NAUVOO -- THE CITY OF JOSEPH
The information presented here provides a broad overview of this pivotal period of Church history.
Pre-LDS period
1800: Sac and Fox Indians lived in the area, which they called Quashquema.
1805-1819: Denis Julian is the first known settler in what is now known as Nauvoo.
1818: Illinois is granted statehood.
1819: Rufus Easton of St. Louis uses a license from the U.S. government to teach agriculture to the Sac and Fox Indians. His log house was at or near what is now called the Joseph Smith Homestead.
1824: Treaty with the Fox and Sac Indians – they ceded their rights of settlement and hunting to the United States. The tribe then crossed the river to Iowa.
In April, James White and his family settled into the area, and are regarded as the first Anglo settlers.
1829: Hancock County is organized.
Venus post office was established at the Nauvoo site.
The Nauvoo Peninsula was located at the head of the Des Moines Rapids, which stretched southward 12 miles to Keokuk, Iowa.
1830: More people began living in the region of the peninsula, which was named "Venus."
1834: Commerce City was founded and various lots and blocks were available to be bought and sold. The entire peninsula was known as Commerce, and the two, Commerce City and Commerce, were distinct entities.
1838: About 350 people had migrated to the peninsula. The region boasted a justice of the peace and a small cemetery. Houses of wood and stone had been erected as well as stores and a tavern (inn). The inhabitants of the peninsula roughly equaled in number the size of the neighboring hamlets Carthage and Warsaw. It was the largest center of population in Hancock County.
1839: Commerce City remained a mostly paper town as no lots were actually sold.
THE LDS PERIOD
1838-39: Latter-day Saints in the northern part of the state of Missouri are expelled and find refuge in Illinois and what would later become Iowa.
1839: Through the exploration of Israel Barlow in southern Iowa, Joseph Smith learns that lands "at the head of the rapids" in Illinois and across the river in Iowa Territory are available for purchase and concludes these regions should be the main places to gather.
1839: As the Church or its members have little hard money, they have scanty means to purchase properties. However, several arrange to exchange property owned by them in Missouri to the sellers, who accepted the properties in payment. It is not known if the sellers ever collected on the other properties. Joseph Smith and the Church assumed the debt and tried for years to liquidate it. Missionaries are sent to Mormons and non-Mormons in the East and South asking them to exchange their properties and many do so.
1839: The Church makes four purchases of land at the "head of the rapids" in Illinois, totaling nearly 660 acres.
April 1839: Joseph Smith and his family arrive in what is now Nauvoo in the spring. His home and large yard served as a place for many incoming saints to live in tents or wagons until more substantial housing could be obtained.
1840: Nauvoo was not immune from the sicknesses that often raged throughout the Mississippi River Valley. Nauvoo sexton records indicate that the children were the chief victims. Deaths by cholera, malaria and even measles were very common.
1840: Nauvoo was basically a wooden town – log cabins, log houses and frame houses to be seen everywhere. But soon brickyards were established. Some brick homes, barns and other out buildings were constructed. An average-sized home was 16 by 16 feet square. Dogs, pigs, chickens, flies and mosquitoes roamed at will.
Population jumped to more than 3,000, with citizens coming from every state in the union and Great Britain. Generally, one-third were from Great Britain.
Aug. 14, 1840: Joseph Smith, speaking at the funeral of Seymour Brunson, taught for the first time the doctrine of baptism for the dead.
October 1840: The general conference passed a resolution to begin the construction of a temple at Nauvoo. William Weeks, a self-taught builder, became the architect. Within 10 days, two limestone quarries were located, one in the northwest portion of the city and the other somewhere south of the city. The temple was to be built on land donated by a non-Mormon pre-Nauvoo resident, Daniel H. Wells. As the saints left for the West in 1846, he would join the Church and go with them on the western migration.
December 1840: The Illinois General Assembly passed the Nauvoo Charger, creating Nauvoo, one of five cities in Illinois. The city was an area of roughly six square miles.
Jan. 19, 1841: Joseph Smith received Section 124 of the Doctrine and Covenants, revealing the purpose of temple work.
April 6, 1841: Cornerstones were laid in a grand ceremony.
Construction continued steadily with limestone rocks blasted from quarry and hauled to temple site by wagon. Workers were obtained as members tithed their time, giving one day in 10 for temple construction. Women provided food and clothing for the workers and also donated precious heirlooms and coins to fund the construction. Eventual total cost of the building was $750,000.
August 1841: The 10 districts created earlier in the city to supply workers for the temple were organized into ecclesiastical wards, presided over by bishops, whose main responsibility was welfare.
