It was meant to be a defense, a place of refuge for the Saints, but unfortunately it became everything but that. It was Far West Missouri.

That’s next on the Joseph Smith Papers.

KJZZ Television, in cooperation with the Church History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints presents this weekly series highlighting the research of scholars and historians as they prepare for the publication of the Joseph Smith Papers. And now your host, Glen Rawson.

After the expulsion of the Mormons from Jackson County,

they crossed the Missouri River and they went north into Clay County. But after a time, the same difficulties they'd had there followed them into Clay County and they had to leave.

Mormon explorers went to the north, and what looked like an area for a good mill site on Shoal Creek became the city of Far West.

For a time, it was the headquarters of the Church.

The Missourians looked at this land and said,

“if the Mormons want that prairie land, let them have it.”

And thus began the city of Far West.

Following the failure of Zion’s Camp to redeem Zion,

the Saints continued to gather to Clay County for the next two years. Technically, well, actually, 1834, ’35, and ’36. By 1836, however, the citizens of Clay County were a little bit nervous about the continued influx of Mormons into their county.

I think they always felt like they’re—the stay of the Mormons in Clay County would only be temporary. That summer, in June and July, the leading officers of Clay County began to hold meetings in the courthouse to determine what they would do with the Mormons. And the determination was that

the Mormons must leave.

In these difficult circumstances, the Saints went to Missouri Governor Daniel Dunklin for help,

but by this time he had taken a decidedly negative stance against them. He wouldn't help them. Now they were in a tough spot.

The citizens of Clay County wanted them out.

And the citizens of Ray County, where they wanted to go,

wouldn't let them in.

The other individual who helped us considerably was none other than our attorney, Alexander William Doniphan,

who at that time was also the Clay County representative to the Missouri legislature.

And Doniphan came up with, I think, what was a temporary solution to the Mormon problem and our land—our need for land, and that was simply the Mormons have purchased this area in this

sparsely settled area of Ray County.

Why don’t we just create a county for the Mormons,

and they all settle there? And I think that was seen as the solution for the Mormon problem. Mormons basically began relocating from all over Missouri, where ever they had been.

But most of them from Clay County began moving into Caldwell County

and this newly created Caldwell County. And then, of course, they centered their settlement

relocation basically in that area, which will be called Far West.

But primarily, Caldwell was seen as—I don’t like to even use the word, but—as a reservation, almost, for the Mormons.

It was believed by some old settlers that Davis County was

not for the Mormons, but only for them. But Mormons understood it was for them as well.

W.W. Phelps wrote a letter to Joseph Smith, who was still in Kirtland, and he said of their new home,

“We shall soon have one of the most precious spots on the globe.” As the Mormons sought, Far West was to be their home for a long time to come.

A place where they could re-establish themselves.

The area or region in which they were settling in Caldwell County,

although rich and fertile, was not seen as the most desirable land with a considerable amount of timber

and water and that kind of thing. But certainly could be

tilled, farmed, turned into a productive area,

but it probably was seen by most Missourians as less desirable than other more timbered area

and more watered area.

But it was a—I think the Latter- day Saint leaders could clearly see potential.

So Latter-day Saints in 1836 and ’37 will begin to gather to Caldwell County and some to Davis County and in fact to the other counties around Ray County and Caldwell County and so forth, until they establish about 20 settlements in Caldwell County.

With eventually about 5000 residents of Far West and that many more out in the county and the other settlements,

and eventually a half a dozen settlements in

Davis County as well.

The Mormons bought their land

and immediately planned their city after the plat of the original City of Zion in Jackson County.

Their intent was to have a temple at the center.

And we have a letter from W. W. Phelps to Joseph Smith, who was living in Kirtland, still in Kirtland.

“Monday, the 3rd of July, was a great and glorious day in Far West.

More than 1500 saints assembled at this place.

And at half past eight in the morning, after prayer,

singing, and an address,

they proceeded to break the ground for the Lord's house.

The day was beautiful, the Spirit of the Lord was with us.

An excavation for this great edifice,

110 feet long by 80 feet broad, was nearly finished.

One Missourian said they dug the foundation to the depth of five feet in nearly one day.

Now that's a hundred and ten feet by 80 feet.

Now, just by comparison,

the Kirtland Temple was 79 feet by 59 feet.

And the Nauvoo temple was 128 feet by 88 feet. So this temple would only be eight feet narrower in terms of width and only 18 feet smaller than the Nauvoo temple.

