Kirtland

The Temple of Promise

 To the Latter-day Saint the Temple is the place of highest communion with God.

It is ironic that the aura of holiness surrounding the opening of this sacred shrine should be sullied by charges  on intemperance against the Elders of Israel during the week of priestly rites following the dedication. The fever and excitement mounted as the services moved toward midweek. Joseph had promised the Saints a veritable Pentecost, and by Wednesday, when attendance was restricted to the male membership of the Church, nearly five hundred Melchizedek and Aaronic  priests closeted themselves in a session that lasted throughout the night. Joseph recorded that “it was expedient for us to prepare bread and wine sufficient to make our hearts glad, as we should not, probably leave this house until morning.; to this end we should call on the brethren to liberal contribution, and messengers were dispatched to bread and wine.”  “The brethren began to prophesy upon each other’s heads,” continued the Prophet, “and cursings”* upon the enemies of Christ, who inhabited Jackson county, Missouri; and continued prophesying, and blessing, and sealing them with hosanna and amen, until nearly seven o’clock in the evening.” “The brethren continued exhorting, prophesying, and speaking in tongues until five o’clock in the morning.” (The Life of Heber C. Kimball, p.100-106)  *Deleted when reprinted in History of the Church vol. 2, p. 431.

             During an endowment ceremony Clark Braden wrote: “In an endowment meeting held in the temple in 1836, wine was drank so freely that several of the church officials got beastly drunk. S.H. Smith, brother of the prophet, staggered into the pulpit and gave a revelation. Mormons claimed it was a wonderful miracle that a man so drunk could utter such a revelation! Smith soon got sick and spewed into a spittoon, and W.E. McLellin emptied it several times out of the window. It was on this occasion that one of the brethren, laying flat on his back so full of the spirit (of drunkenness) that he could not sit up, hiccoughed out: ‘Now is the time to see visions.’” (Braden Kelly Debate, p. 370)

             The following three statements on Temple conduct were obtained by Arthur B. Deming, and expose artist who interviewed old Kirtland residents in 1888. Isaac Aldrich told him: “My brother Hazen Aldrich, who was president of the Seventies, (a Mormon Priesthood office) told me when the Temple was dedicated a barrel of wine was used and they had a drunken ‘pow-wow.’ When any vomited they would sing to drown the noise.” Mrs. Alfred Morley too was blunt: “My husband, Alfred Morley, was a brother of Isaac Morley, who was a disciple and one of the Mormon leaders, and lived across the road from our house. I heard many Mormons who attended the dedication, or endowment of the Temple, say that very many became drunk. Jo Smith and Hyrum vomited in the pulpit, others vomited in the pews. The Mormon leaders would stand up to prophesy and were so drunk they said they could not get it out, and would call for another drink. Over a barrel of liquor was used in the service.” Stephen H. Hart quoted his Mormon friend Mr. McWhithey who claimed he was present at the dedication. He stated that “the Lord’s supper was celebrated and they passed the wine in pails several times to the audience, and each person drank as much as he chose from a cup.” McWhithey claimed “it was mixed liquor, and he believed the Mormon leaders intended to get the audience under the influence of mixed liquor, so they would believe it was the Lord’s doings.” (Naked Truths, p. 2-3)

             Two former high-ranking Churchmen, Benjamin Winchester and Apostle W.E. M’Lellin, offered striking details in their disclosures of the Temple raptures. Winchester visited Utah in 1889 and gave a candid two-column report on early Church history to the Salt Lake Tribune. Regarding the Kirtland affair he was unsparing: “That ceremony ended in a drunken frolic, one of the worst I ever saw. Joseph Smith became beastly intoxicated, and his father and his brother Hyrum begged that the wine should be taken away, so that the carousal might be stopped as soon as possible. I did no know Joseph to be what is termed ‘ a common sot,’ but that was not the last time I saw him intoxicated.” (The Daily Tribune, Salt Lake City, Sunday Morning, Sept 22, 1889).

