New research has recovered the more upbeat tune John Taylor used when he sang "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" to Joseph Smith just before the founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was murdered on June 27, 1844.
The tune had been lost to history. For 140 years, church members have sung the song to a different tune, one commissioned by Taylor himself.
A year before President Taylor died in 1887, he sang the song for composer Ebenezer Beesley the way he sang it at Carthage jail in Illinois before a mob stormed the building and shot and killed Smith and his brother Hyrum Smith and wounded Taylor and Willard Richards.
View Comments
Read the full story and download a copy of the music at MormonTimes.com