So this was a considerably larger temple anticipated to be built by the Missouri Saints from that of the Kirtland Temple.

Joseph came from Kirtland and visited the Saints in Far West in November of 1837.

And among other things, he recommended that they postpone the building of their temple until the Lord had given a revelation on the matter.

The Missouri leaders are anticipating that the centerpiece of this new city, this new Mormon settlement,

the showpiece, the centerpiece of the community, would be this magnificent temple. Lilburn W. Boggs, now the governor, issued actual commissions, military commissions, to a number of the leading brethren,

authorizing them to act in the official capacity of militia officers for the state. Of course, with jurisdiction in Caldwell County.

So I think it's remarkable that

the Mormons are probably feeling pretty good about themselves with the creation of this county. This is going to be a great benefit to us,

not only in the sense of this identity of a Mormon-established county and community,

but politically and militarily, we can have some autonomy here.

Far West grew. Eventually it had 150 houses,

4 dry goods stores, 3 family groceries,

a half a dozen blacksmith shops, a printing establishment, and 2 hotels. Far West was prospering.

But while it was, Kirtland

was troubled with apostasy and dissent.

The Prophet Joseph Smith will,

on the night of the 12th of January, with his counselor, Sidney Rigdon, flee from Kirtland, for Far West Missouri.

It's a hurried and harrowing departure.

And with the arrival of Joseph Smith,

the headquarters of the Church is now Far West.

When Joseph Smith arrived on March 14th, he lived at the home of George Washington Harris.

We're not sure exactly how long he was there,

but certainly you can imagine the incredible joy,

the incredible anticipation,

to now have Joseph Smith in Missouri.

On the other hand, you have to think that

the Missourians also are very much aware that Joseph Smith’s

now a Missouri citizen.

And that probably caused them some consternation. And quite frankly, I'm sure in some circles, some alarm.

Joseph Smith represented what Mormonism was, and the entire Mormon leadership, to them mark that

this is not a good day for Missourians.

Not all of the dissent was left behind in Kirtland. Because of the actions and the words of certain leaders, there was trouble in disunion among the Saints. It became necessary to excommunicate some to preserve union,

peace, and love among the Saints.

In March, the previous March,

the Church leaders there had already excommunicated two members of the stake presidency.

John Whitmer and W. W. Phelps for problems associated with their spending the money, in managing the land, misuse of Church funds and those kinds of problems.

And they were discharged. Just a couple of days before the Prophet Joseph arrived in Far West,

they had also excommunicated Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer.

Oliver was excommunicated for reasons of

engaging in lawsuits against the Church, vexatious lawsuits, is what they called them,

and also misrepresenting the character of Joseph Smith and other charges. Well, it was a difficult time, but Joseph approved of the trials. The

interesting next event that is of most important to the Church is that these

apostate brethren now began to create difficulty in Far West.

Threatened more vexatious lawsuits and report of

the things that Joseph felt would begin to raise the mob against the city. And so to protect the city,

he wanted them out of the city.

Provocative statements made about these apostates by some Church leaders, particularly Sidney Rigdon,

ignited the situation and led to the formation of a secret group of men called the Danites.

Now, their intent, among other things, was to stamp out this dissent.

But they made the situation far worse—then and later.

The new organization established, it was not a Church organization per se, but kind of an extra

ecclesiastical organization established by a private member of the Church named Sampson Avard.

Sampson Avard was a prominent elder in the Church,

and he established a group of loyalists at this time, 83 of them that had signed a covert document indicating they would be loyal to one another.

And this group will function privately,

not as a institutional arm of the Church, but as an extra functionary group.

Therefore, they're the ones that use the necessary muscle to persuade the dissenters to leave the city.

And they were forced out, with muscle, indeed. And they were forced out, terrified, in fact, to leave and to depart from their mischief in the city. The second objective was to later help the Saints

and to protect them and assist them whenever they had need.

That was to be a passive kind of assistance. But thirdly—and this the Prophet did not know about, the Prophet later will have to learn of this only later when he was in prison himself—and that is that their third objective is to overtly and aggressively act against the mobs and against the villagers in upper Missouri in retaliation of what the Saints had suffered. Like a vigilante mob?

Like a vigilante group, and they’re known as the Danites.

Those early days in Far West were a happy and a hopeful time for the Saints. It was during that period that a number of revelations were received that came to be

very significant.

