The Settlement Of Nauvoo

Smith's leadership was now to have another illustration. Others
might be discouraged by past persecutions and business failures,
and be ready to abandon the great scheme which the prophet had so
often laid before them in the language of "revelation"; but it
was no part of Smith's character to abandon that scheme, and
remain simply an object of lessened respect, with a scattered
congregation. He had been kept advised of Galland's proposal,
and, two days after his arrival in Quincy, we find him, on April
24, presiding at a church council which voted to instruct him
with two associates to visit Iowa and select there a location for
a church settlement, and which advised all the brethren who could
do so to move to the town of Commerce, Illinois. Thus were the
doubters defeated, and the proposal to scatter the flock brought
to a sudden end. Smith and his two associates set out at once to
make their inspection.

The town of Commerce had been laid out (on paper) in 1834 by two
Eastern owners of the property, A. White and J. B. Teas, and
adjoining its northern border H. R. Hotchkiss of New Haven,
Connecticut, had mapped out Commerce City. Neither enterprise had
proved a success, and when the Mormon agents arrived there the
place had scarcely attained the dignity of a settlement, the only
buildings being one storehouse, two frame dwellings and two
blockhouses. The Mormon agents, on May 1, bought two farms there,
one for $5000 and one for $9000 (known afterward as the White
purchase), and on August 9 they bought of Hotchkiss five hundred
acres for the sum of $53,500. Bishop Knight, for the church, soon
afterward purchased part of the town of Keokuk, Iowa, a town
called Nashville six miles above, a part of the town of Montrose,
four miles above Nashville, and thirty thousand acres in the
"half-breed tract," which included Galland's original offer, and
ten thousand acres additional.

Thus was Smith prepared to make another attempt to establish his
followers in a permanent abiding-place. But how, it may be asked,
could the prophet reconcile this abandonment of the Missouri Zion
and this new site for a church settlement with previous
revelations? By further "revelation," of course. Such a
mouthpiece of God can always enlighten his followers provided he
can find speech, and Smith was not slow of utterance. While in
jail in Liberty he had advised a committee which was sent to him
from Illinois to sell all the lands in Missouri, and in a letter
to the Saints, written while a prisoner, he spoke favorably of
Galland's offer, saying, "The Saints ought to lay hold of every
door that shall seem to be opened unto them to obtain foothold on
the earth." In order to make perfectly clear the new purpose of
the Lord in regard to Zion he gave out a long" revelation" (Sec.
124), which is dated Nauvoo, January 19, 1841, and which contains
the following declarations:--

"Verily, verily I say unto you, that when I give a commandment to
any of the sons of men to do a work under my name, and those sons
of men go with all their might and with all they have, to perform
that work and cease not their diligence, and their enemies come
upon them and hinder them from performing that work, behold, it
behooveth me to require that work no more at the hands of those
sons of men, but to accept their offerings.

"And the iniquity and transgression of my holy laws and
commandments I will visit upon the heads of those who hindered my
work, unto the third and fourth generation, so long as they
repent not and hate me, saith the Lord God.

"Therefore for this cause have I accepted the offerings of those
whom I commanded to build up a city and house unto my name in
Jackson County, Missouri, and were hindered by their enemies,
saith the Lord your God."

This announcement seems to have been accepted without question by
the faithful, as reconciling the failure in Missouri with the new
establishment farther east.

The financiering of the new land purchases did credit to Smith's
genius in that line. For some of the smaller tracts a part
payment in cash was made. Hotchkiss accepted for his land two
notes signed by Smith and his brother Hyrum and Rigdon, one
payable in ten, and the other in twenty years. Galland took
notes, and, some time later, as explained in a letter to the
Saints abroad, the Mormon lands in Missouri, "in payment for the
whole amount, and in addition to the first purchase we have
exchanged lands with him in Missouri to the amount of $80,000."*
Galland's title to the Iowa tract was vigorously assailed by Iowa
newspapers some years later. What cash he eventually realized
from the transaction does not appear.** Smith had influence
enough over him to secure his conversion to the Mormon belief,
and he will be found associated with the leaders in Nauvoo
enterprises.

* Times and Seasons, Vol. II, p. 275.

** "Galland died a pauper in Iowa."--"Mormon Portraits," p. 253.


The Hotchkiss notes gave Smith a great deal of trouble.
Notwithstanding the influx of immigrants to Nauvoo and the growth
of the place, which ought to have brought in large profits from
the sale of lots, the accrued interest due to Hotchkiss in two
years amounted to about $6000. Hotchkiss earnestly urged its
payment, and Smith was in dire straits to meet his demands. In a
correspondence between them, in 1841, Smith told Hotchkiss that
he had agreed to forego interest for five years, and not to
"force payment" even then. Smith assured Hotchkiss that the part
of the city bought from him was "a deathly sickly hole" on which
they had been able to realize nothing, "although," he added, with
unblushing affrontery for the head of a church, "we have been
keeping up appearances and holding out inducements to encourage
immigration that we scarcely think justifiable in consequence of
the mortality that almost invariably awaits those who come from
far distant parts."* In pursuance of this same policy (in a
letter dated October 12, I84I), the Eastern brethren were urged
to transfer their lands there to Hotchkiss in payment of the
notes, and to accept lots in Nauvoo from the church in exchange.

* Millennial Star, Vol. XVIII, p. 631.


The name of the town was changed to Nauvoo in April, 1840, with
the announcement that this name was of Hebrew origin, signifying
"a beautiful place."*

* In answer to a query about this alleged derivation of the name
of the city, a competent Hebrew scholar writes to me: "The
nearest approach to Nauvoo in Hebrew is an adjective which would
be transliterated Naveh, meaning pleasant, a rather rare word.
The letter correctly represented by v could not possibly do the
double duty of uv, nor could a of the Hebrew ever be au in
English, nor eh of the Hebrew be oo in English. Students of
theology at Middletown, Connecticut, used to have a saying that
that name was derived from Moses by dropping 'iddletown' and
adding 'mass.' "


Next: The Building Up Of The City - Foreign Proselyting

Previous: The Reception Of The Mormons

	Report Privacy
ADD TO EBOOK

Viewed 3566