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Articles/Essays – Volume 35, No. 3
Friendly History | Glen M. Leonard, Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, A People of Promise
Glen Leonard’s long-awaited history of Nauvoo is friendly history at its finest. It gently questions some deeply held beliefs about the Saints’ tumultuous sojourn at the fringes of western Illinois. The writing is read able and engaging, the meaning clear. The tone is respectful, the analysis charitable, especially of some of the city’s more notorious residents. It should be required reading for all inquisitive students of Latter-day Saint history.
I was fascinated by Leonard’s discussion of Nauvoo’s growth as a city, including its economic make-up and demographic profile, as well as by his discussion of the city’s problematic involvement in municipal, county, and statewide politics and elections. His treatment of the induction of a large portion of the city’s adult male population into Masonry answers many questions about this unlikely alliance. (His admission of Masonry’s “mythic” ancient origins is particularly welcome [315].) His description of the temple endowment, and mention of the fullness of the priesthood ordinance, is equally illuminating (257-61). His analysis of the Council of Fifty and its narrow role in the church is noteworthy (and makes a convincing case for the release of this not-so-secret body’s minutes). His discussion of Joseph Smith and plural, or celestial, marriage is at once sensitive and frank.
I was captivated by his narrative of Joseph’s decision in mid-June 1844 to return to Nauvoo rather than to es cape to the west (a recital that does not blame his wife, Emma), and eventual removal to Carthage Jail; his downplaying of some of the myths sur rounding Joseph’s martyrdom; his treatment of the stand-off between Brigham Young and Sidney Rigdon for control of the church (and his conclusion that Hyrum Smith had been Joseph’s designated successor); his portrayal of Nauvoo after Joseph; his recounting of the church’s preparations prior to its departure into the wilderness (and the fact that its leaders did not know precisely where they were going until less than two months before leaving); and his description of the exodus from Nauvoo, the Desolate City (618).
While my own knowledge of Nauvoo is limited, I did note several relatively minor errors. Jane Law was married to William, not Wilson, Law (145). Missouri ex-governor Lilburn W. Boggs was wounded in 1842, not 1843 (320). Theodore Turley was not the second polygamist in Nauvoo (346). (Evidence now demonstrates that Turley married his first plural wife in March 1844.) Eliza and Emily Partridge are called orphans, but in fact only their father had passed away when they moved into Joseph and Emma Smith’s house; their mother, Lydia, did not die until 1878 in Utah (348). Again on page 348, the best evidence now suggests that both John E. Page and Lyman Wight contracted plural marriages prior to Joseph Smith’s death. Francis M. Higbee brought suit against Joseph Smith in May 1844, claiming that Joseph had slandered him, not that Joseph had attempted to seduce Nancy Rigdon (361). (Joseph’s proposals to Nancy in 1842, and their fallout, did remain for Francis a wound that never healed). Finally, it was Hyrum Smith, not his brother William, who read Joseph’s revelation on celestial marriage to the Nauvoo High Council in August 1843 (363).
The best history is always heuristic; and Leonard’s is especially stimulating. For example, he concludes that Joseph Smith did not translate the Kinderhook Plates (212). Yet William Clayton, writing in his diary, doesn’t seem to leave much room for doubt when he recorded on 1 May 1843: “Prest J[oseph]. [Smith] has translated a portion and says they contain the history of the person with whom they were found & he was a descendant of Ham through the loins of Pharoah king of Egypt, and that he received his kingdom from the ruler of heaven & earth.”[1] On the other hand, Leonard refers to Joseph’s Book of Abraham project, not as a translation, but as a revelation, explaining, “Joseph Smith’s biblical studies relied more upon supernatural knowledge than earth bound book learning” (211).
Leonard rejects Todd Compton’s conclusions regarding the total number of plural wives Joseph married during his lifetime (345). He favors not thirty-three wives, but twenty-eight, relying on the research of Danel Bach man and more recently of Scott Faulring and Richard Anderson. Curiously, Leonard does not cite Compton in this context (though he does list Compton’s book in the bibliography); Leonard does cite Faulring and Ander son, whose work appeared as a review of Compton’s book. Compton has responded to Faulring and Anderson, and I believe that Compton’s arguments are the more persuasive.[2]
Leonard is commendably balanced in his treatment of John C. Bennett, the traitor Mormons love to hate. However, he asserts without question that Bennett was excommunicated (248). Bennett always insisted that he first withdrew with Joseph’s blessing but that later the historical record was altered to read that he had been formally expelled. My own guess is that Bennett was allowed to withdraw but that the record was changed to read that the church had formally acted to expel him. Leonard also seems to imply that Bennett was alone in using Joseph Smith’s name to introduce women to his counterfeit of the prophet’s teachings. In fact, Joseph’s own younger brother William told at least two women that the prophet privately sanctioned such relationships.