             Apostle M’Lellin, as has been previously noted, was a sharp critic of the institution in which he had been a hierarch. In a statement published in the True Latter-Day Saints Herald, official organ of the Reorganized L.D.S. Church M‘Lellin reiterated his protest: “As to the endowment in Kirtland, I state positively, it was no endowment from God. Not only myself was not endowed, but no other man of the five hundred who was present -- except it was with wine.” (True Latter-Day Saints Herald, XIX, 437)

             M’Lellin’s disillusion was paralleled by David Whitmer’s. Whitmer of course had been an active participant at the Kirtland ceremonies and, reversing previous commitments, made this statement when  he was eighty-one: “The great heavenly visitation which was alleged to have taken place in the temple at Kirtland was a great fizzle. The elders were assembled on the appointed day, which it was promised would be a veritable day of Pentecost, but there was no visitation. No Peter, James, and John, no Moses and Elias put in appearance. I was in my seat on that occasion and I know that the story sensationally circulated, and which is now on the record of the Utah Mormons as an actual happening, was nothing but a trumped-up yarn. I saw a great many of these things which I knew were not right, but I clung on in patience, trusting everything eventually would be put right.” (quoted in Saints’ Herald, XXXIII, 705)

(Note: the Endowment spoken of above in nothing like what is practiced today).

            In the near disintegration of the Church in the final days at Kirtland many of the chosen turned against their once beloved leader. Trusted aids in all departments -- members of the Presidency, High Council, Apostles, Seventies, and Witnesses either renounced or modified their belief in his divine appointment. Devoted friend of Heber Kimball stated that at the time of the Kirtland debacle “there were not twenty people on earth that would declare Joseph Smith was a prophet of God.” (Journal of Discourses, vol. 4, p. 108)

             William West, a Gentile who visited the holy city at this crucial time, noted the harassment of the Prophet in a brief glimpse: “When I was in Kirtland I ascertained from a variety of sources too numerous to mention that the Mormons had been in serious difficulty, many had been dissatisfied with their leaders and wanted a new prophet, but the majority adhered to Smith. One day when I went to the Temple, I saw a number of men about it, busy in  conversations, Smith was among them, and the topics of discussion were the bank, money, the steam saw mill, etc; the prophet was kept very busy, but at last he started toward the bank, when a man said to him, ‘brother Joseph, I want to speak with you a minute,’ upon which he exclaimed, ‘my God, I wish I was translated!’ He did not stop to speak with him, but went on grumbling that everyone wanted to speak with him a minute, etc.” (A Few Interesting Facts Respecting the Rise, Progress and Pretensions of the Mormons, p.14)

             Translation was not to be the fate of the thirty-two year old Church-and-business leader -- flight was next on the itinerary. Two hours before midnight on the evening of January 12, 1838 Sidney Rigdon and Joseph Smith departed the broken bastion of the Saints in Ohio and headed westward on horseback toward the new Zion. No voices told them they were leaving the Ohio frying-pan for the Missouri fire.  This was to be one of the most difficult years in the history of the embattled Church and one that would end with a long jail confinement for the founder.

             Alexander McRae, a fellow prisoner with Joseph and Hyrum, Rigdon, Lyman Wight, and Caleb Baldwin, wrote: Orrin P. Rockwell brought us refreshments many times; …Though McRae did not specify the nature of Rockwell’s refreshments he was frank in naming the beverage dispensed at the court trial near the end of the incarceration: “In a few minutes they were quieted, and they seemed now as friendly as they had a few minutes before been enraged. Liquor was procured, and we all had to drink in token of friendship.”

(Historical Record, VII, 455-6)

             A jug of whiskey was always good remittance and it helped buy freedom for the Mormon prisoners. After their long incarceration in Liberty Jail the weary Elders, due to a change of venue, were able to make their escape with the help of a jug, and $800.00 bribe, and the connivance of the guards while being transferred from Daviess to Boone County.

             The story of the escape was recorded later in Nauvoo in an affidavit by Hyrum Smith, Joseph’s dearest and closest confidante. He testified: “…we started on our journey to Boone county, and traveled on the road about twenty miles distance. There we bought a jug of whisky, with which we treated the company [emphasis added], and while there the sheriff showed us the mittimus before referred to, without date or signature, and said that Judge Birch told him never to carry us to Boone county, and never to show the mittimus; and, said he, I shall take a good drink of grog, and go to bed, and you may do as you have mind to. Three others of the guards drank pretty freely of the whisky, sweetened with honey. They also went to bed, and were soon asleep and the other guard went along with us, and helped to saddle the horses. Two of us mounted the horses, and the other three started on foot, and we took our change of venue for the State of Illinois; and in the course of nine or ten days arrived safely in Quincy, Adams county, where we found our families in a state of poverty, although in good health.”* (HoC vol.3, p.321)

