A Bunch Of Times Joseph Smith Indicated The Next Saint-Settlement Was Not In Pittsburgh, Michigan or Texas


After Joseph Smith was murdered a whole bunch of people, I’ve heard as many as 15, raised their hand to volunteer themselves as the prophet’s heaven-sent successor. Sidney Rigdon is probably the best known second man. He wanted to take everyone back to Pittsburgh. (https://byustudies.byu.edu/content/sidney-rigdon-post-nauvoo). James Strang wanted to cheesehead on over to Wisconsin and then hop up to Michigan (http://www.michiganradio.org/post/how-mormon-king-shaped-sleepy-island-lake-michigan). Lyman Wight said Smith told him to wagon train to Texas. (https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fwi05). Brigham Young, of course, had the distant Rocky Mountains in his sights.

But where did Joseph Smith want to go? He certainly had plans to leave Nauvoo. Joseph infamously crossed the river going west just before his imprisonment and death. That’s a clue, right?  

Below is a big list of far more than clues. It’s a truckload of old pioneer commentary about the topic at hand. None of this would probably sway people one way or the other if they already have an opinion formed, but it’s interesting to hear this from so many witnesses. Joseph said the Rocky Mountains would be the next and final abode of the Saints:

1)   Anson Call
“Joseph, as he was tasting the cold water, warned the brethren not to be too free with it. With the tumbler still in his hand, he prophesied that the Saints would yet go to the Rocky Mountains. Said he, “This water tastes much like that of the crystal streams that are running from the snow-capped mountains.”

“I had before seen him in a vision, and now saw his countenance change to white; not the deadly white of a bloodless face, but a living, brilliant white. He seemed absorbed in gazing at something at a great distance, and said, “I am gazing upon the valleys of those mountains.”

“This was followed by a vivid description of the scenery of these mountains, as I have since become acquainted with it. Pointing to Shadrach Roundy and others, he said, “There are some men here who shall do a great work in that land.”

“Pointing to me, he said, “There is Anson. He shall go and shall assist in building up cities from one end of the country to the other, and you (rather extending the idea to all those he had spoken of) shall perform as great a work as has been done by man, so that the nations of the earth shall be astonished, and many of them will be gathered in that land and assist in building cities and temples, and Israel shall be made to rejoice.”

“It is impossible to represent in words the grandeur of Joseph’s appearance, his beautiful descriptions of this land, and his wonderful prophetic utterances as they emanated from the glorious inspirations that overshadowed him. There was a force and power in his exclamations of which the following is but a faint echo: “Oh the beauty of those snow-capped mountains! The cool refreshing streams that are running down through those mountain gorges!”

“Then looking in another direction, as if there was a change of locality: “Oh the scenes that this people will pass through! The dead that will lie between here and there.”

“Then turning in another direction as if the scene had again changed: “Oh the apostasy that will take place before my brethren reach that land! But the priesthood shall prevail over its enemies, triumph over the devil and be established upon the earth, never more to be thrown down!”” (https://josephsmithfoundation.org/joseph-smith-prophecy/)

2)   Mary Field Garner
“I shall never forget the time when Joseph and Hyrum Smith crossed the Mississippi River and started for the Rocky Mountains…” (Personal Glimpses of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Andrus, P. 162)

3)   Wilford Woodruff (1/2)
“In the pioneer journey, coming here, we had to come by faith; we knew nothing about this country. But we intended to come to the mountains. Joseph had organized a company to come here before his death.” (Personal Glimpses of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Andrus, P. 178)

4)   Wildord Woodruff (2/2)
“Now, see this work, said he, that you have commenced, this little mustard seed, it is going to fill the whole earth. It will fill North and South America. And among other things, he said, "it will fill the Rocky Mountains; the Rocky Mountains will be filled with tens of thousands of Latter-day Saints, and they will stand associated with thousands of Lamanites of the blood of Joseph." I was thinking today, and when I arose to my feet, of the remarks of that prophet. Here I am, today, 54 years after that saying surrounded with my brethren in this Temple, built here in the Rocky Mountains by the people of God.” (https://www.boap.org/LDS/Parallel/1834-38/Spring-of-1834.html)

