Throughout Joseph Smith's life, individuals who opposed his prophetic mission challenged him with lawsuits, verbal and printed harassment and physical attacks. All of these forms of opposition appeared when the Saints attempted to congregate in Ohio, Missouri and Illinois during the 1830s and 1840s.
After a mob took the Prophet's life in 1844, many residents in western Illinois hoped that the Saints would move elsewhere. The public image of the Church had been greatly distorted by the anti-Mormon political campaigns. Many citizens believed newspaper reports of fanaticism, despotism and militarism at Nauvoo. Even with this negative public image, for a year after Joseph Smith's death a cautious peace existed between the Nauvoo Saints and their neighbors. This allowed the Saints to rally behind Brigham Young and the Twelve to complete the temple and build up Nauvoo.In September 1845, opponents of the Church challenged the unity of the Saints by once again resorting to force. The most outspoken leaders of the anti-Mormon movement organized their supporters in vigilante action against Latter-day Saint property and persons. Their intent was to drive the Saints out of Illinois.
The first mob action began in southwestern Hancock County, then quickly spread elsewhere. On Sept. 10, mobs began burning haystacks and buildings and driving off livestock at the Morley and Hancock settlements and across the county line at Lima. Similar attacks followed at the Highland Branch and Bear Creek settlements closer to Warsaw. Marauders then torched properties in La Harpe and Camp Creek 10 to 20 miles east of Nauvoo. In all, bands of marauders destroyed nearly 200 homes and farm buildings, plus mills and grain stacks. To hide their actions from the public, mob leaders claimed that the Saints were burning their own buildings in order to blame the old citizens.
Brigham Young counseled the Saints to flee to Nauvoo. He sent teamsters with wagons to help with the removal. The Saints crowded into spare rooms in private homes and into public buildings such as the Music Hall near the temple. They moved personal possessions and livestock, but abandoned their farms and homes until a cessation of the hostilities gave them an opportunity to seek buyers.
Immediately, the Twelve organized for self-defense under the county sheriff and sought the help of Illinois Gov. Thomas Ford. The governor sent 400 soldiers under Gen. John J. Hardin to maintain the peace. A three-member negotiating committee accompanied the militia.
Meanwhile, a citizens committee in Quincy sought and secured from Nauvoo's leaders a pledge that the Saints would leave Hancock County the following spring. Groups in four nearby counties quickly adopted similar demands. These carefully orchestrated meetings gave the appearance of a groundswell of support for the house burnings and expulsion demands. On Oct. 1, delegates from the participating counties met in Carthage to coordinate their efforts.
The Twelve met with Ford's delegation in Nauvoo to consider the demands of the citizens committees. "We are convinced," the governor's committee informed Church leaders, "that affairs have reached such a crisis, that it has become impossible for your church to remain in this country."1 Letters sent back and forth between the Twelve at Nauvoo and the anti-Mormon convention at Carthage led to a quick agreement. Brigham Young and the Twelve reaffirmed their promise to remove all Latter-day Saints from Hancock County.
This was not a difficult decision for the Twelve. For nearly a year, they had been quietly planning to disperse the Saints to new settlements away from Nauvoo in fulfillment of Joseph Smith's plans for an expansion of the Church. Initially, that plan intended to maintain Nauvoo as a temple city while building other cities in the West.
When mobs began attacking outlying settlements in September 1845, the Twelve merely announced what they had been planning all year - with one exception. All of the Saints, not just a part of them, would leave Nauvoo. Faithful Church members had sacrificed for seven years to build a city of peace. Now it would be sold to others and left behind. "When
the templeT is done," Heber C. Kimball said, "I am satisfied; I do not care if I go into the wilderness the next day."2
At the October conference, Church leaders explained the appropriateness of the decision to abandon Nauvoo. Parley P. Pratt explained, "We know that the great work of God must all the while be on the increase and grow greater. . . . The Lord intends to lead us to a wider field of action, where there will be more room for the saints to grow and increase."3 Both leaders and members stepped up preparations for the removal. They redoubled efforts to complete the temple so that worthy members could be endowed before leaving Nauvoo.
Reports circulating in St. Louis, Springfield and Washington, D.C. claimed that the Saints planned to enter Upper California, which would be an "invasion" of foreign territory. The federal government would be obligated to prevent such action to protect international borders. In fact, many in Washington hoped that these sparsely settled Mexican lands would become the property of the United States. That was accomplished with a declaration of war against Mexico in May 1846.
In most of their public declarations, Church leaders named Oregon Territory or Vancouver's Island as the Saints' destination. Some reports mentioned both Oregon and California. In fact, the Twelve intended to create a base settlement in that part of California known as the Great Salt Lake Valley. In addition, they intended to establish way stations at the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon and in the San Francisco Bay area as ports for immigrants.
Those who knew of the Church's California plans speculated that federal troops might block the migration. Some even intentionally circulated a report that soldiers stationed in St. Louis had been dispatched to Nauvoo. This false report led the Twelve to depart ahead of schedule in February 1846.
A number of the Saints who had expected to leave in April, and who were thus in varying stages of preparation, ferried across the Mississippi behind their leaders. For a few days in late February, some drove across the river on an ice bridge. Those leaving in this initial rush faced difficult challenges. The early departure meant muddy trails and bad weather in eastern Iowa, besides a shortage of needed supplies.
Departures continued slowly but steadily during the next month, then surged during April and May. By June all but around 1,000 Latter-day Saints had moved into Iowa or had sought temporary refuge in St. Louis or at points eastward.4 Some of those who stayed behind lacked the means, others the desire to leave. The uneasy truce led to a series of harrasments against farmers during the summer. On Sept. 10, 1846, exactly one year after the first mob attacks, an anti-Mormon militia of about 700 men led by Thomas Brockman moved into position outside Nauvoo. Two days later, the Battle of Nauvoo began with an attack against the city's 200-man defending force. Before it was over, three Latter-day Saints and an unknown number of attackers had been killed and several on both sides wounded.
Once again, a negotiated settlement resulted in an agreement to depart. Signed by Church trustees on Sept. 16, 1846, the Articles of Accommodation disarmed Nauvoo's defenders and allowed the trustees to sell their property if they would cross the river immediately. A few days later, a reporter from Burlington, Iowa, reported, "The Mormons are crossing in almost breathless haste. Three or four `flats' are running constantly, both day and night."5
When Thomas Kane visited Nauvoo that fall he found a largely abandoned city. The image of a desolate city popularized by Kane was not the memory Church leaders wanted the world to remember. "We do not want to leave a desolate place, to be a reproach to us," Parley P. Pratt had told the October 1845 conference. He wished Nauvoo to be remembered as "something that will be a monument of our industry and virtue. Our houses, our farms, this Temple, and all we leave will be a monument to those who may visit the place of our industry, diligence, and virtue."6
The vigilante groups believed that the burnings and other physical attacks had forced the removal of the Latter-day Saints from Nauvoo. This certainly precipitated the final retreat following the Battle of Nauvoo. The first attacks in the fall of 1845 and subsequent pressures altered the scope of the emigration and hastened a removal to the Rocky Mountains planned for years by Joseph Smith and the Twelve.
Endnotes:
1 History of the Church 7:450-51.
2 Times and Seasons, Aug. 1, 1845.
3 History of the Church 7:463-64.
4 Thomas Gregg, History of Hancock County, 346-47.
5 Burlington Hawkeye, Sept. 24, 1846.
6 Times and Seasons, Nov. 1, 1845.