Nov. 8, 1841: Temporary baptismal font in the basement of the temple is dedicated. On Nov. 21 ordinance work began and 40 people were baptized for their kindred dead.
March 17, 1842: The Relief Society is organized on the second floor of Joseph Smith's Red Brick Store on Water Street. The sisters then joined with the bishops in helping the poor and sick within the city.
Spring 1842: There were nearly 3,000 people living within the city limits. Many other LDS families, however, lived outside the city both nearby and far away.
Aug. 4, 1842: The first rafts carrying high-quality wood from Church-operated sawmills in the Black River area of Wisconsin arrive for the temple project.
Oct. 30, 1842: The first official meeting is held in the unfinished temple.
1843: Life continued in a routine of hard work during the week and worship on Sunday. Sunday meetings were really general meetings for the entire community lasting about two hours each, one held in the morning and one in the evening. They were held in open-air groves, one of which was west of the temple and another a few blocks east of the temple.
May-June 1843: Revelations on celestial marriage were received.
Spring 1844: Plans were made to explore the West, where Latter-day Saints could settle and preach to the Indians.
March-April 1844: Joseph Smith conferred the keys of temple work upon the Twelve Apostles.
Spring 1844: The people of Nauvoo nominated Joseph Smith to run for president of the United States and he accepted.
June 27, 1844: Joseph and Hyrum Smith were martyred by a mob in nearby Carthage, Ill.
Aug. 8, 1844: In a grove east of the temple, Brigham Young and the Twelve were sustained to lead the Church.
1845: Population of Nauvoo reached 15,000.
May 24, 1845: Capstone placed on the Nauvoo Temple.
Sept. 22, 1845: A meeting of antagonists held in Quincy, Ill., 60 miles to the south, results in orders for the Latter-day Saints to leave Nauvoo by the following spring.
Winter of 1845-46: Members try selling their homes to get funds to go west. Nauvoo becomes a city of wagon builders: homes were turned to shops where wagon covers were sewn; wheelwrights worked in several locations and wagon makers worked long into the night. They planned to leave as soon as "green grass would grow and water would flow."
Nov. 30, 1845: Attic story of the temple was dedicated for endowment work.
Dec. 10, 1845: First full endowment in the Nauvoo Temple given.
December 1845: Gov. Thomas Ford sent a letter suggesting that the U.S. government might not let the Saints go west. As a result, Brigham Young gathered about 1,000 individuals to go west in February of that year. It was a very bitter and snowy winter, and it took three weeks for this number to cross the Mississippi River, which had frozen.
February-June 1846: After the first group left voluntarily, many others wanted to travel with Brigham Young. Between February and June most of the Mormons who wanted to go west left the city.
September 1846: The poor and sick who could not leave the city remained behind. At this time a mob came in and the Battle of Nauvoo ensued. Several shots were fired on each side. Some Latter-day Saints were killed and it was at this time that the remaining Saints were forced from Nauvoo.
POST-LDS PERIOD
Oct. 9, 1849: Arson-caused fire destroyed the temple's interior.
March 1849: Etienne Cabet, head of a group of French socialists known as Icarians, brought his group from Texas where they had tried to form a communal society. They moved into the ready-made city, reaching a population of 1,200 at most. They purchased the temple, which had been partially destroyed by fire, and began rebuilding it.
May 27, 1850: A tornado knocked down the walls. The temple stones were used for other buildings around the city.
1856: Dissension split up the Icarians and they moved out in groups. In the next few years, the Icarians were gone.
Early 1860s: A group of German settlers took over the city and established a thriving wine industry.
1865: Nauvoo City Council ordered the remaining wall of the Nauvoo Temple taken down.
1884: LDS historian B.H. Roberts found the city "withering under a blight from which it cannot recover."
1905: Nearly a hundred members of the Church held a two-day conference. One, Lorin Farr, 86, had helped build the city. He found citizens eager to have the earlier residents return.
Wilford Wood, Bryant S. Hinckley and J. LeRoy Kimball would help bring that about.
February 1937: Acting for the Church, Wilford Wood purchased the Nauvoo Temple site for about $900.
1938: Bryant S. Hinckley wrote that Nauvoo would rise again and "annually thousands … will visit it."
1954: Dr. J. LeRoy Kimball began first restoration efforts on the home of his great-grandfather, Heber C. Kimball. He envisioned a restored Nauvoo, "a Williamsburg of the Midwest."
1962: The Church founded Nauvoo Restoration Inc., and appointed Dr. Kimball as president to restore the historical importance of the city.
1962-2000: More than a thousand acres have been brought to a park-like appearance with more than two-dozen historic buildings restored.
