Though the Church was formally organized in 1830, it could be asserted that the ecclesiastical expansion of the Kingdom of God on earth did not take root and begin to flourish until February 1849 — 150 years ago this month.
It was on Feb. 22 that the original 19 wards in what was then known as Great Salt Lake City were organized. Boundaries of wards south and north of the city were established six days previously on Feb. 16. Since 1849, the Church has grown steadily and globally in fulfillment of the prophecy of Daniel about the stone cut out of the mountain without hands. (See Dan. 2:34, 45; D&C 65:2.)
Some of the wards in the areas of the original ones in the Salt Lake Valley are observing the sesquicentennial of those early wards this month.
As recorded in Journal History of the Church, an unpublished, day-by-day account comprising various journal excerpts, information about the organization of the wards in the Salt Lake Valley is somewhat meager, not going far beyond naming the wards and the bishops called to preside over some of them. But from a study of the historical background and surrounding events, a dynamic picture emerges.
Brigham Young's party had first entered the valley just 19 months earlier, on July 24, 1847. He returned to Winter Quarters, and in December of that year, the First Presidency was reorganized in Kanesville, Iowa.
Thereafter, Church leaders were largely engaged in conducting the main body of the Church to the valley settlement, the new center of Zion. (See "First General Epistle of the First Presidency" in Messages of the First Presidency edited by James R. Clark, vol. 1, p. 350.) (Such gathering to the Intermountain West would continue until approximately the turn of the century, after which Church members were encouraged to remain in their homelands to build up Zion.)
By early 1849, four forts had been erected in the new city, composed mostly of log houses, and the new settlers had cultivated a common farm about 12 miles long and one to six miles wide. They had weathered two harsh winters, a cricket infestation and renegade Indian hostilities. (See Clark, pp. 350-51.)
And they had undertaken some public works projects essential for a new settlement, including a two-story Council House, a bridge across the Jordan River to the west, and a warm-spring bath house. The forts began to break up as residents moved their houses onto city lots. (See Clark, pp. 352-353.)
A few events of an ecclesiastical nature set the stage for the organization of wards in the valley. (See Clark, p. 354.) John Smith, uncle to the Prophet Joseph Smith, had been presiding over the Great Salt Lake Stake of Zion. On Jan. 1, 1849, he was ordained patriarch to the Church, succeeding Joseph Smith Sr. and Hyrum Smith in that calling.
On Feb. 12, Charles C. Rich, Lorenzo Snow, Erastus Snow and Franklin D. Richards were called to the Quorum of the Twelve, filling vacancies created by the reorganization of the First Presidency and by the disfellowshipment of Lyman Wight, who had fallen away from the Church.
Immediately thereafter, the First Presidency and the Twelve organized the Great Salt Lake Stake with Daniel Spencer as president and David Fulmer and Willard Snow as counselors. A high council, high priests quorum and elders quorum were also organized.
In a terse entry, the Journal History records that Church leaders on Feb. 14 agreed to divide the city into 19 wards of nine blocks each.
As for areas south and north of the city, the Journal History entry for Feb. 16 recounts: "In a meeting of the Quorum of the Twelve, the following division of Great Salt Lake Valley into wards was decided upon. The county lying south of the city and east of the Jordan River was to be organized into four wards, to wit, Canyon Creek Ward embracing the five-acre survey and all east of it; Mill Creek Ward embracing the 10-acre survey and all east of it; a third ward embracing the country between the 10-acre survey and the Cottonwood Creek; and a fourth (Mississippi ward) embracing all south of the Cottonwood.
"The country lying west of the Jordan River was to be organized under the name of Canaan Ward. The settlers north of the city and east of the Jordan and the [Great Salt] lake were to be organized into three wards as follows: the first to embrace the country lying north of the city so far as to include Sessions' settlements, the second to embrace the country between Sessions' settlements and the Weber River, the third to contain the Brown Settlement on the Weber (Ogden)."
Canyon Creek Ward later was called Sugar House Ward, a name that is retained today for that area of the Salt Lake Valley. Canaan Ward became West Jordan.(See Andrew Jenson, Encyclopedic History of the Church, p. 760.)
And the term "Mississippi ward" referred to a settlement of Church members who had journeyed to the valley from Mississippi in 1848 under the direction of Apostle Amasa Lyman. Some time in 1849, the ward was organized with William Crosby as bishop and became known as the South Cottonwood Ward. (See Jenson, pp. 812-813.)
The wards to the north from the edge of the Salt Lake Valley and beyond were later called Bountiful, Centerville, Farmington and Ogden.(See Jenson, p. 760.)
By Feb. 22, 1849, the city had been sectioned off to the point that the organization of the 19 wards could commence. According to the Journal History, the First Presidency, the Twelve and others met at the home of George B. Wallace. There, they ordained and set apart these men as bishops of the respective city wards: David Fairbanks, First Ward; John Lowry, Second; Christopher Williams, Third; William H. Hickenlooper, Sixth; William G. Perkins, Seventh; Addison Everett, Eighth; Seth Taft, Ninth; David Pettigrew, Tenth; Benjamin Covey, Twelfth; Edward Hunter, Thirteenth; John Murdock, Fourteenth; Abraham C. Smoot, Fifteenth; Isaac Higbee, Sixteenth; Joseph L. Heywood, Seventeenth; and James Hendrix, Nineteenth. A number of brethren were set apart as counselors to the bishops on that day.
Though their boundaries were defined, not all of the Salt Lake City wards were organized on Feb. 22, 1849. The Fifth Ward, for example, received no bishop until 1853, because there were only a few scattered settlers in the district up to then. (See Jenson,p. 743.) For a time, some unorganized wards remained dependent upon the leadership of organized ones.
The designation of Church (and for a time, political) divisions as "wards" stemmed from the days of the Church in Nauvoo. In Illinois of the 1840s, it was usual for municipalities to be sectioned into wards for governing.
But the Nauvoo wards were not precisely like wards in the Church today. And though there were bishops charged with seeing to the temporal affairs of the Church, the role of bishop as it is known today had not fully developed.
That development was nurtured in Winter Quarters, on both the Iowa and Nebraska sides of the Missouri River, where President Young called bishops to look after the poor, especially the families of men who had enlisted in the U.S. Army as part of the Mormon Battalion.
Now, on this day of ward organization, such a duty evidently was still on President Young's mind. The Journal History records: "President Young advised to first fence the city by wards and wished the bishops to gather up the poor and look after them, and each bishop to provide food for the poor of his own ward, and not depend upon the bishops of other wards."
Not just the temporal, but also the spiritual welfare of Church members concerned President Young. Latter-day Saints today will recognize in his instructions to Presiding Bishop Newel K. Whitney the organization of loving, pastoral watchcare that bishops are to have for their flocks.
As recorded in Journal History of Feb. 16, 1849, President Young wrote: "I instructed Bishop . . . Whitney to organize the lesser priesthood. I advised that the best high priests, the most substantial men, be set apart to act as teachers under their bishops or presidents, so that the bishops might have their wards perfectly visited and like little children, and that the high priests might take young men with them, that they might also have experience in teaching. The bishops' counselors also might act as teachers in their wards."
In time, wards in the valley would grow so numerous that the Salt Lake Stake would be divided and multiply many times over. And stakes and wards, based on that original 1849 pattern, would proliferate around the world. Today, there are more than 25,000 wards and branches spanning the globe.