Excavating Nauvoo: The Mormons and the Rise of Historical Archaeology in America

1. The Origins of the Restoration of Nauvoo

Chapter 1 The Origins of the Restoration of Nauvoo Approximately 150 miles north of St. Louis, the Mississippi River bends around a wide and flat peninsula in Illinois. It was here that early members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, founded the city of Nauvoo (map). From 1839 to 1846, Nauvoo was the center of the lds Church. At its height, approximately 12,000 Latter-day Saints lived in the hundreds of brick, frame, and log homes of the city, a population that rivaled Chicago’s as the largest in Illinois at the time. In many respects Nauvoo was like any other thriving, bustling, frontier city of the mid-nineteenth century, complete withblacksmiths,coopers,wheelwrights,tinsmiths,shoemakers , brickyards, gunsmiths, printers, postmasters, and store clerks. However, atop the bluff that overlooks the floodplain on which the city grew up stood an imposing temple. Visible from miles away, the temple served as a constant reminder to both inhabitants and passers-by that Nauvoo differed in an State of Illinois showing the location of Nauvoo. 15 the origins of the restoration of nauvoo important way from other frontier settlements at the time. Here was the headquarters of a peculiar and persecuted religious group that had originated some twenty years earlier in the spiritual experiences of Joseph Smith Jr.1 Overview of Mormon History Joseph Smith Jr. was born in rural Vermont on December 23, 1805, to Joseph Smith Sr., a farmer, and Lucy Mack Smith, his wife.2 One of eight children, Smith was a poorly educated youth when his family moved near the town of Palmyra, upstate New York, in 1816, after having suffered financial hardships in Vermont. With their relocation to New York, the Smiths found themselves in the center of the religious revivalism that characterized the Second Great Awakening of the early nineteenth century. Historians have since described the region at this time as the “burned-over district,” a comment on the intense religious fervor that swept the area.3 This religious excitement troubled the young Smith. He later wrote, During this time of great excitement my mind was called up to serious reflection and great uneasiness . . . so great were the confusion and strife among the different denominations, that it was impossible for a person young as I was, and so unacquainted with men and things, to come to any certain conclusion who was right and who was wrong. . . . In the midst of this war of words and tumult of opinions, I often said to myself: What is to be done? Who of all these parties are right; or, are they all wrong together? If any one of them be right, which is it, and how shall I know it?4 Smith claimed to have received answers to his questions in the spring of 1820 when, while praying in a grove of trees near 16 the origins of the restoration of nauvoo his home, God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to him in a vision, instructing him not to join any of the churches then extant. Other heavenly visitors soon followed. In September 1823, an angel identifying himself as Moroni, an ancient American prophet, visited Smith and revealed to him the location of buried records with the religious and secular history of a Precolumbian New World civilization. The records were in the form of gold plates and were buried in a nearby drumlin identified as Cumorah. Although forbidden to retrieve the records until 1827, Smith dutifully visited the Hill Cumorah every ensuing year on the anniversary of Moroni’s first appearance, each time receiving further religious instruction from the angel. Persecution and ridicule grew once it was known that Smith claimed to have the records in his possession. Over the next two years, Smith met and married Emma Hale, moved from New York to Harmony, Pennsylvania, translated the ancient records, published the translation as the Book of Mormon, and moved again to Fayette, New York, because of oppositionfromhisantagonists.5 AllthewhileSmithcontinued to claim visitations from heavenly messengers, including John the Baptist and the apostles Peter, James, and John, from whom Smith professed to have received the holy priesthood. With the Book of Mormon in print and the priesthood in his possession, Smith officially organized what came to be known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on April 6, 1830.6 Early missionary efforts began to produce large numbers...