Their tough experiences produced definite impactsboth short- and long-termon Missouri and Illinois, on the course of the Church, and on individual members.[1]. Sidney Rigdon had been released in January. The group then included one man, two women, and children ages seven, four, three, and one. . That is her divine mission. Emma Smith, My Story Removes False Traditions On horseback, he, fellow Kentuckian David Lewis, and Elias Higbee endured December snows, cold, and meager food to reach Quincy, Illinois. [41] Jesse and Whittaker, Albert Perry Rockwood Journal, 34. It's Official: Mormon Founder Had Up to 40 Wives . They appear, so far as we have seen, to be a mild, inoffensive people, who could not have given cause for the persecution they have met with. City leaders and residents suddenly had to deal with a humanitarian crisis thrust upon them. Bidamon was support for Emma in raising her five children. Soon after starting, her eyes became infected, so Martha Smoot walked beside her and led her along for five or six days. On two additional occasions she was driven from her home at the threat of her life.". [107] In todays currency, that equals $52,325,000 total, or $77,000 per petitioner. Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. Susan Easton Black and Richard E. Bennett (Salt Lake City: Millennial Press, 2000), 134. Latter-day Saint historian looks at 'complicated' life of Emma Smith The poem praised those Who have put forth your liberal hand to meet / The urgent wants of the oppressd and poor! In 1841 Joseph and Hyrum Smith and Sidney Rigdon, the First Presidency, issued a proclamation of appreciation, saying, It would be impossible to enumerate all those who in our time of deep distress, nobly came forward to our relief and like the good Samaritan poured oil into our wounds and contributed liberally to our necessities as the citizens of Quincy en masse and the people of Illinois generally seemed to emulate each other in the labor of love.[112], In Quincys Washington Park stands a simple historical marker erected in 1976 to memorialize the Saints exodus. John and his son Orrice walked. At least one man escaped west to Fort Leavenworth. Readers ask: Which Lds Apostle Wife Reject? - stbartsestes.org When morning came, he and Abraham Smoot crossed to Quincy, leaving their families with the wagon. [115] Joseph Smith and Others to Edward Partridge and the Church, March 25, 1839, in Times and Seasons, May 1840, 102, and July 1840, 13132. So Levi rigged up a foot lathe and soon had two hubs turned out and built a cart. After deliberating on the best means to finish the job, we have thought that considering the bad state of the roads, the expense of ferrage in consequence of high water, that the teams are all nearly worn out, and the brethren here very poor and very much scattered that the best solution was to forward the remainder of the poor brethren by water. By contracting with a steam boat, the poor brethren might all be removed at once and the Far West committee would be free to get out of the state. By 1838 Quincy had a strong population base of sixteen hundred residents, mostly Germans and New Englanders, and several industries and businesses, including its share of coopers and cabinet-makers, saddlers and leather-makers, and a pork packing and meat processing center. Quincy was on its way to prosperity. In the past three decades, there has been more published about Emma Smith in official church channels, including the new Daughters in My Kingdom manual, which mentions her very positively as the founder of the Relief Society, and the Gospel Doctrine manual for church history, which holds her up as an examplesomewhat reproachfullyof how to support ones spouse. Emma, as she often did, was searching the home for Joseph when he and a girl were missing. In 1842, when the Ladies' Relief Society of Nauvoo was formed as a . It was enough to make the heart ache to see the children, sick with colds, and crying around their mothers for food, whilst their parents were destitute of the means of making them comfortable.[21], Northwest Missouri winters can be harsh. Isaac Laney said the committee had moved all but thirty or forty families when armed men from Daviess County ordered him and others to be out of the County by the next Friday night which was giving us Six dayes for to do that that Requird a month. So the committee urgently hired teams and sent families to Tenneys Grove, twenty miles away, with a minimum of personal belongings. That is a great question! Their chief settlement was Far West in Caldwell County. Her family stayed behind after the Saints went West, and Elizabeth eventually remarried, the same year that Emma remarried. Richard Bushman writes of the poisoning accusation: Through the late fall and winter of 1843 and 1844, Joseph and Emma's relationship broke down only once. At the same time, much of the Church's debt was held by Joseph as a private citizenthus, Emma was liable for Joseph/the Church's debts, but had a less clear claim on the Church's lands that Joseph held as Trustee-in-Trust.[3]. [80] The Mormons, Quincy Whig, March 2, 1839. Time and again, she was uprooted, often without warning and frequently without time to pack her belongings. Hope this helps! Her judgment lies in God's hands, not in ours or Brigham Young's. During Sunday dinner on November 5, Joseph became ill, rushed to the door, and vomited so violently that he dislocated his jaw. On Nov. 4th, astoundingly, Richard McCarty obtained a warrant for the arrest of the men who had caught him in the act of looting the Gilbert store, charging them with assault and false imprisonment. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. Her fugitive son Samuel came from Quincy and arranged for a ferryman to take the Smith party across. How come Joseph Smith's wife, Emma, joined the RLDS church instead of He was not sufficiently educated to write the translation of the plates, so while he translated through the Holy Ghost, she wrote his words. He also owned and rented out ten or twelve small houses he had built. " Delewski said. Shortly, twelve mobbers with rifles entered the tithing office and broke windows, tables, chairs, and seventeen clocks into matchwood. One threw iron pots at Theodore Turley, hitting him in the shoulder. In addition to grieving the loss of her husband, she was expecting their final child. Today, the world is divided into two, torn apart on whether or not to believe the story due to the lack of evidence. [97] During a change of venue from Daviess to Boone County, Joseph Smith and the four others who had been in Liberty Jail were allowed to escape on April 16, and they found their way to Illinois safely. Her financial state was precarious because there had not been a clear line between the family money and the church money, with Joseph often going into debt to help support the church. One of the other items was a photograph of a family member that was mislabeled as being Emma. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. Many of them started from scratch and built up religious communities in Illinois and Iowa. She is known in Church history for being well educated and was able to act as a scribe for Joseph when he was translating the plates because of it. The way that current materials deal with the conflict with Brigham Young is . Governor Boggs infamous extermination order remained a stain on Missouris character for 137 years until June 25, 1976, when Missouri governor Christopher S. Bond signed an executive order rescinding it. Grant Building Her love for Joseph was still quite deep, as was her love for her children.". 1856Emma takes in orphaned Elizabeth Agnes Kendall, eight years old, and rears her as her own daughter . Emma served as a scribe during his first efforts to translate the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smiths parents. Adams County, organized in 1825, was named after John Quincy Adams, who that year became Americas sixth president, and the town of Quincy received his middle name. Fugitive John Butler, in Quincy, learned of their arrival, and he rowed across the river in a canoe, dodging ice. A number of teams arrived from Illinois to help move the last families. Tears roll down Emily Rennie's face as she recalls a church counsellor telling her she needed to give up her child for adoption because he was conceived out of wedlock one of the most . "Of these 13 locations, only four of them could be called her own," Delewski said. She was finally confirmed in August 1830. He crossed the river and found some hundred of the brethren waiting for the new ferry boat to be completed, which was done the next day. Along the way, he said he had to stop among strangers with my daughter who had given birth to a child on the prairie.[64] Elisha Whiting said his family was driven in the month of March through cold storms of snow and rain, having to make our beds on the cold wet ground which when we arose in the morning we often found drenched with water and then obliged to load our wet bedding into the waggon and move slowly forward.[65], About March 18, Wilford Woodruff, in Quincy and newly back from a mission, went to the river and looked across and saw a great many of the Saints, old and young, lying in the mud and water, in a rainstorm, without tent or covering. On 23 December 1847, Emma Smith married Lewis Bidamon, who was not a member of the Church. [36] With Joseph Smiths approval, leaders in Far West decided to sell Church properties in Jackson County to help raise money for the exodus. [26], Some opinions downstate held that Mormons would not have to leave at all. Joseph Smith in Northern Missouri, 1838 - Religious Studies Center [103] Kenney, Wilford Woodruffs Journal, 1:330, entry for May 4, 1839. Jannalee worked as a writer and editor at LDS Living for seven years before hanging up her press badge and starting the journey of stay-at-home motherhood. Some of Emmas friends, as well as many members of the Smith family, alienated themselves from Youngs followers. [118] Dean R. Zimmerman, I Knew the Prophets: An Analysis of the Letters of Benjamin F. Johnson to George F. Gibbs Reporting Doctrinal Views of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young (Bountiful, UT: Horizon, 1976), 1011. Newel Knight had a wagon but no team. [108] According to calculations found in Samuel H. Williamson, Six Ways to Compute the Relative Value of a U.S. Dollar Amount, 1790 to Present, MeasuringWorth, 2008, a dollar in the year 2007 is 29.99 times what a dollar is 1839 was worth based on consumer price indexes. [60] Eliza R. Snow to Esqr. By Scott D. Pierce. [56], The Hammer family. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. She was baptized for the dead on behalf of her mother and sister. Emma Hale Smith - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Emma Smith was born in 1804 in Pennsylvania. Brigham interpreted Emma's refusal to answer as an admission of guilt.. Joseph and Emma Smith's sorrow over this matter was, for the most part, very private, according to Delewski. Conflicts between church members and neighbors also continued to escalate, and eventually Young made the decision to relocate the church to the Salt Lake Valley. Those refer to the meter used in the hymn text. . She said she was sorry to see the Mormons suffer so much and be driven from their homes. The refinement, the charity of our age, will not brook it. [19] John P. Greene, Facts Relative to the Expulsion of the Mormons or Latter-day Saints from the State of Missouri, Under the Exterminating Order (Cincinnati: R. P. Brooks, 1839), 8. [39] Joseph Holbrook said that Saints understood that if the Church would make haste and move as fast as possible it would [do] much to the relieve our brethren who were now in jail as our enemies were determined to hold them as hostages until the church left the state so that every exertion was made in the dead of the winter to remove as fast as possible (Life of Joseph Holbrook, 46). There can be no question, though, that she made sacrifices far beyond what most Mormons would be asked to make, and that she experienced more than her fair share of suffering. Church Service When Joseph returned to Harmony, he received a revelation for Emma, now known as Doctrine and Covenants 25, calling her an elect lady and encouraging her to comfort and support Joseph in his afflictions. However, she was never really an active member of that church, nor did she become active in any other church. Emma and Josephs descendants grew up separated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She wrote to him that only God knew how hard it was for her to flee her home with her children, abandoning all her possessions and leaving her husband to endure whatever was to come. Out went everything by the log, Martha said, the looking glass by a stump. That night Martha, soon to give birth, became ill, so Daniel rigged up a bed frame made of forked sticks and rope strands, and then drove in the frozen ground four six-foot poles topped by cross poles, hung quilts all around, and left openings at the bottom so the heat of the log fire would shine in to keep them warm. Their difficult trip to Mississippi River took twelve days: We had snow and rain every day but 2. After Brigham Young assumed a leadership role, he and his supporters considered Joseph Smith's physical property as property of the church. Such souls will have to suffer for the ill treatment of the Saints, he wrote, adding that they need not think that they will escape, for the Lord is just and He will punish those that have ill treated His children (Hartley, My Best for the Kingdom, 89). They lived with his family and then with hers for a time. She also learned how to cook and be a good host when her parents ran a boarding house. Memoirs of Joseph Smith III (18321914), ed. [91] On April 18, when a group of anti-Mormons found him at the public square, they threatened to blow his brains out and tried to ride over him with their horses. I found my family in good health though in the mud and snow half a leg deep in the camp. They were enough to wear out any woman and if she, in the end, was tired of fighting her way through life, that can be understood. These souls, by and large, were poor, bedraggled, and sickly. Whats especially interesting to me about the unfolding historiography of Emma Smith is that she herself would have been happy with the disappearance of polygamy and Josephs other wives from Mormonisms official party line. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent. [8] Lavina Fielding Anderson, ed., Lucys Book: A Critical Edition of Lucy Mack Smiths Family Memoir (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2001), 69192. Levis nearly five-year-old son Mosiah recalled, The snow was deep enough to take me to the middle of the thigh, and I was bare footed and in my shirt tail. They hitched their horse old Tom to the cart, Mosiah said, and father drove the horse and carried the rifle on his shoulder. [125] Photocopy of order, filed June 25, 1976, copy in authors file; also see transcript in LDS Church News, July 3, 1976, 4. Emma: Because it was the price of faith. [5] Meanwhile, a militia force headed to Adam-ondi-Ahman, made the Mormons there surrender, and on November 10 gave them ten days to relocate to Far West or elsewhere in Caldwell County. The episode seems to have been a family quarrel between Joseph and Emmatwo mortals living in something of a fishbowl, under enormous pressures and strains. We had not the privilege of hunting our cattle and horses.[14] Newel Knight noted that because the Saints were unarmed, they became prey for small parties of armed men insulting our women, driving off our stock, and plundering. To him it seemed as though all hell was aroused to do us injury.[15] Newels cousin Reed Peck said that some horses, wagons and much other property were stolen from the Mormons by some of the militia who were villains enough to plunder.[16] By late November, most crops around Far West were unharvested, and potatoes still in the ground were frose solid. Soldiers rifled through homes, Albert Rockwood said, and our sheep & hogs, & horses [are] drove off before our eyes by the Missourians who come in small companies well armed.[17], In neighboring Daviess County, Missouri militia ordered all the Saints out and gave William Huntington and eleven other Mormons four weeks to round up the Latter-day Saints livestock, wagons, and personal property.