History of Nauvoo, Illinois

Daguerreotype of the city as it appeared at the time of the Mormon exodus

1843 interview of Joseph Smith published in the New York Weekly Express (clipping)

In the spring of 1840, John C. Bennett, the Quarter Master General of the Illinois State Militia, converted to Mormonism and became Joseph Smith's friend and confidante. Bennett's experience with Illinois' government allowed him to help Smith craft a city charter for Nauvoo.[11] After passing both houses of the Illinois Legislature, Governor Thomas Carlin signed the Nauvoo City Charter on December 16, 1840. Based closely on the Springfield, Illinois, charter, the document gave the city a number of important powers, including the establishment of the Municipal Court of Nauvoo, the University of Nauvoo, and an independent militia unit. At the time, the Illinois state government was closely balanced between members of the Democratic party and members of the Whig party. Both hoped to attract Mormon votes, and both were quick to place the charter into effect. After the charter was passed, Bennett was elected Nauvoo's first mayor, and Smith made Bennett a member of the church's First Presidency. A militia unit named the "Nauvoo Legion" was established, and Smith and Bennett were made its commanding generals.

The city grew quickly as Mormons gathered. At its height Nauvoo's population was as large as Quincy's or Springfield's, although it remained smaller than contemporary Chicago, still in its infancy.[12] Many new residents came from the British Isles, as a result of a successful LDS mission established there.[13] The Latter Day Saints published two newspapers in the city, the religious and church-owned Times and Seasons and the secular and independently owned Wasp (later replaced by the Nauvoo Neighbor). Although it mostly existed on paper, the University of Nauvoo was established, with Bennett as chancellor.

The Nauvoo Legion, a militia with 2,000 men, was headed by Joseph Smith, who was given the commission of lieutenant-general by Illinois' Governor Carlin. The Nauvoo militia consisted of a corps of riflemen.

On April 6, 1841, the Nauvoo Legion drilled in a great parade to honor the laying of the cornerstone for a new temple. and Sidney Rigdon gave the dedicatory speech. The foundation of the Nauvoo Temple was 83 by 128 feet (25 by 39 m) and, when finished, its steeple rose to a height of over 100 feet (30 m). Church elder Alpheus Cutler was put in charge of the construction of the ambitious stone structure. Another church committee began construction of a large hotel on the city's Water Street, to be called the Nauvoo House. John D. Lee was put in charge of constructing a meeting hall for the quorums of the Seventies.

In October 1841, a Masonic lodge was established in Nauvoo in the building currently referred to as the Cultural Hall. George Miller, one of the church's bishops, was made its "Worshipful Master" or leader. The lodge admitted far more members than was normal in Masonic practice and quickly elevated church leaders to high roles. This was the most significant time in which the Latter Day Saints were involved in Freemasonry.

At the time of Nauvoo's foundation, the church was led by a First Presidency, consisting of a Prophet and two Counselors. The presiding high council, known as the Nauvoo High Council and led by Nauvoo Stake President William Marks, was next in administrative authority, overseeing the church's legislative and judicial affairs. The church's "Traveling High Council" (or Quorum of the Twelve) led by President Brigham Young oversaw the church's missionary activities.

Joseph Smith, Jr. introduced and expanded a number of distinct practices while the Latter Day Saint church was headquartered in Nauvoo. These included baptism for the dead, rebaptism, the Nauvoo-era endowment, and the ordinance of the second anointing. In addition, he created a new inner council of the church — containing both men and women — called the Anointed Quorum.

Although not publicly acknowledged, Smith had been practicing plural marriage for some time, and in Nauvoo he began to teach other leaders the doctrine. Controversy arose because Smith's counselor in the First Presidency and Mayor, John C. Bennett, was caught in adultery (which Bennett considered and referred to as "spiritual wifery" or having multiple "spiritual" wives), claiming that Joseph Smith endorsed it and practiced it himself. Bennett was subsequently expelled from Nauvoo in the summer of 1842, and Smith himself became the city's second mayor. Bennett's fall led to Brigham Young becoming more prominent among Smith's confidants. Young proved more loyal than Bennett, helping Smith promote the teachings of the Church and the practice of plural marriage with greater discretion.