5)   Wandle Mace
“You have faithfully performed your duty, in preserving the lives of the people as well as mine. You shall be called the first Elders of this church....And your mission will be to the nations of the earth to preach the gospel, and you will gather many people to the fastness of the Rocky Mountains…” (Personal Glimpses of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Andrus, P. 161)

6)   Joseph Lee Robinson
“A pioneer company was organized to search out a land of promise for the Latter-day Saints in the West. The Prophet Joseph had been very anxious to get this people into the Rocky Mountains. He said at one time he wanted temples built all over the Rocky Mountains.” (https://josephsmithfoundation.org/joseph-smith-prophecy/)

7)   Preston Nibley
“He founded colonies in the states of New York, Ohio, Missouri and Illinois, and pointed the way for the gathering of the saints in the Rocky Mountains.” (Personal Glimpses of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Andrus, P. 181)

8)   William Byran Pace
“…for you will be called upon to go forth and call upon the freemen from Maine to gather themselves together to the Rocky Mountains and the Red men from the West and all people from the North and from the South and from the East to go to the West to establish themselves in their strong holds of their gathering places…” (https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/discourse-circa-24-june-1844-as-reported-by-unknown-scribe/2)

9)   Andrew J. Stewart
"The prophet said he was glad I had come, but he wanted to change my mission, and take me with him to find a place for the saints. “For,” he said, “the Saints could not build up a Church in the States.” They would have to go and find a place in the mountains, where they could find a place to live in peace, and in five years they would not be disturbed or driven away again. He said he had a company made up, but he wanted me, especially, as I had been west on the Indian Land to the Missouri River.” (They Knew The Prophet, Andrus, P. 173)

10)                   Oliver B. Huntington
"No," said the old Patriarch (Joseph Smith Sr.), his whole being seeming to be alive with animation. "The Lord has told Joseph that when we leave here we will go into the Rocky Mountains; right into the midst of the Lamanites."

“This information filled our hearts with unspeakable joy, for we knew that the Book of Mormon and this gospel had been brought to light more for the remnants of Jacob upon this continent than for the Gentiles.”(https://scottwoodward.org/josephsmith_prophecies_rockymountains.html)

11)                   Bathsheba W. Smith
“Joseph, the Prophet, said we would come to the Rocky Mountains, and he had a company of young men selected to hunt a location for a home for the Saints. Samuel Richards was one of that company. I heard of it when we were in Illinois, and I remember an old lady coming in and talking to mother about what Joseph, the Prophet, had said that we would be in the Rocky Mountains sometime. I said I would like the time to come soon, I would like to get away from our enemies. She gave me a right good scolding, saying it was terrible to think of going to the Rocky Mountains.” (https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Joseph_Smith/Prophet/Rocky_Mountain_prophecy)

I do not believe that this is a complete list of Joseph Smith’s verbal Rocky Mountain intentions, but it is pretty big. We can glean a few things from it. Rigdon, Strang and Wight all would have taken the Saints to the wrong place. Lots of people stayed put when the covered wagons started west. None of those actions were what Smith said the Lord intended. Look at that first instance up there again, where Smith is caught up in a vision seeing the Rocky Mountains.

On a side note, this all really goes hand in hand with what Smith called "the key that will never rust":

“I will give you a key that will never rust, if you will stay with the majority of the Twelve Apostles, and the records of the Church, you will never be led astray. (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1994/10/the-keys-that-never-rust?lang=eng)


The vast majority of the twelve, mind you, trekked out to the Rockies.

Interesting, right?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts!

7 Super Great Legends of 3 Nephite Visits (One’s a First Hand Video!)

Image
I am going to make a bold statement. Ahem. Everyone has a 3 Nephite story. I’m going to take back that statement and replace it with this one – a whole bunch of multi-generation LDS families have a 3 Nephite story hanging from one of the branches in the family tree. My grandmother had a story. She thought one mysteriously stepped in to help when her husband was out of town and she was perusing orphanages with open enrollment for her six kids. All the orphanages were full, FYI. At least that’s what they claimed after the third day of the trial run. Really though, there are loads of 3 Nephite stories. Loads of them!  Just like seer stone stories , angel visitation stories or LDS raising the dead stories – there are 3 Nephite stories a-plenty! Below find just a few. For a ton of them you should check here . This list is comprised of pretty old stories – they happened a long time ago. The last one on the list is a first hand account.
Read more

Have The LDS Prophets Seen Jesus Christ? (12 Yes!)(2 No!)(3 Quite Possibly!)

