Two Church Centers: Ohio and Missouri:
The first temple and the calling of the Twelve Apostles (1831-1838)
The Mormons in Ohio
Persecution dogged the Mormons in New York, where the Mormon Church had been founded in 1830. In late 1830, Joseph Smith received a revelation from God commanding him and the other Mormons to move to Kirtland, Ohio, where a strong congregation had sprung up. In January 1831, Joseph Smith and the first Mormons immigrants from New York arrived in Kirtland and greeted the new converts. Immediately, he and the other leaders began organizing and ordering the Church. In May that year, the other Mormons from New York came to Kirtland. This small town by Cleveland became the headquarters of the Church from January 1831 to December 1837. This period is one of the most important periods in Mormon history for doctrine and church organization. Edward Partridge was asked to be the first Mormon bishop and other officers were called. The quorums (a group of priesthood holders with the same office, e.g. Elders quorum) of the Twelve Apostles and the Seventy were organized and the first temple was built. Also, many of the revelations found in the Doctrine and Covenants were revealed in this time period.
In July, 1831, a revelation commanded Joseph Smith and others to go to Missouri. There the Lord revealed that Jackson County was the center place for the gathering of the Mormon Church. Throughout the next several decades, this idea of gathering was essential to Mormon teachings, and still plays a great role. Immediately the Mormon Church bought lands in Jackson County and many Mormons began immigrating there. Edward Partridge was assigned to stay in Missouri and lead the Church there. Newell K. Whitney became bishop in Kirtland. The Lord commanded the Mormons to buy land and divide it amongst the poor so that everyone could have a place of inheritance. All the poor among them were helped.
In November, the Mormons in Ohio began to collect the revelations received by Joseph Smith into one volume that would later be called the Doctrine and Covenants, though the original name was the Book of Commandments. The gathered revelations were assembled and members of the various priesthood quorums testified to its truthfulness. Joseph Smith also received at this time two more revelations. Section 1 was revealed that day to be the preface to the book and the other, now section 133 but then attached as an appendix, was a revelation about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
The next few years in Kirtland were both trying and glorious. Many revelations were received by the Prophet. In April, Joseph Smith was recognized and sustained as President of the Church. A newspaper was published called the Evening and Morning Star. The Church also purchased the scrolls that Joseph Smith translated as the Book of Abraham. However, many trials also came. Persecution continued by neighbors who feared the power of these new move-ins (both in Missouri and Ohio), and others spread scandalous libel about Joseph and other leaders. In March, 1832, on a cold night, Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon, a local convert who had become one of the leading spokesmen for the Church, were tarred and feathered. To make it worse, Joseph’s adopted infant son died from exposure caused the mob’s invasion of Joseph’s home. Joseph Smith and Emma would eventually have eleven children, six of whom would die tragically in infancy.
In 1833, the first Mormon temple was begun in Kirtland. The Mormons felt it was a commandment and blessing from God to build this temple, even though they were very poor at the time. Also near this time, Joseph received the revelation that came to be known as the Word of Wisdom. This revelation showed that alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and tea were harmful to the body and should be avoided. It also enjoined the use of wholesome herbs, fruits and vegetables, and encouraged people to eat meat sparingly.
Zion’s Camp
Meanwhile, the Mormons in Jackson County, Missouri were being persecuted and driven. They were expelled from their homes in November, 1833. After ineffectual appeals to local and state governments, Joseph Smith organized Zion’s Camp to aid the beleaguered Mormons in Missouri, which the Mormons called Zion. Ultimately Zion’s Camp included over 200 men and a couple dozen women and children, not to mention Joseph Smith’s dog. The aim was not a military offensive, but assistance and defense of the driven and persecuted Mormons. The members of Zion’s Camp suffered much along the way and when they arrived they found the members in Missouri already driven into Clay County, just north of Jackson County. Since the state refused to help the Mormons, even though they had been unjustly and illegally driven from their land, Joseph and the other leaders helped the exiles get temporary shelter in Clay County until more permanent possessions could be found. The good people of Clay County, though not desirous of having the Mormons live among them, nevertheless permitted them to recoup their strength for a time.
Returning from Zion’s Camp, Joseph Smith and other leaders organized the governing bodies of the Church. While the Zion’s Camp march had not achieved its aims to restore the expulsed Mormons of Missouri to their rightful lands, it did provide a fertile training ground for future Mormon leaders. Virtually all of the Twelve Apostles and the members of the Quorum of Seventy established at this time were drawn from the ranks of Zion’s Camp. As soon as the Quorums of both the Twelve Apostles and the Seventy were called and ordained to those positions by the Three Witnesses: Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris, they immediately left for missions. Later in August, 1835, the first copy of what was to become known as the Doctrine and Covenants was published under the name Book of Commandments.