April 4, 1999: President Gordon B. Hinckley, the son of Bryant S. Hinckley, announced plans to rebuild the Nauvoo Temple on its original footprint.
Oct. 34, 1999: More than 5,000 people attended as President Hinckley broke ground for rebuilding the Nauvoo Illinois Temple.
VISITOR'S DESCRIPTION OF THE NAUVOO TEMPLE
Description of the deserted Nauvoo Temple, published in the Palmyra Courier-Journal Sept. 22,1847:
"It is nearly a mile from the landing, the most conspicuous, in fact the only conspicuous object in the city. It is built of white limestone. The front is ornamented with sunken square columns of no particular style of architecture, having capitals representing half a man's head. … On all sides of the temple are similar columns with similar capitals; the base of each column is heavy, but in good proportion and of fanciful design, which it would be difficult to describe. There is a basement with small windows. Ten steps lead to the font and only one entrance to the main building. Three arches enable you to a sort of vestibule, from which, by doors, you enter the grand hall, and at the sides are the entries to the staircases, to ascend to the upper apartments.
"The front of the temple is apparently three stories high, and is surmounted by an octagonal tower or steeple, which itself is three stories, with a dome and having on four sides a clock next below on the dome. There is a line of circular windows over the arched entrance, ornamented with carved work between each, and over that again a line of square entablature, on which is cut the following inscription:
THE HOUSE OF THE LORD
built by THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF
LATTER DAY SAINTS
commenced April 6, 1841
HOLINESS TO THE LORD
"A similar entablature is on the front of the interior vestibule, over the doors of the entrance with the same inscription. The letters are gilt…
" We were then taken to the very top of the building, and enjoyed there, for some time, a view of the surrounding country. … Coming down, we were ushered into the Council Chamber, which is in a large low room, lighted by one large half-circle window at the end and several small skylights on the roof. On each side are six ante-chambers, said to have been intended for twelve priests, councilors or elders … The chamber itself is devoid of ornament, and I was unable to ascertain if it intended to have any, or if it should have been completed.
"In the entry on each side of the door to the Council Chamber, is a room the wardrobe, where the priests were to keep their dresses. On one side was a room intended for a pantry, showing that the priests did not mean to go supperless to bed. Under the Council Chamber was another large hall, with seven windows on each side, and four at the farther end.
"On the lower floor was the grand hall for the assemblage and worship of the people. Over the window at the end was inscribed in gilded capital letters: THE LORD HAS BEHELD OUR SACRIVICE: COME AFTER. This was in a circular line corresponding to the circle of the ceiling. Seats are provided in this hall for the accommodation of thirty-five hundred people, as they are arranged with backs, which are fitted to the seats as in a modern railroad car, so as to allow the spectator to sit and look in either direction, east or west. At the east and west end are raised platforms, composed of a series of pulpits on steps one above another. The fronts of these pulpits are semi-circular and are inscribed in gilded letters on the west side, PAP, PPQ, PTQ, meaning we are informed the uppermost one President of the Aaronic Priesthood; the second, President of the Priests Quorum; the third, President of the Teachers Quorum; and the forth and lowest, President of the Deacons Quorum. On the east side are pulpits are marked PHP, PSR, PHQ, and the knowledge of our guide was no better than ours as to what these symbolic letters were for. [President of the High Priesthood, President of the Seventies, President of the High Priests Quorum.]
"We next descend to the basement, where is the far-celebrated font. It is in fact the cellar of the building. The font is of white limestone, of an oval shape, 12 by 16 feet in size on the inside and about four and a half feet deep. It is very plain and rests on the back of 12 stone oxen or cows, which stand immersed to their knees in earth. It has two flights of steps, with iron banisters, by which you enter and go out of the front, one at the east end, and the other at the west end. The oxen have tin horns and tin ears, but are otherwise of stone, and a stone drapery hangs like a curtain down from the front, so as to prevent exposure of all back of the forelegs of the beasts." (The Palmyra Courier-Journal, Sept. 22, 1847, from Nauvoo the Beautiful by E. Cecil McGavin, 1946)
ARSONIST'S CONFESSION OF BURNING NAUVOO TEMPLE
Editor's note: The subject of this narrative told this account many times and took some satisfaction in doing so. The reader is advised to consider whether or not it has been thus embellished.
The following article, under the heading "Burning of the Nauvoo Temple," was taken from the Fort Madison (Iowa) Democrat many years ago. I herewith reproduce it from my scrapbook.