Another key development was Smith's 1844 establishment of the Council of Fifty based upon his political theory of theodemocracy. An extension of the Mormon belief of an imminent millennium, this council was meant to be a political organization which could immediately fill the roles of purely secular governments which would be destroyed at Christ's Second Coming.[14] The organization was meant to be fully functional only in the absence of secular government, and its governing principles were to be based on the United States Constitution.[15] Overblown reports of the organization, which met in secret, helped fuel rumors of an aggressive theocracy with Joseph Smith as its king.[16] The council had little actual power, but remained in existence far after the Nauvoo period.[17]

Nevertheless, Joseph Smith ran for President of the United States in 1844 advocating for a "theodemocracy". He wrote, "I go emphatically, virtuously, and humanely, for a Theodemocracy, where God and the people hold the power to conduct the affairs of men in righteousness."[18]

As the Mormon population grew, non-Mormons in Hancock County, especially in the towns of Warsaw and Carthage, felt threatened by the political power of the growing Mormon voting bloc. In Nauvoo, Joseph Smith was not only president of the Church, he was mayor, head of the municipal court, and general of the militia. This power base, plus the fact that Mormons benefited from collective group efforts as opposed to the more isolated and independent non-Mormon farmer, caused many non-LDS in the nearby areas to become suspicious and jealous.[19]

Throughout much of the Nauvoo period, officials from Missouri attempted to arrest Smith and extradite him on charges relating to the Mormon War. When he was apprehended, Smith would appeal to the Nauvoo Municipal Court, which would issue writs of habeas corpus and force his release. The court occasionally did the same when non-Mormons tried to arrest Latter Day Saints on other charges. Although the local court exceeded their authority in some of these cases, in at least one instance Governor Ford honored the Nauvoo court's decision to deny extradition.[20] Illinoisans, generally unaware of the Church's and Smith's legal history in Missouri, began to consider this a serious subversion of the judiciary which weakened the legal position of Nauvoo and the Latter Day Saint leadership.

Dissatisfaction with the perceived theocracy also arose from within. In 1844, First Presidency member William Law — an important merchant and counselor to Smith — broke with the church president over both the issue of plural marriage and the legal issues in Nauvoo. Law was excommunicated and founded a reformed church called the True Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He also established a newspaper named the Nauvoo Expositor which threatened to expose the practice of plural marriage; only one issue was published.

On June 10, 1844, Smith held a meeting of the city council which, after two full days of meeting, condemned the Expositor as "a public nuisance" and empowered him to order the press destroyed. A portion of the Nauvoo Legion, Smith's militia, marched into the office, wrecked the press and burned every copy of the Nauvoo Expositor that could be found.

The destruction of the press was seen as an opportunity by critics such as Thomas Sharp, whose paper in nearby Warsaw had been openly calling for destruction of the Church. Fanned by Sharp and others, public sentiment held that the action was illegal and unconstitutional. Some non-Mormons and disaffected church members in and around Hancock County began to call for Smith's arrest. Smith, his brother Hyrum, and several other church leaders submitted to arrest. While awaiting trial in Carthage, the county seat, under assurance of safety from Illinois governor Ford, Joseph and Hyrum Smith were assassinated when a vigilante mob attacked the jail. (See Death of Joseph Smith.)

Battle of Nauvoo Illinois Mormon War
Part of the Mormon Wars
Depiction of the Battle of Nauvoo, by C.C.A. Christensen
Date June 10, 1844 - September 16, 1846 Location Nauvoo, Illinois 40°33′N 91°22′W Result Mormon Exodus to Utah Territory
Belligerents
Illinois Militia	Nauvoo Legion
Commanders and leaders
Illinois Governor Thomas Ford Thomas Brockman	Joseph Smith† (murdered) Brigham Young Hosea Stout Daniel H. Wells
Strength
About 1,000	Less than 150
Casualties and losses
Unknown number wounded	About ten killed, unknown number wounded

After Smith's assassination, the agitation against Mormons continued. The conflict escalated into what has sometimes been called the "Mormon War in Illinois". Opponents of the Mormons in Warsaw and Carthage began to agitate for the expulsion from Illinois of the Latter Day Saints. In October 1844, a great gathering was announced in Warsaw. Although it was purported to be a "wolf hunt", it was known that the "wolves" to be hunted were the Mormons. When Governor Thomas Ford became aware of it, he sent militia troops to disperse the gathering. However, as he later recalled:

The malcontents abandoned their design, and all the leaders of it fled to Missouri. The Carthage Greys fled almost in a body, carrying their arms along with them. During our stay in the county the anti-Mormons thronged into the camp and conversed freely with the men, who were fast infected with their prejudices, and it was impossible to get any of the officers to aid in expelling them.[21]

Vigilante bands continued to roam the county, forcing Latter Day Saints in outlying areas to abandon their homes and gather in Nauvoo for protection.

When the Illinois state legislature met in December 1844, there was great support for the repeal of the Nauvoo Charter. Governor Ford conceded that the charter's privileges had been "much abused" by the Mormons, but he urged that the legislature merely amend the document, saying, "I do not see how ten or twelve thousand people can do well in a city without some chartered privileges."[22] However, on January 29, 1845, the repeal was overwhelmingly passed by a vote of 25–14 in the Senate and 75–31 in the House.

After its legal disincorporation, Nauvoo government and civil institutions were legally dissolved and the church administrative structure operated as a default government. This more theocratic organization was known informally by its residents as the "City of Joseph" while disincorporated. After a succession crisis, Brigham Young gained support from the majority of church members and so controlled Nauvoo. Informal security procedures were established, including what were known as "whittling and whistling brigades". These were made up of Mormon men and boys who "whistled" while "whittling" with large knives held close to any suspicious strangers who entered Nauvoo. According to one witness:

The process of whittling out an officer was as follows: A great tall man by the name of Hosea Stout was the captain of the Whittling society, and he had about a dozen assistants. They all had great bowie knives and would get a long piece of pine board and get up close to the officer and pretend to be cutting the pine board, but would cut over it and cut near the officer. In the meantime, small boys would get tin pans, old bells and all sorts of things to make a noise with and surround the officer. No one would touch or say a word to him, but the noise drowned all that he would say.[23]

Nauvoo's population peaked at about this time in 1845; it may have had as many as 12,000 inhabitants (and several nearly as large suburbs) — rivaling Chicago, whose 1845 population was about 15,000.

By the end of 1845 it became clear that no peace was possible between LDS church members and antagonized locals. Mormon leaders negotiated a truce so that the Latter Day Saints could prepare to abandon the city. The winter of 1845-46 saw the enormous preparations for the Mormon Exodus via the Mormon Trail. In early 1846, the majority of the Latter Day Saints left the city. On September 10, 1846, a mob of about 1,000 anti-Mormons besieged Nauvoo. Three of the fewer than 150 Mormon defenders were killed, and skirmishing left wounded on both sides. About a week later, on September 16, Daniel H. Wells and the Mormon leadership of Nauvoo surrendered to the mob and arranged for their people's evacuation from the town and expulsion across the Mississippi River into the Iowa Territory.[24] After the departure of the Mormons, the temple stood until destroyed by arsonists on November 19, 1848. On April 3, 1999, plans were announced to rebuild the temple on the historic site where it once stood. LDS church leaders broke ground for the new temple on October 24, 1999. After construction was completed, the new temple was dedicated for use by members of the LDS church on June 27, 2002.[25]

159 years later, on April 1, 2004, the Illinois House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution of regret for the forced expulsion of the Mormons from Nauvoo in 1846.[26]

Nauvoo in 1865

Emma Hale Smith, Joseph's widow, continued to live in Nauvoo with her family after the departure of the majority of the Latter Day Saints. In 1860, their son, Joseph Smith III, claimed to receive a revelation to take his place as Prophet/President of a group known as the "Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints". He continued to live in Nauvoo, which functioned as headquarters of this church (now known as the Community of Christ) until 1865. In 1866, Smith moved from Nauvoo to Plano, Illinois, where the church's printing house had been established. He personally took over the editorship of the Saint's Herald, and Plano became the headquarters of the church. In his final years, members of the church began to move to Independence, Missouri, which Smith's father had designated as the "center place" of the "City of Zion". Latter Day Saints had wanted to return to this theologically important ground since their expulsion in 1833.