CHAPTER 1
– BEFORE CARTHAGE
Family background of Dan Jones
The town of Alchene,
located about two miles from the Dee River in North Wales,
is listed in the Domesday Book of 1086. Eventually the name became
Halkyn—“Helygyn” in Welsh with the meaning of “willow”. Halkyn Mountain
in that area was a source of lead for the Romans. By the mid 1600s the
Grosvenor Family (Duke of Westminster) had purchased the lead rights of all the
unenclosed lands on Halkyn
Mountain. Later, during
the 1700s, the family bought up various estates in the area and became the
largest landowner. Their wealth increased as they received royalties from
mining companies who leased the richest lead veins.
It was in the town of Halkyn on Saturday, 4
August 1810, that Dan Jones was born. [1] He was the sixth of Thomas and Ruth
Roberts Jones’s eight children. Dan’s father was a miner, probably in one of
the local lead mines. Children were not hired by the mines, but they could
accompany their fathers or older brothers as assistants for which additional
pay would be given to the family member. Given the chronic lung ailments Dan
Jones had later in his life he most likely spent time in the mines during his
boyhood.
Thomas and Ruth Jones already had
four sons when Dan joined their family, having lost a daughter three years
earlier. Their oldest son, John, would eventually become a Congregationalist
minister. Next was Edward, a professional gardener in England until he converted to
Mormonism in 1851, Dan’s only sibling to join him in his new faith. Next was
Thomas who died at age sixteen when his little brother Dan was ten years old.
And another son, Samuel, died also at age sixteen when Dan was fourteen. Two
daughters, Elizabeth and Sarah, were born three and five years following the
birth of Dan. [2]
Thomas was a “blaenor” (an elder)
with the Methodists. [3] His first six children were christened in the Halkyn
parish church, but his last two were baptized Nonconformists—Elizabeth in the Northop chapel and Sarah in
the Rhosesmor chapel. It was not until 1811 that the Methodists officially
broke away from the Church of England. It would appear that Thomas converted to
Methodism following Dan’s birth in 1810 and before the births of his last two
children. But since Methodists christened their children in the Church of
England before 1811, it is possible that Thomas converted earlier or was even
raised a Methodist. Even though Thomas was still alive when his son Dan
returned to Wales
in 1845 he apparently did not accept Mormonism. Ruth was alive even during most
of Dan’s second mission, but there is no indication that she ever converted
either. Hundreds throughout Wales
would convert to Mormonism in part because of Dan Jones’s preaching and his
publications. That just one member of his immediate family ever believed his
message sufficient to convert was most certainly a great disappointment to
Elder Dan Jones.
At age thirty-four Dan Jones
declared that he had been away from Wales and the Welsh language almost
continuously for the previous eighteen years. [4] Thus it appears that he went
to sea at about age sixteen. It would be another ten years on 3 January 1837
before his marriage to Jane Melling from Denbigh. [5] At the time of the
marriage Dan’s parents lived in Marchwiel near Wrexham, approximately twenty
miles from Jane’s home in Denbigh. It is not known how Dan made Jane’s
acquaintance. Neither is it clear how and exactly when they made their decision
to emigrate to America.
Where is New Salem?
In a pamphlet published in 1847 Dan
Jones discusses opposition to Mormonism in the United States, especially the claim
that Joseph Smith obtained the story and much of the contents from Sidney
Rigdon who supposedly obtained the manuscript of a novel written in 1812 by
Solomon Spaulding. A spin-off from this story is one about Solomon’s brother
John many years later:
They also claim that some woman brought the Book of Mormon
to New Salem, and called a public meeting to preach, and that she read parts of
it in public; that John Spaulding (the brother of the late S. Spaulding) was
there, and that so great was his anxiety at seeing such use being made of his
blessed brother's manuscript, that he wept bitterly. We oppose this story, in
the first place, by announcing that no woman ever preached with the Mormons,
and that no woman ever had the authority to call a meeting; and we have never
before heard that any woman of the Saints did such a thing. The Saints do not
believe in feminine priesthood as anyone who knows anything about them well
knows. [6]
To refute
this story Dan Jones declares: “I myself lived in New Salem at the time
referred to, and I bear witness that no such meeting was held, nor anything
similar.” [7]
Two steamboats: the Ripple and the Maid of Iowa
After the brief time that Dan Jones spent at Conneaut, Ohio, he made
his way to St. Louis, Missouri, and during the first half of 1841
he was involved in building a steamboat named The Ripple. At 38 tons this was one of the smallest steamboats
registered on the Upper Mississippi. On the
enrollment document for The Ripple, dated
10 May 1841, Jones declared that his partners in this endeavor were William
Williams and Solon Cummings of Rock River, Illinois. And the name of Dan Jones
was given as the “Master” of The Ripple.
[8]
The Warsaw Signal for 24 November 1841 has the following notice: “The
steemer [sic] Ripple struck a rock and was sunk last week near New Boston,
while on her way to Galena.
She was one of the smallest boats on the river.” [9] New Boston
is approximately 65 miles upriver from Warsaw.
The loss of The Ripple was just six
months after being licensed. By summer of the next year, however, Dan Jones was
busy building yet another steamboat, the Maid
of Iowa. In his letter to Thomas Bullock in 1855 Jones explained the
arrangement:
Mr. Moffat of Augusta, Iowa, and myself built the Maid of Iowa in the summer of 1842, on the following conditions –
He was to furnish all lumber and pay for the wood work, with the exception of
the foreman carpenter, who I was to pay, besides furnishing all Machinery,
nails, etc., and each to have and to hold an undivided half of the Boat. It was
expressly understood that the Boat was to be clear on starting, and not liable
for the individual debts of either of us. [10]
But,
as with many business arrangements, things did not work out exactly as planned.