George H. Rudsill, now of Bowling Green, Fla., but once a Ft. Madison boy, tells of the destruction of the Nauvoo Temple: "Mr. Agnew was in failing health at the time he came to me. He told me that he was going to die soon, which I thought was true. I asked him if he had repented of his wrongdoings and he smiled and said: 'Yes, all but one thing.' I asked what that was and he said it was the burning of the Nauvoo Temple. Says I: Did you do that? And he said: 'Yes, I did it with my own hands. Sit down and I will tell you about it,' which is as follows, as near as I can give it in his own words:
"The reason why I burned it was that there was a continual report in circulation that the Mormons were coming back to Nauvoo and we were afraid they might take it into their heads to do so, and as we had all the trouble with them we wanted, Judge Sharp of Carthage, Hyrum McCauley of Appanooce and myself of Pontoosue, determined the destruction of their Temple and by so doing they would not be able ever again to try and come back.
"So on the afternoon of the night that the Temple was burned, in order to make arrangements we three met on the prairie five miles south of Fort Madison, in Illinois, the judge coming from Carthage, the squire from Appanoose and I from Pontoosue, and we met about where the Mormon Church stood, five miles south of Appanooce, and there we pledged ourselves to destroy the Temple if it cost us our lives. … We decided to get the steward to show us through the Temple, and then watch our chance to get in our work. So we hid our horses in the bushes … a mile from town and walked in. We looked about town until 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and in the meantime had prepared a bundle of kindling by taking a corn stack and cutting armholes in it so I could put it on like a coat under my coat. I then stuck in as many tarred rags on sticks as I could carry without being noticed. I then put it on and secured some matches from a store to light my pipe and we were ready. We had but little trouble to find the steward and after laboring with him some time he at last consented to show us through the Temple. We claimed to be strangers in the country and were going away that night and it would be our last chance perhaps of ever having an opportunity to visit the Temple. So on these conditions he would oblige us. … So after a good deal of delay the key was at last inserted, it not seeming to fit, but at last the door swung open. We went in with a rush and kept a going, the man being left behind working with the door. He called out for us to stop but we kept on going and I noticed he left the door with the key in it.
"I stepped back in a side room, and the other two kept on. The man ran on after them and after he had passed me, I went back to the door and unlocked it and put the key in my pocket and then ran after them. By this time the man had discovered that I was missing, but when I came up to them and explained that I had stopped to look at the crucifixion he seemed to be satisfied but looked suspicious at me, and from that time on he would not allow us to stop but walked us right on around and out. It was getting dusk and we had no chance for me to light my fire and I saw that it was telling on my companions that they were bitterly disappointed when we were compelled to walk out. I told them to come on in haste, that we were late and would miss our boat that we were going on. So they came along and we stopped behind a house, where I told them what I had done, which made them the happiest fellows I ever saw. We had to watch but a few minutes until we saw the steward start away on a run and we knew he was going for a key or someone, and this was our chance, so leaving the judge and squire on guard, I ran back to the Temple.
"I started for the top which I soon gained and found a good place to start my fire where it would get a good start before it would shed any light and be seen from the outside. After seeing it start to success I began to retrace my steps with joy and a light heart, for I was sure that the Temple was as good as burned, with a chance for me to burn with it, for I had lost my way and did not know which way to turn to get out, although I had been through the Temple a number of times before. I had thought if I would succeed at last in getting out, that I would be sure to get caught by the steward, for he would soon be back and in all probability would have help with him, for I was certain that he would lay the missing key to us. You can imagine my feeling, being left in the burning Temple, and in case I did escape the fire I was sure of an arrest. I ran first one way, then the other, in hopes of gaining some passage that I would know so as to find my way out, but all to no purpose. I was getting worse lost all the time, and I could not tell one direction from another, for it was dark as an Egyptian night. At last I came to the stairway going up and I took it with the hope that it would lead me back to where I had started the fire and I could then take a new start. After going up two pairs of stairs and through many halls I came to a square turn and a light shown way down the passage in the opposite direction from what I wanted to go, but I thought it was best to go and see what it was or who it was, and I soon discovered that it was my fire which was burning at a fearful rate, sending its fiery tongue clear across the hall.
"I drew as near as I could and I happened to see Squire McCauley's bandana handkerchief lying on the floor a short distance from the fire on the opposite side of me. So I knew that my way led through the fire as that room was the end of our trip. Now what was I going to do? I knew no other way but through the fire. I became horror stricken. Was I to be burned up by my own hands? O God what shall I do? Not knowing as it were what I did, I threw my coat over my head and made a dive through that hell of fire, striking my full length on the floor and I rolled over and over until I got out of the reach of the fire. When I got to my feet I took off my coat and extinguished the fire that caught in the lining, after which I put it on again. With difficulty I tried to run, for I seriously hurt my arm and one of my legs from my fall on the floor, but was so excited at the time that I did not realize the pain until afterwards. With the assistance of a few matches I had, that I now thought of, I kept striking them along the way, and at last reached the door that I had been going through and found it standing open. The squire had come and thrown it open in hopes I might be able to see a star from without.