The first revelation received by Joseph Smith at Far West is the revelation Section 113,

in our present-day Doctrine and Covenants,

and this was probably given at the home of George Washington Harris. It's an interesting

section. It's an interesting revelation

in that you can tell that probably what happened was,

a number of the brethren are anxious to have Joseph Smith with them. And they probably missed having his biblical knowledge and prophetic insight to the scriptures.

And it's quite interesting that they would ask a series of questions and the questions that these brethren ask Joseph Smith on this occasion

centered in Isaiah Chapter 11.

Some of the opening verses related to that particular chapter. And also Isaiah Chapter 52.

The next section that was received by Joseph Smith at Far West is Section 114. And this is an interesting section because it's addressed to David Patten, who was, of course, the second in terms of seniority in the Quorum of the Twelve.

And it basically

tells David Patten to prepare himself for a mission

the following spring with 12 others, including himself, “to testify of my name and very glad tidings unto the world.”

That mission, of course, that we later understood would be the mission of the 12 to Great Britain.

Unfortunately, Patton was killed in October of 1838 at the battle or skirmish that took place at Crooked River.

There were general revelations that would affect the whole Church. But there were other revelations that were given to individuals giving specific directions.

These were uncanonized, or not written into the canon of scripture.

On that same day, April 17th, 1838,

is an uncanonized revelation. It’s not in our Doctrine and Covenants. It was directed to Brigham Young.

And basically, all it said was that Brigham Young was to take his residency of his family, take his residency up at Millcreek,

located about three miles from Far West.

You can see why it wasn't canonized. It’s not a significant revelation in terms of the Church.

It was just a kind of a personal revelation to Brigham.

But I think I see a long term benefit from that.

And what is interesting is at the time of the Mormon arrests,

when the Mormons finally surrendered to Missouri authorities, they don't come after Brigham Young.

He's out of town. Section 115 is an incredible section in the Doctrine and Covenants.

And the date, of course, is April 26, 1838.

First of all, the opening verse indicates that Joseph Smith,

Sidney Rigdon, and Hyrum Smith are the First Presidency of the Church. That’s significant because the person missing

or the person who was Joseph Smith's counselor, Frederick G. Williams, has now been replaced by Joseph’s own brother, Hyrum.

But I think what is really significant is verse four.

Actually, we could be beginning in verse three.

“And also on to my faithful servants who are of the high council of my Church in Zion,” that's the Missouri High Council,

“for thus it shall be called, and unto all the elders and people of my Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints scattered abroad in all the world.”

And here’s the verse—“for thus shall my church be called in the last days, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” Section 115 continues with the instructions now to go ahead with the building of the temple

“and let the beginning be made on the Fourth day of July, next” July 4th, 1838.

“And from that time forth, let my people labor diligently to build a house under my name.

And in one year from this day—” April 26, 1838, so now we’re jumping ahead to April 26, 1839—

“thus let them, from that time forth, labor diligently until it shall be finished from the cornerstone thereof and the top thereof, until there shall not anything remain that is not finished.”

So what he's saying here is let's move ahead on July 4th, let's dedicate the actual temple site.

And I think what the Lord fully anticipated that

the Saints would now then make preparations.

Get stone, get timber,

get the necessary equipment put together,

get all the things necessary to build this temple,

and let's commence it again or actually begin

the temple activity and temple construction, beginning April 26th, 1839. Well, as all Latter-day Saints should know or do know, that was impossible, considering the fact that, of course, in the intervening time the Saints had this,

the Missouri Mormon War, and of course, were expelled from Missouri.

By May of 1838,

the city of Far West had tripled in population.

Therefore, Joseph and some others set out to lay claims, they said, to lands to facilitate the gathering of the Saints.

He went north up into Davis County to a beautiful spot on the Grand River. While he was there,

he received Section 116 of the Doctrine and Covenants

Spring Hill, or the area where

Lyman Wight is living, is named by the Lord Adam-ondi-Ahman,

because, said He, it is the place where Adam shall come to visit his people or the ancient of days shall sit as spoken of by Daniel the Prophet. “Adam” signifying Adam, the first man, “Ahman” signifying God, “ondi,” “the presence of.”

So, “Adam in the presence of God.”

I think that would be a loose interpretation. The area was—

this region was called that because Adam lived here in the presence of God or established his home.

July the 8th, 1838. On this date, Joseph Smith received five revelations,

four of which are recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants.

The first of these, Section 117, we’ve already discussed.