             *Hyrum’s statement that “we” bought a jug of whiskey and “we” treated the company brought concern to one L.D.S. writer. Assistant Apostle Alvin R. Dyer, who for a brief period served as a Counselor to David O. McKay in the First Presidency, did the unpardonable: he re-worded an historical document to change the meaning and mislead the reader. In his Refiner’s Fire, p. 120, Elder Dyer passed the responsibility to the sheriff and the guards by making Hyrum say “they” bought a jug of whiskey and “they” treated the company.

            Hyrum bought whiskey not only in Missouri, he continued to buy liquor in Illinois. On January 24, 1841 he succeeded his father as Patriarch to the Church; nevertheless, according to “ A Nauvoo Merchant’s Account Book” this high office did not deter him from making occasional purchases of quarts of brandy a Amos Davis’ groggery.

             Elder Amasa Lyman wrote of his proselyte journey through Missouri in 1838-9: “One pocket of my coat was furnished with a pint flask for the spirits we might use, or the effect of its possession might have on those with whom we would likely to come in contact.” Upon crossing Missouri River Amasa added in his diary, “We passed over the ferry, replenished our bottle and passed on through the town.” (Millennial Star XXVII, 504)

            Like Amasa, John D. Lee too was frank in recording drink interludes in his diary. One entry noted that when Amasa and some of the brethren visited him in southern Utah, “I treated then to 3 quts. Of whiskey to warm them up.”

             Lee recorded this pleasant visit with Brigham Young on May 15, 1867: “On the following day I went to see him in his Mansion where I spent near ½ day -- very agreeable indeed. He had a Decanter of Splendid Wine brought in of his own make & said, I want to treat Bro. Lee to as good an article, I think, as can be bought in Dixie (southern Utah). The wine indeed was a Superiour article. He said that he had some 300 gallons & treated about 2000$ worth of Liquers yearly & continue that we [he] wished that some one would take his wine at 5$ Per gallon & sell it, where upon Pres. D. H. Wells Said that he would take 200 gals. At 6$ a gallon &c. The Pres, told me that [he] Staid over night at my House in Washing[ton] & that he enJoyed himself well & that Bro. Jas. Pace was there & felt well &c.” (A Mormon Chronicle, The Diaries of John D. Lee, May 6, 1858, I p.161)

(Spelling as in the original).

            “Illinois like New York, Ohio, and Missouri was to be only a temporary refuge for the beleagured Saints. There would be time to build a city, erect a Temple, gather in some fifteen thousand of the chosen, and time to mourn the loss of the two front-running Gospel couriers, Joseph the Seer and Hyrum the Patriarch. To his varied roles of restorationist, revelator, seer, prophet, translator, elder, high priest, apostle, president, editor, Bible redactor, temple-builder, and the more mundane roles of land-agent, merchant, and banker, Joseph now added innkeeper, lieutenant-general, Mason, judge, mayor, candidate for President of the United States, and husband of more than two score wives. Did such a man have time to drink? The sophisticate might well ask: Under the weight of such unlikely banners how could he desist?

            But the larger question persists: Was Joseph’s conduct exemplary? Being so constantly exposed before his people how could he have fooled them? Apostle Amasa Lyman thought perhaps not all were fooled. He told fellow-Apostle Abraham H. Cannon: “Joseph Smith tried the faith of the Saints many times by his peculiarities. At one time, he had preached a powerful sermon on the World of Wisdom, and immediately there after, he rode through t he streets of Nauvoo smoking a cigar. Some of the brethren were tried as was Abraham of old.” (Diary of Abraham H. Cannon, October 1895)