"They were satisfied that something had happened on account of my delay. You can imagine our feelings when I stepped through the door. I pulled the door to and locked it and ran away in an easterly direction, the judge and squire following. I was sore, lame and burned and almost choked, not being able to speak and when I came to a well about one hundred yards away, I drank and threw the key down the well. I then told the boys to scatter and to the horses, which they did. They got there long before I did for I was almost beyond going at all. After reaching the horses I told them the job was done and for them to go different directions and get home as soon as possible and avoid meeting anyone. They objected to leaving me as they were afraid I was hurt internally, which I was fearful was the case. I had inhaled the fire and thought my time had come. I told them to go that I would pull through all right. So the squire took the river road up the river to Appanooce 10 miles distant; the judge took the road to Carthage, about 16 miles distant to the south; while I took the prairie road in the direction of Pontoosue, 12 miles distant.
"After going about one-half mile, I looked toward Nauvoo and saw a flickering light and the next minute flames burst through the roof and lit up the country for miles as light as day. I put my horse into a dead run in the direction of the Missouri timber, which I gained in time without being seen, as the people on the road were all in bed, but I had no sooner jumped my horse over a fence into a field and secreted myself behind some bushes, when along came seven horsemen on their way to the fire, which had this time been discovered 20 miles around. After they had passed again, I tried to mount my horse, but found it impossible ad found my leg had swollen so that I could not walk. I was in a fix, sure enough. What to do I did not know, but I had to do something, so I got down on my hands and knees and crawled on toward a cluster of trees, leading my horse. When I arrived at the timber I fortunately found a large tree which had been cut down, leaving a high stump; crawling upon this stump I managed to get on the back of my horse, and went back, jumping my horse over the fence back into the road.
"I was suffering so terribly that I could but just cling to my saddle. I turned my horse in the direction of Squire McCauley's cabin, where I arrived just before daybreak, and found that the squire had got home nearly two hours before. He was surprised to be called out by me, but after giving him to understand my condition, he cried like a child. He took me in and hid me away for a week, where he and his wife cared for me as they would for one of their own until I was able to go about without suspicion….'
"So after nearly 50 years the true history of the burning of the great Mormon Temple is made known. The narrator of this story, as told by Mr. Agnew, was a small boy at the time of the burning of the Temple, living with his mother just west of Ft. Madison, Iowa, and he recollects seeing the light from the burning building on that memorable night. Over 20 years after the destruction of the Temple I became intimately acquainted with all the parties connected with this narrative."
–George H. Rudsill, Bowling Green, Fla.
(A few years after the burning of the Temple, Elders George A. Smith and Erastus Snow visited Nauvoo, and from Lewis A. Bidamon, landlord of the Nauvoo Mansion, were told that the inhabitants of several of the surrounding settlements – previous to the burning of the sacred edifice ¬– were jealous of Nauvoo, and fearing it would continue to retain its superior influence as a town, and the Mormons be induced to return, they contributed a purse of $500 which they gave to this man Joseph Agnew to perform the diabolical act, and that he was the wretch who set fire to the building. Mr. Bidamon told the brethren that the burning of the Temple did certainly have the effect of diminishing the importance of Nauvoo, for his hotel did not have one-fourth the custom after the burning as it had before the destruction of the magnificent structure.) From "Temples of the Most High," by N. B. Lundwall.
TORNADO STOPS ICARIAN RECONSTRUCTION
In 1849, a French group known as the Icarians, whose philosophy and beliefs were based on communal living, purchased the ruins of the Nauvoo Temple. They were led by Etiene Cabet, who had first attempted unsuccessfully to found a colony in Texas. After some delay they started work on the temple ruins in the spring of 1850, with the plan of converting the basement are to communal kitchens and dining rooms. They had only made a start on their work before another disaster, a tornado, struck the temple on May 27. Emile Valley describes it:
"The masons began to lay the foundation to rest the columns or pilasters to support the floors. … At 3 o'clock p.m. a distant report of thunder announced the approach of a storm. At their request I stepped out to ascertain whether it was a severe storm or not. Seeing only an insignificant cloud, I reported no danger. We continued to work. The basement of said temple was divided into small rooms one either side. Two of these rooms had been covered with boards. One on the north side to store green hides, the other on the south side to store tools. Suddenly a furious wind began to blow; four of the masons fearing the nonsolidity of the walls, left to seek shelter elsewhere. Seven of us remained, taking refuge in the tool room on the south side. If there is a Providence it was on our side, for hardly had we taken our position when the tornado began to tear small rocks from the top of the walls and flew in every direction. We became frightened. Some proposed to run away, others opposed it on the ground that it was dangerous, as those loose rocks could fall on our heads and kill us. Before we had decided whether we should stay or run, one of them that was watching exclaimed: 'Friends we are lost, the north wall is caving in!' And so it was. A wall 60 feet high was coming on us, having only 40 feet to expand. We fled to the southwest corner, deafened with terror. (History of the Experiment at Nauvoo of the Icarian Settlement, The Nauvoo Rustler, Nauvoo, Ill., n.d., pp. 8-9)
In addition to toppling the north wall, the tornado did such damage to the east and south walls that they were shortly pulled down as a safety precaution, and the Icarians transferred their efforts to the ground outside. They built a school building of temple stone that is still standing, and several frame apartments on the temple block.