It’s about Oliver Granger,

the First Presidency’s agent back in Kirtland.

I think it's significant, too, that Oliver Granger is told in this revelation to act in behalf of the First Presidency in trying to settle some of the debts that Joseph Smith had to leave behind or some of his unfinished business affairs.

And I think Oliver Granger was a dutiful and faithful servant and tried to do that.

Section 118 is another revelation of Joseph Smith given on July 8th, 1838. And this one is in direct reference to the fact that now the Lord has called the remainder of the Twelve to go on this mission,

the anticipated mission of the Twelve to Great Britain, the follow-up mission to that of Orson Hyde and Heber C. Kimball.

And they, of course, were to take every effort possible to prepare themselves so that they could leave their families by—

excuse me—April 26th, 1839.

And they were to commence that mission by taking their departure from Far West, on that date, from the spot of the Lord’s Temple,

the Far West temple site.

The Church as the Saints gathered there to Far West and have money enough to pay for its expenses and to acquire all the land they want to acquire and these other concerns.

So consequently, the bishop and his counsel in the Church

reviewed ways that they could raise funds. And one of them was that they would impose upon the Church

a tithe of two percent of all the assets that they had as they came into the county from Kirtland and from other places in the East.

This was considered and evaluated and some proposals were made.

And then the Prophet Joseph Smith, under revelation, came up with

the Lord’s answer to their concern. And that revelation

is this. Joseph asks a specific question:

“Oh, Lord, show unto thy servant how much

thou require us all the properties of thy people for a tithing.” Answer: “Verily, thus saith the Lord,

I require all their surplus property to be put into the hands of the bishop of my Church of Zion,

for the building of mine house,” the temple,

“and for the laying of the foundation of Zion

and for the priesthood, and for the debts of the Presidency of my Church.

And this shall be the beginning of the tithing of my people.”

Now, most of them didn’t have much surplus, but they would have some.

The revelation continues on with the second part.

“And this shall be the beginning of the tithing of my people,” as I said. And after that,

“those who have thus been tithed shall pay one tenth of all their interest annually.” And so the two aspects of the law, as was given then, was to surrender their surplus,

number one, and number two, then subsequently to pay a tenth of all their earnings in the future. This was not just a temporary program, and this was also not just

an inferior law. The Law of Consecration and this is really an extension of the Law of Consecration,

they are to consecrate their surplus.

We do not do that today, but they were asked to do that then because of the great need,

and they were to consecrate a tenth of their income from then on. And that is the beginning of the law of tithing in the Church.

Now, you'll remember that the revelation had told the Saints about the temple that they were to begin work on the fourth of July next.

Well, in accordance with that, they held a grand patriotic celebration.

Joseph Smith opened the ceremony with prayer,

after which they decided to do a dedication of each of the cornerstones, beginning with the southwest corner—excuse me, southeast cornerstone. It was on this occasion that Sidney Rigdon gave his famous July 4th sermon. Very, very patriotic.

Talking about, of course,

the faith of the forefathers and the history of the

the founding fathers of this country, and it's very, very patriotic. Unfortunately, at the very end,

he became a little bit vitriolic

and said some things that were not wise.

George Robinson was probably Joseph Smith’s clerk and recorded

for the Prophet in his journal. The statement, July the 4th, 1838.

“This day was spent in celebrating the fourth of July in commemoration of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America,

and also to make our Declaration of Independence from all mobs

and persecution which have been influenced upon us.”

Now, the Church will like it so much that the Church newspaper, The Elders Journal, will publish it in a pamphlet form

and be published and circulated throughout the Church, and of course, by others as well.

And they'll read it and and will emphasize certain parts,

the parts perhaps that they will read and emphasize are these.

He says, in effect, “mobs are not to come upon us again.”

And Sidney continued, “and that mob that comes on us to disturb us

it shall be between us and them, a war of extermination,

for we will follow them until the last drop of their blood is spilled,

or else they will have to exterminate us,

for we will carry the seed of war to their own houses

and their own families,

and one party or the other shall be utterly destroyed.”

And so it was unwise, but nonetheless, it was part of the temple dedication activities.

In just a little over three months,

Sidney Rigdon volatile words would echo in an order signed by Missouri Governor Lilburn W. Boggs.

“The Mormons,” he said,

“must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the state if necessary for the public peace.

Their outrages are beyond all description.”

Next week on the Joseph Smith Papers: War in Northern Missouri.

I’m Glenn Rawson.

Thanks for joining us.