondi-Ahman they obtained provisions from fellow Saints. In the future Brigham would have his own falling out with Babbitt and the rift would become so widely known that, when Indians killed Babbitt on the Western plains in 1856, Eastern newspapers erroneously reported that Brigham had ordered him killed. Their chief settlement was Far West in Caldwell County. L. Hannah Stoddard is the lead author of Faith Crisis, Volume 1: We Were NOT Betrayed!, Seer Stone v. Urim & Thummim: Book of Mormon Translation on Trial, and Faith Crisis, Volume 2: New Mormon History Exiled from Church Headquarters.She is the executive director of the Joseph Smith Foundation, and producer or director of seven . [8] After eleven days travel, they reached white Settlements on the Desmoine River in Iowa. At other times, she found she could not handle the choices she had made, much as Sarah in the Old Testament first encouraged her husband to marry her handmaiden and then discovered it was more than she was prepared to handle. This weekend at the Midwest Pilgrims retreat in Nauvoo, Illinois, I had the opportunity to listen to a fascinating talk by Linda King Newell, co-biographer of Emma Smith, first wife of LDS founding prophet Joseph Smith, Jr. The hymnbook she created included familiar favorites from other denominations and hymns newly written specifically for the Latter-day Saints. [95] Kenney, Wilford Woodruffs Journal, 1:329. At least one man escaped west to Fort Leavenworth. The Lord says in Doctrine and Covenants 25:12, My soul delighteth in the song of the heart; yea, the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me, and it shall be answered with a blessing upon their heads.. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. You've read 0 of 5 of todays most popular posts. I found my family in good health though in the mud and snow half a leg deep in the camp. Joseph Smith Foundation director, author, film producer, speaker. [7] William G. Hartley, My Best for the Kingdom: The History and Autobiography of John Lowe Butler, a Mormon Frontiersman (Salt Lake City: Aspen Books, 1993), 8184; Baugh, A Call to Arms, 39296. Mormon women have the specific responsibility to be righteous daughters of God; good, faithful wives; and loving mothers. The Smith family. Add an RSC shortcut to this device's Homescreen, In the menu, scroll past any icons and tap. . They formed the first wave of the exodus. [86], As soon as John Butlers family arrived, they had no place to go and it was bitter cold, John said. Mormon Church Admits Founder Joseph Smith Had Up To 40 Wives : The Two-Way The Church of Latter-day Saints never denied polygamy was part of its history. On November 6, 1832, Emma gave birth to Joseph Smith III in the upper room of Whitney's store in Kirtland. During November and December, Joseph C. Kingsbury and Caroline, his wife of two years, lived in a little cabin with meager provisions. Green, a Quincy innkeeper and cousin by marriage to Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball, encouraged the Apostles and other Saints to come there. [57] Quoted in Lyman O. Littlefield, Reminiscences of Latter-day Saints (Logan, UT: Journal Company Printers, 1888), 7273. Then three hundred militiamen escorted them away to face trial and prison. After 17 years of marriage, Emma's second husband, Lewis Bidamon, had a child with another woman named Nancy Abercrombie. Hundreds still lacked the means to leave. Along the way, he said he had to stop among strangers with my daughter who had given birth to a child on the prairie.[64] Elisha Whiting said his family was driven in the month of March through cold storms of snow and rain, having to make our beds on the cold wet ground which when we arose in the morning we often found drenched with water and then obliged to load our wet bedding into the waggon and move slowly forward.[65], About March 18, Wilford Woodruff, in Quincy and newly back from a mission, went to the river and looked across and saw a great many of the Saints, old and young, lying in the mud and water, in a rainstorm, without tent or covering. What did Emma Emma do for the LDS Church? [115] Joseph Smith and Others to Edward Partridge and the Church, March 25, 1839, in Times and Seasons, May 1840, 102, and July 1840, 13132. In response, when Saints reached safety they began filling out petitions for redress and having them notarized by justices of the peace and court clerks in two counties in Iowa and ten in Illinois. In July 1830, Joseph Smith received a revelation addressed specifically to Emma. Turley, Richard E., and Brittany A. Chapman. [123] Butler denounced the hard-heartedness that Missourians had shown his wife and children and Church authorities. . While locals let the suffering Saints crowd into farms, sheds, huts, and tents, they judged the refugees to be generally of the poorer and more illiterate classes.[78] On February 25, Quincy leaders met and adopted measures to provide relief. Emma and her family were forced to leave the state with the majority of Latter . Your email address will not be published. They were enough to wear out any woman and if she, in the end, was tired of fighting her way through life, that can be understood. At the time of her birth, her parents had a good relationship with a prominent local family, which may have affected her name selection. [89] Leo R. Rogers, Willis Rogers and Elizabeth Bessie Ritchie with Their Ancestors and Descendants (Bountiful, UT: L. R. Rogers, ca. [8] Lavina Fielding Anderson, ed., Lucys Book: A Critical Edition of Lucy Mack Smiths Family Memoir (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2001), 69192. Her judgment lies in God's hands, not in ours or Brigham Young's. Levis nearly five-year-old son Mosiah recalled, The snow was deep enough to take me to the middle of the thigh, and I was bare footed and in my shirt tail. They hitched their horse old Tom to the cart, Mosiah said, and father drove the horse and carried the rifle on his shoulder. It was that she hated polygamy and flatly refused to countenance its presence among the Mormon people. They reached the bank of the Mississippi in eight days and found the river frozen over. [12] John Butlers escape route apparently was across northern Missouri. Governor Boggs infamous extermination order remained a stain on Missouris character for 137 years until June 25, 1976, when Missouri governor Christopher S. Bond signed an executive order rescinding it. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". rev. [107] Johnson, ed., Mormon Redress Petitions, xixxxvii. This made the poisoning accusation plausible for him. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Exmormons are told to leave quietly with their tails between their legs. Years later, in the anti-Emma atmosphere of Utah, Brigham Young spoke of a meeting where Joseph accused his wife of slipping poison into his coffee. John Lowe Butler, thirty, and wife Caroline, twenty-six, converts in Kentucky three years earlier, lived in Mirabile just south of Far West with their four children. To reach safety in Illinois, the closest state, they had to cross the broad Mississippi River, and Quincy had ferryboat facilities. John, tall and strong, had fought off Missourians trying to block Mormons from voting. 1856Emma takes in orphaned Elizabeth Agnes Kendall, eight years old, and rears her as her own daughter . Many of them started from scratch and built up religious communities in Illinois and Iowa. Snow was six inches deep. On Nov. 4th, astoundingly, Richard McCarty obtained a warrant for the arrest of the men who had caught him in the act of looting the Gilbert store, charging them with assault and false imprisonment. She had no example to follow and no real support group, as later women would have. I understand Long meter and Common meter, but what is PM? At times, deep snows rubbed their wagon hubs during the journey. But only three of the two dozen adults in Knight family network faltered. She was not perfect, but what is amazing is that she was as perfect as she was given the powerful trials and persecutions she experienced. The CES Director apparently never got around to responding. In time, most of the houses were torn down for firewood or hauled away. The views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of FAIR, its officers, directors or supporters. The Knight family. Then on November 5 and 6, 1999, a Quincy History Symposium honored the citys humanitarian efforts for Saints who fled Missouri. [107] In todays currency, that equals $52,325,000 total, or $77,000 per petitioner. Training experience for 1846 exodus.