Image
The absolute #1 question in the Church, according to polls I may or may not have actually conducted, is “Why do the 16 year old priests have to squish the bread so hard when they’re ripping up the sacrament?” It gives the whole thing a very distracting, mashed and rubber-like consistency. If I may, I’d like to suggest a solution. Give everyone in the congregation their own entire slice of bread. Two if it’s thin sliced and a fast Sunday. We would take it right out of the bag ourselves, of course. The only possible squishing then would be in the shopping cart under a bag of apples. Such damage would taste a lot less teenage-fingery. I feel like I could cope with that better. A close second most-asked question, of course, pertains to tithing discounts. I have it on good authority that we all get one of those on our baptism anniversary. (I don’t have that on any authority.) The third-most asked question, according to several internets, is do the modern prophets actually s
Read more

Accidental Reinforcement of Christ's BOM Visit to the Americas (This is Big!)

Image
I’ve been on a kick lately. A blog-relevant kick. I’ve been looking into legends of Christ visitations outside of the holy land. Last week I posted 3 such legends – each specifically mentioning Christ by name. Then I started looking into legends of a bearded god appearing to people. There are loads of legends like that. I was just looking for a nice, even list of 10 to chain together. The tenth one struck so hard crocodiles might get PTSD triggered from the dinosaur extinction.     That tenth find, in my opinion, is more important than #s 1-9 combined. It is an Indian legend of Christ, specifically Christ, visiting their ancestors at the exact time the Book of Mormon says he did. A little background in case you don’t know - a visit from the resurrected Jesus Christ to Indian forefathers in America is, without a doubt, the crowning jewel of the Book of Mormon. It starts like this: 3 Nephi Chapter11: 1  And now it came to pass that there were a great m
Read more

3 Curious Legends Of Other Nations Visited By Christ

Image
OK these are pretty weird – and not doctrinal in the slightest. But they are interesting. They are interesting because of what Jesus said here – after his resurrection and just before his old-world ascension: John 10:16: “And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.” The people in the Book of Mormon were those other sheep – Christ said so himself . And then he said he had yet other sheep to visit: 3 Nephi 16:1: “ And verily, verily, I say unto you that I have other sheep, which are not of this land, neither of the land of Jerusalem, neither in any parts of that land round about whither I have been to minister.” Of these other sheep we have no record. Yet. We certainly know they were visited, but do we know who they were? No way no how. But here are some interesting legends of Christ visitations. To be sure there are scores of accounts of a ‘
Read more

11 Times People Glowed Like Jesus/Moses Outside of Scripture

Image
Occasionally throughout history – when the moment is spiritually profound enough, people have been recorded as emitting light through their own skin. “Glowing” is another way to describe it. For a baseline – here’s a smattering of scriptural references: Exodus 34: 29   ¶   And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the   two   tables   of testimony in Moses’ hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses   wist   not that the skin of his face   shone   while he talked with him. 30   And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him. That’s Moses lighting up. It happened when he spoke to Jehovah. Jesus lit up too, ironically, when he spoke to an angelic-messenger Moses (and Elias): Matthew 17: 1   And after six days Jesus taketh   Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, 2   And was   transfigured   before them:
Read more

