The rebuilt Nauvoo Illinois Temple stands on the site where the first one was built in the late 1830s and early 1840s.
(Photo from LDS.org.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
For much of his lifetime, newspaper reports insinuated that Joseph Smith was duping his followers in a greed-motivated religious scam.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
For a person of his remarkable abilities and undeniable charisma, however, it seems that he derived very little monetary profit from his devilish scheme, if such it was.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNow father,\u201d Helen Soby wrote in an 1841 letter responding to such concerns, \u201cif you want to know about us or Joe Smith read the Book of Mormon . . . instead of newspapers\u2019 statements. \u00a0All the money that he has had of us is 100 dollars that I lent him, and that has been proffered to me three times and I would not receive it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nJoseph\u00a0was\u00a0seriously hurt financially in 1840. \u00a0 He had invested in a partnership to buy the steamboat Des Moines,\u00a0<\/em>an undertaking intended to bring people (overwhelmingly new converts) and development to the new city of the Saints on the Mississippi. \u00a0But that investment was lost three months after the purchase, when the steamboat, rechristened the Nauvoo,<\/em> ran into rocks and sank on a hidden sandbank. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
At that point, he owed $73,066.38. \u00a0By contrast, his monetary\u00a0assets \u2014 in a large but cash-poor new settlement on the cash-poor American frontier \u2014 included less than twenty thousand dollars . . . in notes receivable.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nAccordingly, in April 1842, pursuant to a new federal law that had become effective just the previous February, Joseph declared bankruptcy, seeking relief from creditors whom he simply could not pay.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
He defended his decision as the only way he could settle the debts he owed: \u00a0\u201cI was forced into the measure by having been robbed, mobbed, plundered, and wasted of all my property, time after time, in various places.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSome observers,\u201d writes historian Glen Leonard, \u201ccould not imagine that Smith lacked means, since as trustee-in-trust for the church he controlled vast assets in land and buildings. \u00a0But these were not his own. \u00a0When the Twelve took over management of Nauvoo property sales in 1841, the Prophet prepared an inventory. \u00a0His personal belongings, said the Twelve, included \u2018his old Charley horse, given him in Kirtland; two pet deer; two old turkeys, and four young ones; the old cow given him by a brother in Missouri; his old Major, dog; his wife, children, and a little household furniture.\u2019 \u00a0The Prophet kept his own real estate separate from land registered in his name as trustee-in-trust for the church by filing it in Emma Smith\u2019s name.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Glen M. Leonard, Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, A People of Promise<\/em>\u00a0(Salt Lake City and Provo: Deseret Book and Brigham Young University Press, 2002), 149-150, 168-169.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Posted from Springfield, Illinois<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 For much of his lifetime, newspaper reports insinuated that Joseph Smith was duping his followers in a greed-motivated religious scam.\u00a0 \u00a0 For a person of his remarkable abilities and undeniable charisma, however, it seems that he derived very little monetary profit from his devilish scheme, if such it was. \u00a0 \u201cNow father,\u201d Helen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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