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A photo essay
by Scot Facer Proctor
Even the coldest
heart is moved by the events that took place in the Carthage Jail
in June, 1844. Joseph died not only as a Prophet, Seer, and Revelator,
but as a Mayor of one of the largest cities in America, General
of the Nauvoo Legion (the largest city militia in the western United
States), declared candidate for President of the United States,
and more tenderly, as a husband to Emma Hale Smith and father of
eleven children (six then deceased, one yet unborn). Joseph died,
as the Prophets of old, as a witness of the Savior of mankind. The
following accounts are given to paint a picture of some of the feelings
that surround that fateful day in June of 1844. I have added the
photographs so you may walk with the Prophet Joseph to Carthage.
Click
to Enlarge
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Sixteen
moves in seventeen years of marriage finally brought Joseph
and Emma to this home in Nauvoo. They called it "the Mansion
House" and who in their position wouldn't? It had twenty-two
rooms when completed. Joseph would only live here ten months. |
"Willard, the
time will come that the balls will fly around you like hail, and
you will see your friends fall on the right and on the left, but
there shall not be so much as a hole in your garment."(1)
(Joseph Smith to Willard Richards, Summer 1843)
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Sun
sets over the horseshoe bend of the Mississippi River near where
Joseph, Hyrum, Willard Richards and Porter Rockwell crossed
in a leaky skiff. After Joseph came from his family to leave,
"his tears were flowing fast. He held a handkerchief to his
face, and followed after Brother Hyrum without uttering a word."(2) |
"The last time
I saw the Prophet, he was on his way to Carthage jail...They stopped..at
the house of Brother Rosecrans. We were on the porch and could hear
every word he said...one sentence I well remember. After bidding
good-bye, he said to Brother Rosecrans, 'If I never see you again,
or if I never come back, remember that I love you.' This went through
me like electricity. I went in the house and threw myself on the
bed and wept like a whipped child. And why this grief for a person
I had never spoken to in my life, I could not tell. I knew he was
a servant of God, and could only think of the danger he was in,
and how deeply he felt it..."(3
(Mary Ellen Kimball on June 24, 1844)
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Here
by the front gate of their fence Joseph said good-bye to Emma
and the children for the last time. "You will return won't you?"
Emma purportedly asked Joseph. |
[Joseph looking
at the Temple site and at the city of Nauvoo on the way to Carthage:]
"This is the loveliest place and the best people under the heavens;
little do they know the trials that await them." [Sometime later
that same day on the road to Carthage, Joseph said,] "I am going
like a lamb to the slaughter, but I am calm as a summer's morning.
I have a conscience void of offense toward God and toward all men.
If they take my life I shall die an innocent man...and it shall
be said of me "He was murdered in cold blood."(4)
(Joseph
on the Martyrdom Trail, June 24, 1844)
 |
Flora
on temple lot in Nauvoo. Joseph often prayed that he would see
the completion of the house of the Lord. Surely that prayer
was answered. But not on this side of the veil. |
"Dear Emma,
I am very much resigned to my lot knowing I am justified and have
done the best that could be done. Give my love to the children and
all my friends...you need not have any fears that any harm can happen
to us...may God bless you all, Amen."(5)
(Handwritten
Letter from Joseph to Emma 8:20 a.m., June 27, 1844)
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Plowed
fields of the original Joseph Smith Farm just outside Nauvoo
not far from the Nauvoo Burial Grounds. Here Joseph stopped
and gazed upon his land. As they rode away Joseph looked back
over and over again. The men escorting him to Carthage told
him to be moving on. Joseph said, "If some of you had got such
a farm and knew you would not see it any more, you would want
to take a good look at it for the last time."(6) |
"...the life
of my servant shall be in my hand; therefore they shall not hurt
him, although he shall be marred because of them. Yet I will heal
him, for I will show unto them that my wisdom is greater than the
cunning of the devil."(7)
(Jesus Christ to the Nephites, concerning Joseph Smith)
 |
Summer
afternoon on part of the original 26 ý miles of the road from
Nauvoo to Carthage, now called the Martyrdom Trail. |
"We have had
too much trouble to bring 'Old Joe' here to let him ever escape
alive...You'll see that I can prophesy better than 'Old Joe,' that
neither he nor his brother, nor anyone who will remain with them,
will see the sun set today."(8)
(Frank Worrell, Officer of the Guard of Carthage Jail, June 27,
1844)
 |
Joseph,
Hyrum, and the others, arrived at this place, the Carthage Jail,
around midnight, June 24, 1844. |
[Conversation
between Joseph and Dan Jones in the Carthage Jail, past midnight
on June 27, 1844:] "Brother Dan, are you afraid to die?" Joseph
asked. "Has that time come, think you?" Dan replied. "Engaged in
such a cause, I do not think that death would have many terrors."