            Officially, Joe was an ardent advocate of temperance; even to the extent of issuing commandments against the use of tea, coffee, and tobacco. In his unofficial capacity, however, he was not above indulging in these dissipations himself. Some Mormon writers attempt to make the Prophet a teetotaler; but in the face of testimony of his contemporizes, their efforts fail. Drinking was general among Americans of Joseph Smith’s period. Particularly in Missouri and Illinois, consumption of large quantities of whiskey was considered a necessity. The restricted diet of the pioneers, especially the preponderance of salt-pork, resulted in numerous digestive ailments. Malaria, too, was common, and whiskey was considered a prime remedy for both troubles. At Kirtland, Joe apparently was circumspect in his drinking, taking his tipple at his own home, or the homes of close friends, and seldom drinking in public or permitting himself to appear intoxicated on the streets. Brother William felt no such restraint. He was usually drunk on Saturday afternoons and sometimes ascended to pulpit next morning with a perceptible hangover. By the time the Mormons reached Nauvoo, however, Joe’s inhibitions had vanished. He patronized his own bar room in the back of his store and the bar rooms of Montrose across the river. He was frequently drunk in public, nearly always so on holidays and festive occasions, and he was proud of his capacity for liquor. (Joseph Smith and His Empire, p. 160)

            In 1843 the Smiths, viz., Joseph and Emma and their three living children (Joseph III, Fredrick, and Alexander) and one adopted daughter (Julia Murdock), were residing in the combination home-hotel known as “The Mansion House.” An amusing reference to Orson Porter Rockwell’s involvement in a domestic crisis at the spacious home was made by the Prophet’s oldest son, Joseph Smith III, who was only ten years old at the time of the occurrence.

            “…a sign was put out giving it the dignified name of ‘The Nauvoo Mansion,’ a house destined to become quite famous and interesting in its day. Mother was to be installed as landlady, and soon made a trip to St Louis for the purpose of securing such furniture, curtains, bed linens, table napery, dishes, and utensils as were needed to properly equip and operate the hostelry of its kind….

            When she returned Mother found installed in the keeping-room of the hotel -- that is to say, the main room where the guests assembled and where they were received upon arrival -- a bar, with counter, shelves, bottles, glasses, and other paraphernalia customary for a fully equipped tavern bar, and Porter Rockwell in charge as tender.

            She was very much surprised and disturbed over this arrangement, but said nothing for awhile. A few hours later, as I met her in the hall between the dining room and the front room, she asked me were Father was. I told her he was in the front room. She asked, ‘Is anyone else there?’ “Yes, ‘I answered, ‘quite a number.’

            Then she told me to go and tell him she wished to see him. I obeyed, and returned with him to the hall where Mother awaited him….

            ‘How does it look,’ she asked, ‘for the spiritual head of a religious body to be keeping a hotel in which is a room fitted out as a liquor-selling establishment?’

            He reminded her that all taverns had their bars at which liquor was sold or dispensed -- which was true at that day -- and again urged that it was only for a time and was being done for Porter’s benefit, explaining that since Porter had been compelled to leave his own home and had, in measure, been made a scapegoat for charges that had been made against the two of them, he felt obligated to help him.

            Mother’s reply came emphatically clear, though uttered quietly: “Well, Joseph, the furniture and other goods I have purchased for the house will come, and you can have some other person look after things here. As for me, I will take my children and go across to the old house and stay there, for I will not have them raised up under such conditions as this arrangement imposes upon us, nor have them mingle with the kind of men who frequent such a place. You are at liberty to make your choice; either that bar goes out of the house, or we will!’

            It did not take Father long to make the choice, for he replied immediately, ‘Very well, Emma; I will have it removed at once’ --and he did.”* (Joseph Smith III and the Restoration, p.74-5)

(Back to Nauvoo)

            “…to insure that the public would not be deprived of the high benefits of worthy brews and distillates at Schussler’s. Turley’s, Davis’, Law’s, Hanna’s, Lyons’s, Stevenson’s, or Moeser’s, the Prophet again revamped the ordinances for the advantage of “the discreet”.

            “Whereas, the use and sale of distilled and fermented liquors for all purposed of beverage and drink by persons in health are viewed by this City Council with unqualified disapprobation:

            Whereas, nevertheless the aforesaid liquors are considered highly beneficial for medical and mechanical purposes, and may be safely employed for such uses, under the counsel of discreet persons: Therefore,

            Sect. 1. Be it ordained by the City Council of the city of Nauvoo that the Mayor of this city is hereby authorized to sell liquors in such quantities as he may deem expedient.