For the next 15 years the ruined west front stood picturesquely, still considered worthy of note by visitors. Two artists' sketches and a tintype date from this period, and they show the massive masonry remains and the fallen blocks and rubble where the rest of the building had stood. During this time extensive stone salvaging went on, for use in local buildings. Finally the weakened ruin was demolished and the site filled in and leveled. The Carthage Republican on Feb. 2, 1865, reported:
"The last remaining vestage (sic) of what the famous Mormon temple was in its former glory has disappeared, and nothing now remains to mark its site but heaps of broken stone and rubbish. The south-west corner, which has braved the blasts of 10 or 15 winters – towering in sad grandeur above the surrounding buildings – a marked object for many miles, the shrine of the pilgrimage of thousands who have annually flocked to gaze in wonder and awe upon the beautiful ruin, – is no more. The eye of the stranger and traveler who approach the classic city of Nauvoo will no more rest upon the towering ruin that first gives notice of their proximity to the sacred soil, where once tread the hurrying feet of thousands of the 'Lord's anointed.'
"The old ruin has been in process of demolition at times during the past winter. One day last week a mine was placed beneath the remaining portion yet standing; and with the blast that followed the last of the famous Mormon temple lay prone and broken in the dust. We understand that the stone, much of which is uninjured, has been sold to parties who contemplate building residences and wine cellars. The facial and other decorations surrounding the columns are reserved by the proprietor, Mr. Dornseiff. Of the large number of decorations, stone carvings, etc., with which the temple was beautified, hundreds have been secured by curiosity seekers in all parts of the country; and numbers have even gone to Europe." (Carthage Republican, Feb. 2, 1865, from Rediscovery of the Nauvoo Temple.)
DETAILS FROM THE PAST PROVIDE A BLUEPRINT FOR THE FUTURE
By Carrie A. Moore
Deseret News religion editor
Like detectives working a major crime scene, they're piecing all the bits of evidence together, sorting through mountains of paperwork and rubble in search of the tiniest clues.
And in the process, the architects, sculptors and engineers charged with reconstructing the Nauvoo LDS Temple are rediscovering much about the dedication of their pioneer forefathers – and their own determination to restore a rich legacy of faith and 19th-century craftsmanship.
The challenge is as daunting as it is unusual.
Robert Dewey, former construction manager for the Nauvoo Temple, said when President Gordon B. Hinckley announced in April 1999 that the temple would be rebuilt, "the temple construction department had already prepared some preliminary drawings showing how it could be restored to function like a modern-day temple, but we didn't know we were going to get serious about it until he announced it."
At that point, there were no solid plans, leaving those charged with rebuilding it in a quandary about how they would restore the temple as it was originally. Dewey said they quickly assembled a committee of church members with historical interest and background on the temple to provide suggestions.
"Then we had people calling us with little bits of information, coming up with books now out of print" that provided clues. The accounts by researchers like Don Colvin, who did his master's thesis on the temple, were combined with journal accounts written by the builders themselves, describing what they experienced.
"Once we had that assembled, we started putting the puzzle together," Dewey said.
Using bits and pieces of evidence gleaned from hundreds of journal accounts, diaries, letters, archaeological excavations and even a construction materials roster kept by the original builders, architect Roger Jackson, a principal at FFKR Architects in Salt Lake City, spent the past eight months deeply immersed in research on how to recreate details of a building that was rarely photographed.
"There is no known photograph on one whole side of the temple," Dewey said, "and the available photos show only the building's exterior."
Even so, Jackson said the photos that do exist are invaluable. With vastly enlarged copies of the originals, Jackson and his team are using computer imaging to sketch out intricate architectural plans for 21st-century accouterments that weren't even though of in the 1840s: lighting plans, plumbing fixtures, electrical circuitry, electronic audio and video capacity, heating and cooling.