Joseph then said, "You will see Wales and fulfill the mission appointed
you ere you die."(9)
Early that
morning Dan Jones left the jail to meet with Governor Ford. He explained
to the governor with great anxiety how the lives of Joseph and Hyrum
were in great danger, and the threats that were made towards them,
to which Governor Ford replied: "You are unnecessarily alarmed for
your friends' safety, sir. The people are not that cruel."(10)
Dan Jones returned to try to reenter the jail but was not allowed.
His life was spared; he did fill his mission to Wales, as Joseph
prophesied and brought untold thousands into the Church.
Jailer at Carthage,
George W. Stigall, heard of the impending danger to the lives of
the prisoners (whom he admired and knew were innocent men) and suggested
they go from his upstairs bedroom where they had been staying to
the inner cell next to the bedroom where they would be safer. Joseph
turned to Dr. Willard Richards and said, "If we go into the cell,
will you go in with us?" The doctor answered, "Brother Joseph, you
did not ask me to cross the river with you-you did not ask me to
come to Carthage-you did not ask me to come to jail with you-and
do you think I would forsake you now? But I will tell you what I
will do: if you are condemned to be hung for treason, I will be
hung in your stead, and you shall go free." Joseph said, "You cannot."
Willard replied, "I will."(11) Witnessing
this loyalty, Joseph wept.
(This
conversation took place between Willard Richards and Joseph about
5:00 p.m., less than fifteen minutes before the brutal murders,
June 27, 1844)
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Having
returned from serving in Russia just two weeks earlier, Elder
Tyler Nichols stands in the room where the Prophet and the Patriarch
were killed, contemplating the events of June 27, 1844. Original
door of jailer's bedroom still has the hole (right middle panel)
where a ball from one rifle blasted through and hit Hyrum in
the left bridge of the nose, felling him to the floor. |
"A great crime
has been done by destroying the Expositor press and placing the
city under martial law, and a severe atonement must be made, so
prepare your minds for the emergency."(12)
(Governor
Thomas Ford, State of Illinois, June 27, 1844. This was said about
the time of the martyrdom while he was in Nauvoo.)
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The
mob, with faces painted black, rushed up these stairs that fateful
Thursday afternoon, rifles loaded, scores of deadly balls were
fired through the doorway into the jailer's bedroom where Joseph,
Hyrum, Willard, and John were imprisoned. Numerous other shots
whistled through the open windows. |
"I felt a dull,
lonely, sickening sensation...When I reflected that our noble chieftain,
the Prophet of the living God, had fallen, and that I had seen his
brother in the cold embrace of death, it seemed as though there
was a void or vacuum in the great field of human existence to me,
and a dark gloomy chasm in the kingdom, that we were left alone.
Oh, how lonely was that feeling! How cold, barren and desolate!
In the midst of difficulties he was always the first in motion;
in critical positions his counsel was always sought. As our Prophet,
he approached our God and obtained for us his will; but now our
Prophet, our counselor, our general, our leader was gone, and amid
the fiery ordeal that we then had to pass through, we were left
alone without his aid, and as our future guide for things spiritual
or temporal, and for all things pertaining to this world, or the
next, he had spoken for the last time on earth."(13)
(John
Taylor)
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Hyrum
lay dead on this floor. John had rolled under the bed after
being hit with five balls, one of which struck him in the chest
at the heart, but was miraculously stopped by his pocket watch.
The watch stopped at 16 minutes, 26 seconds after 5 o'clock.