Leonard also, in my opinion, simplifies the situation regarding Bennett and Orson and Sarah Pratt (352). He accepts the claim that Bennett at tempted to seduce Sarah. Yet Sarah blamed her own and Orson’s temporary withdrawal from church participation on Joseph’s overtures, not Bennett’s. Sarah’s biographer, Richard Van Wagoner (whom Leonard does not reference), concluded sixteen years ago that Sarah’s name was not associated with Bennett until after Orson had confronted the prophet. I think the evidence better accommodates the conclusion that Joseph did in fact invite Sarah to become his plural wife during Orson’s absence to England but per haps (and this is a big “perhaps”) only to “test” her virtue.
Leonard’s treatment of the succession of Brigham Young as de facto president of the church is thorough and reasonable. As already mentioned, he believes that Joseph appointed Hyrum as his successor. Leonard also believes that the Quorum of the Twelve was Joseph’s next choice, that the possibility of alternative options may have been viable at specific moments in church history, but that by 1844 Joseph had arrived at certain conclusions about his successor. Leonard may be correct. Still, it is not as apparent to me that Joseph had managed sufficiently to foresee the need for a successor. I wonder if Joseph actually believed that he would die a young man. I think the evidence is compelling that he fully expected he would live to lead his church into Texas or the Pacific Northwest. The Twelve may have been, in retrospect, the most logical or prepared choice to succeed Joseph, but I’m not entirely convinced that’s what Joseph actually had in mind.
Finally, a concluding thought on Leonard’s use of sources. While his notes and bibliography seem comprehensive, they in fact omit reference to some works that, to my mind, are conspicuous by their absence. I realize that Leonard may not have had sufficient time to review all relevant works, or may have felt their contents were not germane, or perhaps he or his publisher did not want to draw the attention of his target audience to some works, for whatever reason. I have already noted his partial omission of Compton’s In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith. Other omissions include: M. Guy Bishop’s articles “”What Has Become of Our Fathers?’ Baptism for the Dead at Nauvoo” and “Eternal Marriage in Early Mormon Marital Beliefs”; Martha Sonntag Bradley’s Four Zinas: A Story of Mothers and Daughters on the Mormon Frontier; David John Buerger’s Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Mormon Temple Worship (or his two Dialogue articles on the same topics); Andrew F. Ehat’s BYU master’s thesis, “Joseph Smith’s Introduction of Temple Ordi nances and the 1844 Mormon Succession Question”; Scott Faulring’s An American Prophet’s Record: The Diaries and Journals of Joseph Smith (though Leonard does cite Dean Jessee’s editions of Joseph’s diaries); Michael Homer on “Mormonism and Masonry”; Myrtle Hyde’s Orson Hyde: The Olive Branch of Israel; D. Michael Quinn’s The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power (though Leonard does reference three of Quinn’s published articles); and Richard Van Wagoner’s Mormon Polygamy: A History and his Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess. (Reference to the latter would have greatly bolstered Leonard’s discussion of Rigdon’s “mood swings” [447].)
Leonard’s sympathy for the Saints may be his greatest strength as well as, for more critically minded readers, his greatest weakness. Indeed, after reading Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, A People of Promise, it is difficult to think of a more persecuted, more misunderstood, but ultimately more honest and well meaning people in all of American history than the city’s Mormon population. Of course, this is debatable, and I believe Leonard would be the first to admit that most nontraditional religions would describe themselves using similar terms. I realize that Leonard’s interpretations occasionally differ from mine, even when we’re both reading the same sources. What I most appreciate is his ability to make the hopes and aspirations of Nauvoo’s Saints comprehensible. Leonard has helped me to feel what it was like to have walked the same muddy streets as Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, and Brigham Young, John C. Bennett, William Law, and Wilson Law, Emma Smith, Eliza R. Snow, and Lucy Mack Smith. And I am grateful for the experience.
Glen M. Leonard. Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, A People of Promise (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book/Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2002). xxiv, 828 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index.
[1] Quoted in George D. Smith, ed., An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clay ton (Salt Lake City: Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, 1991, 1995), p. 100.
[2] See www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/7207/rev.html.