"There were some descriptions of the interior of the building," Jackson said. "As much as we can tell, the inside was very much like" the first temple constructed by Latter-day Saints under the direction of church founder Joseph Smith in Kirtland, Ohio.
Miraculously, Jackson does have the original architectural drawings done by William Weeks.
Dewey said the drawings were retrieved for the church in 1948, when two missionaries knocked at the door of a man who turned out to be the grandson of William Weeks. When he showed them the drawings and offered them, "the missionaries knew what they had, and (the plans) wound up in the Church archives."
Some 20-30 early sketches included "a framing diagram here, molding details, the corner of a stair section," are part of the cache of original documents that now undergird the project.
As Jackson and his team of 14 work feverishly to finish the plans and drawings, construction is already under way in Nauvoo, making the temple a unique "design-build project" – where builders begin before the plans are entirely finished. While builders plan to reconstruct the temples as much like the original as possible, they are using modern methods and reinforced concrete to make it earthquake- and water-resistant.
Ron Prince, construction project manager in Nauvoo, said the temple is resting on 67 concrete and steel caissons. Placed at various depths, they range from 2 to 5 feet in diameter and are placed anywhere from 10 to 26 feet deep to rest on limestone bedrock. Originally constructed entirely of limestone, the walls for the new temple will also be of reinforced steel with a thick limestone veneer. Because limestone from the original quarry is not available, Prince visited quarries all over the Midwest and into the Great Lakes region to find stone of the same color, quality and texture as the original. Several stonecutters have been employed fashioning not only the limestone blocks but the same sun-, moon- and starstones that graced the original temple's exterior.
The unique carvings were one feature that set the building apart from contemporaries of its day and have become a source of fascination for many who know something of the temple, its history and symbolism. Yet for all their mystique, they, too, have had to be reconstructed in exacting detail. They were among the first of the original temple's components to be dismantled and either carried away or defaced and destroyed by vandals, according to the researchers who have studied the building's history.
Sculptor and design artist LaVar Wallgren and his partner, James Dell Morris, have researched both the exterior stones and the oxen that support the temple's baptismal font to create patterns of the originals that will be used by the stone-carving craftsmen. The moonstones and starstones were easier to create patterns for because the remains of the originals were mostly intact. The sunstones and the oxen have presented a greater challenge, Wallgren said. Two original sunstones have survived, one of them housed in the Smithsonian, but both have been substantially damaged.
"The church museum had some segments of the stone, and we had photos to work from, but there was no common denominator between the different stones and the different information we had. It was very difficult to use some of the information because it didn’t correspond with some of the actual stone fragments," he said.
With the sunstone, "we had to literally recreate this whole pattern from what information we could use and make it acceptable to the architect," he said.
Sized to scale and made of fiberglass, the patterns for the exterior stones were crated and shipped to the selected stone quarry.
"They'll put them in a big machine and laser scan them to where over 60 percent of the stone can be removed by machine. Then the stone carvers will come in and finish them," Wallgren said.
The pattern for the oxen is still being refined, he said. It was constructed using only four small fragments of stone from the original oxen, coupled with written accounts of what they looked like and enhanced using diagrams of muscle structure and a plethora of photos taken of two bullock oxen at This Is The Place State Park.
The diagrams and photos line one wall above the workbench, where Wallgren has also fashioned removable horn and ear patterns with joint pieces that slip snugly into place, allowing the carvers more flexibility while carving the actual head. Once the horns and ears are carved separately and slipped into place, the joints will be filled with ground-up stone.
When finished, Wallgren said, the 12 oxen will be placed around the oval-shaped baptismal font 18.5 feet long and 12.5 feet wide, to be located in the basement of the structure on the original site. While the font's placement and other major structural components, such as the circular staircase, are part of the original architectural plans, reconstructing and other interior components has posed major challenges, in part because so little is known about the furnishings or interior décor of the building. Newspaper accounts from the mid-1800s describing the building were detailed, but conflicting reports have provided more questions than answers in some cases, Jackson said.
"Newspapers from the East would send these reporters to what was then the while frontier. The printed versions (describing the interior) are all conflicted. There are some puzzles that we've just taken our best educated stab at what they might have been. The frightening part is that some day someone may find things were different based on data they find then that we don't have now."
Another part of the challenge is that the original builders – all relatively new converts with little material wealth – purchased building supplies piecemeal, as they could raise the money to do so.
"Window glass, nails and iron pieces were all purchased as they progressed and building, and we have a very careful record of those," Jackson said.
The detail comes out of five large rolls of microfilm containing the records from construction materials the builders kept. But large items seem to be omitted from the record, Jackson said.