            Sect. 2. Be it further ordained, that other persons not exceeding one to each ward of the city, may also sell said liquors in like quantities for medical and mechanical purposed by obtaining a license of the Mayor of the city. The above ordinance to be in full

Force and effect immediately after its passage, --all ordinances to the contrary notwithstanding.

            Passed January 16, 1844. Joseph Smith Mayor.” (On the Mormon Frontier, The Diary of Hosea Stout, vol. 1, p. 25-55)

            A steady patron of Schussler’s was Hosea Stout, captain of the Nauvoo police. No single member of the Church would prove to be a greater powerhouse in civil and ecclesiastical affairs than Stout. Hosea was a confirmed diarist and forthrightly entered his visits to the Schussler tavern at Nauvoo and to the gay parties at the Masonic Hall.

            Stout’s entry for Wednesday, March 5, 1845 reads: “…went with G.A. Smith to see President B. Young who was very sick. From there I went with the police to Schussler’s brewry [sic] where we all got what beer we could drink then detailed the guard and came in company with President L.W. Hancock to the meeting of the Eleventh Quorum at my house…”

            April 12: “At home untill [sic] about 2 o’clock and then went with my wife to the Masonic Hall to a feast of beer and cakes prepared by the old police. The Old police and wives and some of the Twelve were present. We had a joyful time as much cakes & beer as we could eat and drink.”

            April 23: “…came with Br. Shumway to Lyon’s store for wine…”

            In July Captain Stout made more entries of convivial occasions with the brethren.

July 1: “This day there was a grand concert for the Police at the Masonic Hall it commenced at ten o’clock myself & wife & L. Fisher went we had also the 12 and other authorities with us, and was also provided with as much beer, wine, cakes &c as we could eat and drink.” (Ibid. 25-55)

            Note to the above: An interesting reference to a large cache of wine at the Masonic Hall was made by Andrew Jenson, Assistant Church Historian, in the Historical Record. He noted that when General J. J. Hardin and his troops were searching some of the public and other buildings in Nauvoo, September 30, 1845, “they found in the Masonic Hall…about forty barrels of wild grape wine, which they fondly lingered about and devoted considerable attention to.” (Historical Record, VIII, 822)

 Wine and dancing parties were not all confined to the Masonic Hall; * at Nauvoo some were held in the nearly completed Temple. A week before the dedication on April 23, 1846 Samuel Richards, another faithful diarist, noted that after the carpenters swept up their shavings “It was voted that Bro. Angel go and inform the Trustees that the hands were ready to drink the Barrell of Wine which had been reserved for them.” The painters continued their work until the evening of April 29, when a group of the workers and their wives met in the attic and “had a feast of cakes, pies, wine &c, where we enjoyed ourselves with prayer, preaching, administering for healing, blessing children, and music and Dancing until near Midnight. The other hands completed the painting in the lower room.” (John Doyle Lee, p. 86-7)

            Another traveler to visit Nauvoo was Monsieur Violet of France. …while visiting  in St. Louis he communicated with Joseph Smith  and claimed in his narrative that he received a letter from the Mormon Prophet inviting him to Nauvoo. “What passed between Joe Smith and myself, I feel not at liberty to disclose.”  Monsieur V. however was not reluctant to give a fairly garbled account of Mormon tenets and history. Among his disclosures was an arresting item concerning the esoteric Urim and Thummim. He claimed that Joseph showed him the instrument with which he had translated the Book of Mormon. “The said spectacles are a heavy, ugly piece of workmanship of the last century. They are silver mounted, and bear the maker’s name, plainly engraved, ‘Schneider, Zurich.’ Violet’s ungracious comment on the Prophet’s reputation was, “Joe Smith was well known to be a drunken vagabond.” (Works of Captain Fredrick Marryat, Vol. XII: The Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet, p. 412-484)

            Joseph received many visitors, some respectful, some scornful. Of all the ministers who saw Joseph only as a charlatan none became more enamored of his subject than Reverend Henry Caswall. Caswall became a self-acknowledged authority on the new religion and its founder.

            “Before the Mormons settled in the vicinity, no shop for the sale of spirituous liquors had been established in Montrose. After their arrival two of their preachers commenced a grog-shop in that place, which was principally supported by the “Latter-day Saints.” In  September 1841, the prophet being in Montrose, became intoxicated at this shop. While in this condition he told the by-standers ‘that he could drink them all drunk,’ and requested the shop-keeper to treat all his friends at his expense.”