1836 proved to be both a glorious and tragic year. The Kirtland Temple was completed in the spring and was dedicated in March. The day of dedication was like the day of Pentecost in the Book of Acts. Many reported seeing angels, speaking in tongues, and seeing visions. Others heard angels singing. In April, while praying fervently in the temple (usually referred to at the time as the House of God), Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery had vision of the Savior, Jesus Christ, and several of the ancient prophets. In November, several leading members of the Mormon Church, including Joseph Smith, established a type of bank called the Kirtland Safety Society. The Ohio State legislature refused to grant the bank a charter, as they had virtually every other new bank that year. Acting on counsel from their lawyers, Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon and several others reformed the society as an anti-banking society which permitted them to issue notes. Financial troubles caused by rampant speculation and a nationwide panic in 1837 led to the collapse of the Kirtland Safety Society. Many blamed Joseph Smith and called him a fallen prophet. Embittered former members stirred up persecution against the Church in the surrounding counties. In 1837, the Twelve Apostles left on missions to England, the first foreign mission of the Mormon Church. Meanwhile, a revelation came to Joseph that the Church needed to be in one body. He left in late 1837 for Far West, Missouri. The rest followed over the next few years, most of them in spring, 1838. The glorious days of Kirtland were over. The Church moved west.
Missouri Period: Zion and the Mormon War
The period of Mormon settlement in and their ultimate expulsion from Missouri figures as one of the most tragic periods in the history both of Mormonism and America. The Mormon Church’s experience in Missouri tested the American commitment to free exercise of religion, freedom to vote, and ultimately the ability of a democratic government to protect unpopular minorities. Mormons started gathering, as they called it, to Missouri as early as July of 1831, when Joseph received a revelation designating Jackson County, Missouri as the center place for the gathering of the Church. Edward Partridge was appointed to stay and lead the Church there, while Newell K. Whitney replaced him in Kirtland as bishop.
The Mormon Church now had two centers, one in Ohio and now this new one in Missouri. Soon, more Mormons lived in Missouri than in Ohio, even though the main leadership remained in Kirtland. The Mormons began buying land and establishing themselves in and around Independence in Jackson County. Many of the New York Mormons moved directly to Jackson County and stayed only briefly in Ohio.
Early on, however, the local Missourians became wary of the newcomers. Most Missourians were southerners and pro-slavery; most Mormons were northerners and anti-slavery. The influx of Mormons threatened to unbalance the political situation and local non-Mormon government leaders feared the Mormons would become politically too powerful. By July of 1833, Missourians threatened to expel all Mormons. The final straw came as the local Mormon owned newspaper, The Evening and Morning Star, published an editorial discussing the possibility of free blacks moving to Missouri. That same month, mobs attacked Mormons, tarred and feathered Mormon leaders and destroyed shops, homes, and the printing press that was being used to print Joseph Smith’s revelations. Mormon leaders agreed, under duress, that all Mormons would leave Jackson County, without compensation for their property, by April of 1834. Appeals to the government and the President of the United States went unheeded. This led Joseph Smith to launch the Zion’s Camp March.
The Mormons found temporary refuge in Clay County, Missouri, but the residents made it clear that they could not stay. In 1836, the residents of Clay County voted to expel the Mormons and the state government created Caldwell County for their home. The Mormons industriously built up new cities throughout Caldwell County, but their numbers swelled and they spilled over into Ray, Carroll, Clinton and Daviess Counties.
Mobs continued to attack outlying areas and some Mormons were fed up with running. A few organized defenses and retaliatory attacks. Sidney Rigdon, who had never fully recovered from his injuries sustained when he was tarred and feathered, delivered a fiery speech condemning the apostates and their enemies. Some took this as license to fight back. The battles escalated.
As the Mormons from Kirtland began arriving in Far West, the new headquarters for the Church, in early 1838, the Mormons were again mobbed by those who feared their growing power and their unusual beliefs. Some feared the Mormons would vote as a block. In August of 1838, Mormons attempting to vote in the town of Gallatin in Daviess County were attacked and kept from the polls. Wild rumors spread and both sides expected a full out war. A group of Mormons calling themselves Danites led by a recent convert named Samson Avard, began to fight back without Joseph or the Church either knowing or approving what they were doing. They maintained membership within the regular town militias which had been organized to protect the cities, but also pursued retaliatory attacks. Ultimately, many Danites were excommunicated. In October, Mormon Apostle David W. Patten was killed in a battle along the Crooked River in Ray County. Finally, on October 27, 1838, Governor Lilburn W. Boggs issued what later became known as the Extermination Order. It said, in part:
The Mormons 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. If you can increase your force, you are authorized to do so, to any extent you may consider necessary.[1]
Though not enforced after the 1830s, the Extermination Order remained on the Missouri law books until 1976. Three days after the order, a mob attacked the village of Haun’s Mill and massacred dozens of men, women and children. On October 31, 1838, Joseph Smith and several others were arrested. The militia leaders illegally condemned the men to death, but General Alexander Doniphan, a former state legislator and friend to Mormons, refused to allow it to be carried out declaring that such action would be cold-blooded murder. Moreover, he said, the militia could not condemn Joseph Smith, especially in absentia, because he was a civilian and therefore had to be tried before a civilian court. Doniphan promised that Joseph would have a chance at a trial. Joseph Smith and other leaders were imprisoned.
The Mormons were once more driven from their homes in the dead of winter. Brigham Young and the other members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles lead them to Quincy, Illinois where kind people took care of them. The leading Mormons signed a compact declaring that they would not rest until every Mormon was safely out of Missouri. Joseph Smith and a few others were forced to languish in jail until April of the following year. They were not permitted to see their families. After several abortive attempts at a trial, at which Joseph was forbidden from calling witnesses in his behalf, a kindly jailer let Joseph Smith and the others escape to Illinois where they rejoined their families.