PHOTO ESSAY

The Prophet Joseph and his fellow prisoners escaped from the Liberty Jail on April 6, 1839. One intrepid Latter-day Saint, Israel Barlow, had been pushed out of Missouri and ended up 50 miles north of the main body of Latter-day Saint refugees who were in Quincy, Illinois. He found out from Isaac Galland, a local land agent at Commerce, Illinois, that large tracts of land were available to be purchased there on the banks of the Mississippi River and got word to Joseph. Land was purchased for the formation of a city.

One of the pre-existing homes that stood on the land there in Commerce was this small 16 x 19 foot cabin (just the log section of this). Joseph and Emma, their four children, Joseph Smith, Sr., Lucy Mack Smith and other family members moved into this the last part of April and early part of May, 1839.

Because there was so much malaria in the swamp land that was Commerce, Illinois, this Homestead was deluged with poor Latter-day Saints who needed care and tending. Emma saw to their needs in a herculean effort to bring them comfort and hope. Soon after their arrival, the Prophet Joseph renamed the town Nauvoo, a Hebrew word right out of Joshua Seixas grammar book (his Hebrew teacher in Kirtland) that means a beautiful place or “to be comely.” The name gave the refugee saints a new vision of what this place could become.

At one point in July 1839 there were hundreds of Latter-day Saints camped around this, the Smith Homestead cabin. Then on July 22, “[Joseph] arose from his bed and commenced to administer to the sick in his own house and door-yard, and he commanded them in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to arise and be made whole; and the sick were healed upon every side of him.”

With the cabin only being 304 square feet on each of two floors, the Smiths determined to expand their living area. An addition was built first on the north side of the cabin (away from the river). This would give them room to entertain guests and for Joseph to have more room for study and prayer.

One of the most significant items in this cabin is Emma’s walking stick that you can see leaning there in the corner. Most of the items in this home are just period pieces, but this stick is authentic to the family.

The west wing of the Smith Homestead, distinguished by the white clapboard construction, was built by Joseph Smith III, the oldest living son of Joseph and Emma. This was built long after the martyrdom.

It appears that Section 124 of the Doctrine and Covenants was received in this room of the Homestead. This is the longest section in that book of scripture and gives the commandment to build the Nauvoo House and the Nauvoo Temple.

There is a trap door in this room on the wood floor that leads to a cellar where the Prophet Joseph would often have to hide to avoid extrication by his enemies to Missouri.

It appears that Sections 125 and 129 were also given in this home. If not in this home, they could have been given in Joseph’s office in the Red Brick Store (which building was also purchased on March 5, 2024).

Two of Joseph and Emma’s children were born here in this home: Don Carlos Smith (named after Joseph’s beloved brother), June 13, 1840 and a stillborn, unnamed son, February 6, 1842. Emma loved Don Carlos so much and he would only survive 14 months. She always longed for him. Joseph Smith Sr. (the Prophet’s father) died in this home September 14, 1840.

Here you can see the addition that was built on the north of the original cabin. That area to the right is the dining and great room area of the house where you just saw the table and chairs.

This view is from the north looking south from Water Street. The small log structure on the right is the summer kitchen.

Looking southeast from Water Street you can see the Homestead and the edge of the Nauvoo House.

Located at the end of Main Street, the Nauvoo House was built by commandment of the Lord (see Doctrine and Covenants 124:56-61) for “the boarding of strangers” and “unto my name.” In those days there was a dock here and goods could be loaded off of a riverboat and transported by wagon on Main Street to the Mississippi River at the north end of Nauvoo and reloaded to avoid the rapids.

The original Nauvoo House foundation extended to where I am standing and taking this photograph. In the southeast cornerstone of the building, Joseph placed the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon. The seal on the stone was imperfect and so much of the manuscript was weather and moisture damaged. Only about 28% of the original manuscript survived and was already in possession of the Church in Salt Lake City. This significant southeast cornerstone was also purchased on March 5, 2024.

The Prophet Joseph donated the property for the Nauvoo House and sold stock for the construction. The $100,000 building was to be “L form, presenting a front on two streets of 120 feet each, 40 feet deep, and three stories high, exclusive of the basement story.” Only the foundation and part of the first floor were completed during Joseph’s lifetime.

Emma Hale Smith and her second husband, Lewis Bidamon, moved into this, the Nauvoo House and they renamed it the “Riverside Mansion.” Emma lived in the room where you see the right window. Here she died on Wednesday, April 30, 1879, almost 35 years after Joseph. Shortly before she died, in this upper room, Emma had a vision not only of her husband, Joseph, and the celestial kingdom, but of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The stone used for the foundation of the Nauvoo House was taken from the same quarry as the stone for the original Nauvoo Temple. The quarry is located just north of the city.