            On another occasion, having been discharged from arrest, through informality in the writ requiring his apprehension for high treason against the State of Missouri, Smith gave a party at Monmouth, and, after a regular frolic with lawyers and friends, became thoroughly intoxicated. On being asked how it was that the, a prophet of the Lord, could get drunk, he replied, that it was necessary that he should do so, in order to prevent his followers from worshipping him as a God.

            While intoxicated in Montrose, at another time, he was heard by several persons saying to himself, “I am a P.R.O.F.I.T.” --spelling (or rather mis-spelling) the word deliberately, and repeating the letters in solemn succession.

            About two years since, at a political convention held in Nauvoo, the prophet became intoxicated, and was led home by his brother Hyrum.

            Among the converts to arrive at the Mormon capitol via New Orleans and the Mississippi was Robert Richards of Lancashire, England whose wife, his daughter Sarah, “and nearly every individual of the congregation” were converted to Mormonism by Elders Bangs and Smart, the former becoming Richards’s son-in-law at Nauvoo by marriage to fifteen year old Sarah. Elder Richards was to have an interesting life in the Church. He claimed he lent the Prophet a sum of money which was never repaid, witnessed the tragedy at Carthage, and moved with the Saints to the Rocky Mountains and subsequently to California where he departed the church. [In] his book, The California Crusoe, [he recorded]: “Having occasion to cross the river to Montrose about the purchase of some cattle, I happened, on leaving the ferryboat, to take a path which conducted me near a shop which had been established for the sale of whiskey. I heard a voice which sounded like that of the prophet, and looking over a fence I saw Joseph Smith himself lying alone on the grass, with a whiskey bottle by his side, and decidedly far gone in a state of intoxication. He was talking and laughing, and evidently congratulating himself, in soliloquy, on the success of his devices. (The saying is true, “The empty vessel makes the greatest sound.”) ‘I am a prophet,’ he said, ‘a profitable prophet; a profitable prophet indeed I am. Prophetical profits are good profits, very good profits, capital good profits, I’ll be hanged if they ain’t. The saints are a pack of fools; but I am a prophet, a profitable prophet, a prophetical, prophesying, profitable, prophet. What was Mahomet compared to me? He was a jackass. What was Napoleon? He was a numskull. What was Alexander? He was a blockhead. I am a greater man than Moses,--hurrah! --hip, hip, hip, hurrah!” (The California Crusoe, pg. 10, 23, 97-8 84)

            Joseph of course never read the modern Crusoe’s scenario but just a month before Carthage he answered other defamers with the roar of an angry King Lear: “In all these affidavits, indictments, it is all of the devil -- all corruption. Come on! ye prosecutors! Ye false swearers! All hell, boil over! Ye burning mountains, roll down your lava! For I will come out on the top at last. I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep the whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet.” (HoC vol. 6, 408-9)

            Even at the end, his wine drinking at the jail is corroborated in volume six of the History of the Church. It is related that about 1:30 in the afternoon of the fatal day at Carthage, Willard Richards became ill and a Brother Markham was dispatched for liquid  refreshment, pipes and tobacco to settle Willard’s stomach and to calm the nerves of the prisoners. (Historians later changed this account to read “medicine” and “remedies” ) Markham was waylaid but later “The guard immediately sent for a bottle of wine, pipes and two small papers of tobacco; and one of the guards brought them into the jail….” Dr. Richards uncorked the bottle, and presented a glass to Joseph, who tasted, as also Brother Taylor and the doctor, and the bottle was then given to the guard…. “It has been reported by some that this was taken as a sacrament. It was no such thing; our spirits were generally dull and heavy, an it was sent for to revive us. …we all drank of the wine, and gave some to one or two of the prison guards. (HoC vol. VII, pg. 101)

            So right to the very end Joseph and the other leaders and leaders to be were not observing the supposed God given revelation of the Word of Wisdom. When one claims to be a prophet and claims to have done more that Jesus, that person is to be held to the highest possible standard, and expected to attain it. This was never the case with Joseph Smith.

Footnotes
For additional documentation on this subject, read, Hearts Made Glad, by LaMar Peterson.
 * These pictures are of the original Masonic meeting place in the room above Joseph Smith’s store.