Joseph tried to escape through the window on the left. He was
hit four times, once in the collar bone, once in the breast,
and twice in the back. He leaped or fell from the window crying
aloud, "Oh Lord, my God.!" |
"Had
he [Joseph] been spared a martyr's fate till mature manhood and
age, he was certainly endued with powers and ability to have revolutionized
the world...as it is, his works will live to endless ages, and unnumbered
millions yet unborn will mention his name with honor, as a noble
instrument...who...laid the foundations of that kingdom spoken of
by Daniel, the prophet, which should break in pieces all other kingdoms
and stand forever."(14)
(Parley
Parker Pratt)
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View
from the outside of the Carthage Jail and the well where the
mob placed the body of Joseph Smith and fired upon him in a
brutal manner at point blank range. With walls between two and
two-and-a-half feet thick, the seven-room Carthage Jail was
considered by Governor Thomas Ford and others, "the only safe
place in Hancock County for 'Joe Smith.'" |
"Joseph Smith,
the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only,
for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that
ever lived in it."(15)
(John
Taylor)
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D.J.
Bawden bronze of Joseph and Hyrum, the Prophet and Patriarch.
At the Carthage Jail, at the time of the martyrdom, Joseph was
thirty-eight years old and Hyrum, forty-four. "In life they
were not divided, and in death they were not separated."(16) |
"After the
corpses were washed and dressed in their burial clothes, we were
allowed to see them. I had for a long time braced every nerve, roused
every energy of my soul and called upon God to strengthen me, but
when I entered the room and saw my murdered sons extended both at
once before my eyes and heard the sobs and groans of my family...it
was too much: I sank back, crying to the Lord in the agony of my
soul, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken this family!" A voice
replied, "I have taken them to myself, that they might have rest...I
then thought upon the promise which I had received in Missouri,
that in five years Joseph should have power over all his enemies.
The time had elapsed and the promise was fulfilled."(17)
(Lucy
Mack Smith, mother of Joseph and Hyrum, June 29, 1844, Nauvoo Illinois)
"My Dear Companion...We
are in great affliction at this time. Our dear Br. Joseph Smith
and Hyrum has fell victims to a ferocious mob. The great God of
the Creation only knows whether the rest shall be preserved in safety
or not...I have been blessed to keep my feelings quite calm through
all the storm. I hope you will be careful on your way home and not
expose yourself to those that will endanger your life. Yours in
haste. If we meet no more in this world may we meet where parting
is no more. Farewell."(18)
(May
Ann Angell Young to her husband, Brigham Young, President of the
Council of the Twelve Apostles, dated June 30, 1844)
"We would beseech
the Latter Day Saints in Nauvoo, and else where, to hold fast to
the faith that has been delivered to them in the last days, abiding
in the perfect law of the gospel. Be peaceable, quiet citizens,
doing the works of righteousness...Rejoice then, that you are found
worthy to live and die for God: men may kill the body, but they
cannot hurt the soul."(19)
(W.W.
Phelps, W. Richards, John Taylor, July 1, 1844)
Note
1. Smith, Joseph, History of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 vols. (Salt Lake City,
Utah: Deseret Book Company, 1980), 6:619 (Hereinafter, History
of the Church).
2.
History of the Church, 6:547.
3.
The Juvenile Instructor, 15 August 1892, 27: 490-91.
4.
History of the Church, 6:554-55.
5.
Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, ed. and comp. Dean
C. Jessee (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company, 1984), 611.
6.
History of the Church, 6: 558.
7.
3 Nephi 21:10
8.
Dan Jones, "The Martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith," 20 January,
1855, handwritten manuscript in the Church Historian's Library,
Salt Lake City, Utah.
9.
Ibid.
10.
Ibid. See also History of the Church 6:603
11.
History of the Church 6:16
12.
Ibid. 623
13.
Ibid. 7:106
14.
Pratt, Parley P. Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt, Revised and
Enhanced Edition. Edited by Scot Facer Proctor and Maurine Jensen
Proctor. Deseret Book Company, Salt Lake City, 2000, pp. 45, 46.
15.
Doctrine and Covenants 135:3
16.
D&C 135:3.
17.
Smith, Lucy Mack. Revised and Enhanced History of Joseph Smith
by His Mother. Edited by Scot Facer Proctor and Maurine Jensen Proctor.
Bookcraft, Salt Lake City, 1996, pp. 457, 458.
18.
Mary Ann Angell Young to Brigham Young, 30 June, 1844, dated
at Nauvoo, Illinois, housed at Church Historian's Library, Salt
Lake City, Utah.
19.
Times and Seasons, vol. 5, no. 12, (l July 1844): 568
(All
photographs Copyright 2006 Scot Facer Proctor)
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