Just west of the Homestead, where Joseph lived the majority of his time in Nauvoo, is his Red Brick Store. This building, though a reconstruction, is built on the original site and foundation.

The Prophet Joseph had the Red Brick Store constructed in 1841. Just like the Newel K. Whitney Store in Kirtland, the Red Brick store became a center of economic, religious and much social activity among the Saints. Joseph’s natural charitable and benevolent self extended too much credit to his hard-hit friends and so the business itself did not do well.

Community of Christ has used the store on the ground floor for years to sell items like these hurricane lamps to tourists. Our tours always came here and they loved to do a little shopping for candy, soft drinks, pioneer bonnets or pioneer games. With accounts and extent records we know approximately what the store looked like in Joseph’s day and we have photographs of the original building dating to the late 1800’s.

The Prophet’s office was located here in the Red Brick Store. For some time, the original sign that hung over his office was there. This may be the original, I just cannot document it from this exact photograph.

Hyrum Smith had taken the original written revelation of Section 132 to show to his sister-in-law, Emma Smith, and tried to convince her of the truth of it (which contained verses about plural marriage). Emma took the revelation in hand and threw it in the fire and burned it. In this room the Prophet Joseph dictated, from memory, the entire text of Section 132 to his secretary, William Clayton, as it stands today. The tall desk on the left was a gift from Newel K. Whitney to Joseph Smith III as an encouragement for the boy to become more bookish and learned. This desk was not part of the recent purchase of items by the Church.

In this upper room of the Red Brick Store the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo was organized on Thursday, March 17, 1842. Emma Hale Smith was unanimously nominated and elected as President of the organization and she chose Sarah Cleveland and Elizabeth Ann Whitney as her counselors. Emma said, “we are going to do something extraordinary— when a boat is stuck on the rapids with a multitude of Mormons on board we shall consider that a loud call for relief— we expect extraordinary occasions and pressing calls.”

Twenty women were present in that organizing session, with the Prophet Joseph and apostles John Taylor and Willard Richards as well. A look at those original members is like a walk through the history of the Church: Emma Smith, Sarah Cleveland, Elizabeth Ann Whitney, Leonora Taylor, Eliza R. Snow, Nancy Rigdon, Bathsheba Smith, Sophia Marks and twelve others. What a glorious day to see the foundation of one of the oldest and largest women’s organization in the world, with over 7 million women in over 188 countries.

Just 48 days after the organization of the Relief Society, the first endowments were given in the upper room on the Red Brick Store on Wednesday, May 4 and Thursday, May 5, 1842. Fearing his life would be taken before the Nauvoo Temple was completed, Joseph Smith called a handful of men to arrange the upper room of his Red Brick Store to represent “the interior of a temple as much as the circumstances would permit.” Joseph administered the endowment for the first time here to a group of nine men. “We have received some precious things through the Prophet on the priesthood that would cause your soul to rejoice,” Heber C. Kimball wrote to his fellow Apostle Parley P. Pratt, who was not in Nauvoo when the endowment was first given. “I cannot give them to you on paper for they are not to be written.”

Joseph and Emma had been through many temporary homes and living spaces in their 17 years of marriage, but finally on Thursday, August 31, 1843, they were blessed to move into what they called The Mansion House. The home that now exists is original, but much of the larger portion (the east wing) of the 22-room home was taken down. Joseph would only live in this home less than 10 months before he was killed. Joseph and Emma’s last child, David Hyrum, was born five months after the martyrdom in this home. This was part of the purchase on March 5, 2024.

When the Church determined to add church historical photographs to the triple combination of the scriptures, eighteen significant locations were chosen, including Joseph and Emma’s Mansion House. You can find that picture in Study Helps, then Church History Photographs, then number 13.

Initially, Joseph and Emma used their home to entertain guests in Nauvoo, giving visitors free room and board. However, because he was unable to cover the expenses that this free lodging entailed, they began charging guests in September 1843 and running the Mansion House as a hotel.

The Prophet Joseph posted a sign on the front of his house on September 15, 1843 which read: In consequence of my house being constantly crowded with strangers and other persons wishing to see me, or who had business in the city, I found myself unable to support so much company free of charge, which I have done from the foundation of the Church. My house has been a home and resting place for thousands, and my family many times obliged to do without food, after having fed all they had to visitors; and I could have continued the same liberal course, had it not been for the cruel and untiring persecution of my relentless enemies. I have been reduced to the necessity of opening “The Mansion” as a hotel.

Somewhere near this spot, Joseph and Emma parted each other for the last time as the Prophet was being taken by his captors to “the only safe place in Hancock County,” — The Carthage Jail.