"We've been looking for big things that would jump out," he said, "but so far there haven't been any."
A detailed scouring of that record and the accompanying research to find original suppliers would take more than two years to complete – time the architect just doesn't have as walls begin to take shape back in Nauvoo.
Not only are the details missing, but Jackson must now incorporate fixtures and design work into the building that weren't there originally but that would fit well within the Nauvoo period. His biggest challenge is the lighting.
"We're looking at things like light fixtures before there was (electric) light, so we're trying to find things that are close or at least look close. They had very little light back then. Remember, they were reading by candlelight or a small oil lamp, sometimes in a very large room. Modern man today can't stand those kinds of light levels," Jackson said, and the temple requires an industry standard of lighting in addition to unique lighting levels needed for various rooms in the structure.
"Most of their meetings were held during the day in large assembly rooms with large windows," he said, much like the Kirtland temple looks today. "We're trying to meet the modern requirements within a historically sized and scaled fixture."
Jackson said he has found no evidence of murals or other wall decor in the original temple, and most of the interior adornment of large public buildings in the Midwest at that time involved "painted work" much like now exists in the St. George temple.
"Millwork details and trim pieces are listed" in written accounts of the interior, he said, "but not in the same terms we would use today. There's so much of it we don't know."
Another challenge involves electrical outlets and switches, which didn't exist in the original building. Jackson said the design involves disguising outlets in the baseboards around the floor. Unlike modern temples, which are carpeted throughout, much of the flooring itself will be oak to match the original. Laid over a concrete floor, the oak will be covered with the same types of rugs that existed during the period, he said.
Plumbing and duct work are also being designed for a building that didn't have them originally. In most areas it can be hidden, he said, but some of the smaller spaces that existed in the original temple had ceilings only 8 feet high, and duct work in such areas would make them even smaller, "so we'd have to shoehorn all that in," he said.
While the original had large assembly rooms with canvas dividers, the new temple must incorporate smaller ordinance rooms into the design as well. Prince said the temple's celestial room "goes up through two floors."
Other design features have been added to make the building a functioning modern temple, Jackson said, though most components will be as close to the original as possible.
Even the glass for the windows will be of the same quality and texture as the original, Prince said. The handmade panes are coming from a company in France that has been in business for more than 300 years.
"It will have a beautiful shimmering effect as the light hits it," Prince said.
Landscaping around the original building was believed to be virtually nonexistent, Jackson said.
"If anything, I think it would have just been swept dirt. They may have tried to plant some native grass, but it wouldn't have been the bluegrass that we love so much."
Jackson said the new building will feature "probably somewhat formal gardens not unlike what the church is already doing at Temple Square."
While much of the material ad labor going into the project are funded by the church, the reconstruction is so emotionally tied to the history of the early church that many church members have sought to donate materials and labor to the project, Prince said.
Stan and Mary Hemphill are working in Nauvoo as church service missionaries, coordinating the volunteer goods and services.
"We've had a number of volunteers … come forward from the time President Hinckley announced the building of the temple," Elder Hemphill said. "This is the first time volunteers have been used in construction of a temple since the Nauvoo temple was originally built."
Skilled craftsmen in all the major building trades are submitting their own time to participate in the project, he said. Each funds his own transportation, food and housing costs, in addition to a physical exam and personal insurance. The volunteers indicate the dates of their availability, and the Hemphills coordinate with the construction managers to schedule them at appropriate times.
Offers of material donations are screened to insure that the donors "are financially able so we don't bankrupt anybody," he said.
They are also screened for quality.
"Temple quality is the best you can get, and that's what's going into this building. The people donating materials understand that," he said.
While bids are still being accepted for many of the materials, offers to donate all the carpeting and the labor to install it have been made.
Elder Hemphill said, "We've also had people offer to donate doors, and another group that says they'll donate all the hardware for the outside doors."
One man has even offered to donate a portion of the roofing materials, plus the labor to install it and a warranty to go with it, Elder Hemphill said. Another has offered all the bark that will be used in the landscaping.
Steve Weber, LDS institute director in Bellevue, Wash., who has worked for 22 years as a contractor and carpenter building homes on the side, is now working as a volunteer at the temple. He left a wife and six sons in Seattle to spend eight weeks in Nauvoo, working on concrete pours by day and sleeping in his tent at a local RV park by night.
His enthusiasm and dedication to the work parallel that of the architects, engineers and designers as they take inspiration from the pioneers of the past in rebuilding what they consider to be the house of God.
Like many of his co-workers – both employees and volunteers – Weber said the project will always be a highlight of his life.
"This is very poignant and personal for me." (From Deseret News, July 2, 2000)