A Big Huge List of Tons of People Who Used Seer Stones

Image
Joseph Smith staring into the bottom of a hat to translate a book is a funny picture to some. Perhaps ‘to most’ would have been a better way to end that sentence. This was definitely left out of all my primary classes – but I learned about it in books readily available in the church-owned Deseret Book. It’s not really the secret angrier-corners of the internet would have you believe. Not only that – but Joseph Smith didn’t invent seer stones. He wasn’t the first one to throw a stone into a dark place to better see its stories. No, no – hippies love them too. Hippies and Joseph Smith. That’s the complete list of everyone who cares about seer stones. No more no less. Oh – except Io, the god of the Maoris. And boatloads of other Americans. And according to ancient Jewish lore, Adam, Abraham, Noah, Joseph of Egypt, etc… The list really goes on. It goes on long enough, in fact, that Joseph Smith goes from being a lonely stone-starer to one of alleged dozens. It’s actually a huge
Read more

The Guy Who Watched A Girl Resurrect, A Guy Who Saw the SLC Temple in A Dream, A 3 Nephite-ish Visitor...etc...etc

Image
Oh boy I’ve got 7 good ones for you here. They are 7 stories that don’t have much in common except for their little-known status and their faith promoting possibilities. It also kind of shows that God will go after the one. But sometimes he will also go after the entire tribe:   1) A Dream Leads to the Conversion of the Shoshone Indians "Ten years after the Bear River Massacre of 1863, in which more than 300 Shoshone men, women, and children were killed by U.S. troops, a Shoshone elder had a dream. Chief Sagwitch, a survivor of the 1863 massacre, and other tribal elders felt the dream was inspired and was instructing the tribe to join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After discussing the matter in great detail, the went looking for a Latter-day Saint (“Mormon”) man whom they trusted, George Washington Hill, who lived in Ogden, Utah. "After obtaining permission from Church president Brigham Young, Hill travelled to the tribal land
Read more

Some of Joseph Smith’s (Lesser Known) Big, Beautiful Bullseyes

Image
To make a list of Joseph Smith’s greatest prophetic hits isn’t hard. There are a lot of pretty commonly known ones like: ·       The eye popping alters of Nahom ·       The pleasing symmetry of Chiasmus ·       Startlingly accurate predictionsof the civil war ·       Indisputably undeniable proof of horsesin Nephite times Those things are all relatively well known in a lot of Latter-day Saint- circles. They’ve probably been listed on a lot of blogs. A list of Joseph Smith’s best hits isn’t as interesting if you already knew it’s contents. Joseph got loads of shocking things right. These things weren't readily available information in his place or time. These ones below aren’t too well known, by all I can tell. But each one lends incredible strength to Joseph Smith's prophetic claims. It a varied list. It's an unlikely list. It's a surprising list.  Even the most ardent critic would have to at least say ol' JS got really lucky a
Read more

8 Different Miracle-Stuffed Temple Dedications

Image
Eight or nine months ago I was sitting in a fast & testimony meeting. An older woman was up there at the podium. She said something that surprised me. She said it almost as an after thought, and then moved on to the next sentence in less time than it takes an arthritic to pop a knuckle. What she said so matter-of-factly was that she’d seen angels at the Draper Temple Dedication. That’s a powerful comment. I looked around for reactions and although I saw eyes affixed - I heard no gasp. If ever there was a time to gasp that would have been it! The whole congregation took it in stride, though. That could be because angels play such a large part in our history. Joseph Smith used to accurately tell people exactly when they’d see an angel . The two testimonies closing out this piece included full blown angel sightings too. I actually know a handful of people that have angel stories. You probably do, too. Someone you know may share such a story if they think the
Read more

Glowing Stones in the Book Of Mormon and Elsewhere (Lots of Elsewheres!)

Image
We've had stones on here before – seer stones. Everybody should have one. A billion people used them just like Joseph Smith and I have thoroughly chronicled every single one according to name, date, size and whether or not they taste at all salty. They do taste salty, FYI. All of them. Salty like the bottom corner of a bag of Rold Gold . I actually have no insight into the flavor of seer stones. I didn’t categorize anything either, just to clear things up. The previous stone-topic was about using the stones like a seer – gazing into them and seeing whatever you need to see OR want to see. You really should read that post.  It covers so much more. This post, though, is about stones as a source of light. It’s a super strange thing that only Mormons believe can exist - except not only Mormons believe it. There are loads of examples in Jewish Lore where mighty prophets use light-emitting stones to accomplish great works - I found a Chinese reference too. Most
Read more