Emma emphatically asked Joseph as he was leaving for Carthage, “Joseph, you will return, won’t you?” Joseph could not answer her. Joseph hugged his four-months-pregnant Emma and his four children and he turned his face eastward to Carthage where he and his brother Hyrum would suffer death by an angry mob.

Much of this home is original, including the front stoop seen here. Joseph and Emma entertained innumerable guests here in this home.

I always like to think of the Prophet Joseph in this room as just a Dad. I love to think of him letting his children play “horsie” on his knees. I love to think of him just loving his children and his wife for the short time he lived here.

The Egyptian mummies that Joseph had purchased from Michael Chandler in Kirtland were on display in this home. Lucy Mack Smith, the Prophet’s Mother, was the caretaker of the mummies and she charged 25 cents for anyone to see them. From these mummies came the papyri with the writings of Abraham and of Joseph of Egypt. Part of those would become the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price.

In this parlor, Joseph and Emma would entertain dignitaries including Josiah Quincy and Charles Francis Adams, son of former U.S. president John Quincy Adams. Sometime after this visit, Quincy would write of the Prophet Joseph: “It is by no means improbable that some future textbook, for the use of generations yet unborn, will contain a question something like this: What historical American of the nineteenth century has exerted the most powerful influence upon the destinies of his countrymen? And it is by no means impossible that the answer to that interrogatory may be thus written: Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet. And the reply, absurd as it doubtless seems to most men now living, may be an obvious commonplace to their descendants. History deals in surprises and paradoxes quite as startling as this.”

In the upper floor of the home is Emma’s original trunk and two or three other original items unique to Joseph and Emma. There is a narrow, hidden, built-in ladder in one of the upper closets where Joseph sometimes would quickly scamper up into a small attic space and there hide from his enemies. Joseph, by decree from the city council, was given 40 body guards to protect him from those who wanted to harm him.

With extreme irony, on the day of the martyrdom, Emma was entertaining and feeding Governor Thomas Ford in this room. At the same time he was at her table (and he knew what was going to happen) the Prophet Joseph and Hyrum were killed in Carthage.

John Lyman Smith, first cousin to Joseph, was staying with Joseph and Emma, and he recalled this story: “In my early years I used to often eat at the table with Joseph the Prophet. At one time he was called to dinner. I being at play in the room with his son Joseph, he called us to him, and we stood one each side of him. After he had looked over the table he said, ‘Lord, we thank Thee for this Johnny cake and ask Thee to send us something better. Amen.’ The corn bread was cut and I received a piece from his hand. “Before the bread was all eaten, a man came to the door and asked if the Prophet Joseph was at home. Joseph replied he was, whereupon the visitor said, ‘I have brought you some flour and a ham.’ “Joseph arose and took the gift, and blessed the man in the name of the Lord. Turning to his wife, Emma, he said, ‘I knew the Lord would answer my prayer.’”

Emma worked tirelessly in this kitchen and had heeded the counsel of the revelation given to her in Harmony, Pennsylvania: “…thou shalt lay aside the things of this world, and seek for the things of a better.” Lucy Mack Smith wrote of her daughter-in-law, Emma: “I have never seen a woman in my life who would endure every species of fatigue and hardship from month to month and from year to year with that unflinching courage, zeal, and patience which she has ever done; for I know that which she has had to endure-she has been tossed upon the ocean of uncertainty-she has breasted the storms of persecution, and buffeted the rage of men and devils, which would have borne down almost any other woman.”

Joseph said, “If men do not comprehend the character of God, they do not comprehend themselves.” With his visions and heavenly instruction, he came before an unbelieving world with boundless riches in his hands, new vistas of comprehension. He once said, with a bit of irony, that if he were a false teacher, he could “be hailed as a friend, and no man would seek my life.” He had instead the burden of being a prophet, teaching in a simple, straightforward, noble manner that left no room for contention. It may have been here in this room on June 22, 1844 that Joseph said: “The way is open. It is clear to my mind what to do. All they want is Hyrum and myself. . . . We will cross the river tonight, and go away to the West.” His life would be ended five days later in the Carthage Jail.

The graves of Hyrum, Joseph and Emma are very proximate to the Smith Homestead. The Smith Family Cemetery was not part of the purchase of the Church on March 5, 2024. There are more than 25 members of the Smith family buried here, most of whom do not have marked graves. By August of 1844, just over a month after the martyrdom, Lucy Mack Smith had lost her husband, seven of her eight sons, three daughters-in-law and eight grandchildren. Emma could not bring herself to leave the graves of her husband and her precious Don Carlos here in Nauvoo.

Nauvoo is a place full of stories, of history, of pathos, of sadness and of much joy. Nauvoo is a place of contemplation and reflection. Nauvoo represents a season where the Saints had to do really hard things and face tremendous trials. Nauvoo will always be sacred and holy ground and will ever stand as a memorial to the Latter-day Saints.