Jones began to ply the Maid of Iowa
in October 1842 but ran into difficulties soon afterwards:
Mr. Moffat’s creditors from Burlington
attached the Boat at St. Louis,
the 2nd trip I made there, for claims they had against him
personally. My friends there who had assisted me, thought best to secure their
claims first; hence she was sold and bought in for me that winter by my
friends, on condition that I would not let Moffat have power to serve me so
again; but not wishfull to take my advantage, after they made me a Bill of sale
of it, transferred one half back to Mr. Moffat, which greatly offended them
when they found it out. [11]
The Captain converts to Mormonism
It was not long after Jones began operating his new steamboat up and
down the Mississippi
that he started to hear of the Mormons. One of his sources of information was
the Warsaw Signal, the newspaper
published by Thomas Sharp the Mormon hater. Jones characterized Sharp as
follows:
I do not believe (and I am judging from a personal acquaintance with
him) that there is any man more skilled, more suitable, or more able, or who
would love the business of falsely accusing, reviling, inventing lies
completely, without a word, syllable or excuse in them, with satisfaction,
better than the instrument they [the civic leaders of that area] employed for
this work by the name of Thomas Sharp. [12]
As
for the Warsaw
Signal:
He published a newspaper called the Warsaw Signal, which he edited himself; and in its columns were to
be seen all the most disgraceful accusations which he could have heard, have
read in others’ stories, or which his own heart could have invented against the
people of Nauvoo, and each as groundless as the nest. [13]
But
Jones recognized the debt he owed Thomas Sharp:
For our part, we should thank this Sharp for the information we got
about the Saints; for it was by reading his and others’ accusations that our
attention was drawn to them before while living in that country. Through a
detailed examination of their accusations, we saw clearly that either it was
impossible for them to be true, exaggerating in their great eagerness, or that
they contradicted themselves in some way, which led me to reason,--Why does
everyone agree to deliver such false accusations against this obscure people? I
saw that this was evil work, and that those who perpetrated such things were worse than those who suffered them! And without ever having
thought before this that the Mormons, as they were called, professed or
believed the Christian faith, or the Bible, I would often ask what can be
causing all this against them more than against anyone else? It must surely be
some virtues which incited liars against them; and so they must be more
virtuous than their persecutors for them to suffer so many agonies, prisons,
and losses. Thus did I reason about them for a while, without seeing any of
them, or reading any of their work. [14]
Jones
was able to discount all of the scurrilous stories then circulating about the
Mormons (that Joseph Smith had been trying to walk on water, that he claimed to
be the Christ, etc.) except the story of the origin of the Book of Mormon, that
its source was the “Spaulding Romance”:
It was so skillfully woven—certified by so many witnesses, I had
supposed, of high character, especially when I saw so many Reverends on it, to whom at the time I considered no little reverence and belief to be due; yes, I
almost thought it was impossible for those who possessed this title to say,
much less testify, to anything but what
they knew to be “gospel”. But how strangely was I disappointed in this! Not of
my volition, but somewhat against my will, I was forced to admit in
astonishment my mistake; and only then was I able to shake off the shackles
with which the men of that title had bound my soul almost unbeknown to me
previously! Or to rid myself of the poisonous effects of this story from my
mind. If anyone deserved the “blessedness” which Christ promised when everyone
spoke ill of them, I freely admitted that it was the “Mormons” that deserved
it. [15]
What caused Dan Jones to shift from
a casual reader of the anti-Mormon newspaper articles and comments to an
aggressive investigator of the doctrine and teachings of this strange religion
was a letter written by Emma Smith, wife of the Prophet. Jones tells of his
experience:
There soon came into my hand, through some chance occurrence, part of
a letter written by Joseph Smith’s wife to some religious sister when she was
with her husband in a Missouri
jail; and I shall never forget the feelings aroused in me by this part of a
letter! I saw in it clearly not only that its author believed the New Testament
as did we—professing the apostolic faith, and rejoicing in the midst of her
tribulations at being worthy of suffering all this for the sake of testimony of
Jesus and the gospel; but that it contained better counsel, more wisdom, and
demonstrated a more evangelical and pious spirit than anything I had ever read.
I read it over and over; I almost considered it the fruit of the ideas of the
apostolic age rather than the writing of the wife of such a presumptuous—and
entirely ungodly man as that “Joe Smith” had been depicted to me: but the more
often I read it, the greater my desire to possess something of the spirit and
hopes of its author, even though it should cost me imprisonment also. [16]
Jones
could not rest until he made a thorough investigation of the religion that was
behind the letter and its writer:
My mind was not satisfied then until I got hold of one of the Mormons,
and, once I had found him, it was not just two or three nights that we sat up
to investigate the differences of opinion that existed between us about the
gospel; and to my great surprise, I perceived that I was almost a full-fledged
Mormon already, which when I realized it frightened me greatly; for I could
foresee my popularity at an end the minute I had this despicable name; and
consequently, my livelihood and my all. [17]
Worried
about his future if he converted to Mormonism, Jones pursued a different course
for a while:
These considerations prompted me to search for sufficient
counterarguments to still my conscience, and to reject them; but I shall always
be thankful that the task was too difficult and endless for me. I was forced to
cut through all obstacles, whatever might be the consequences of obeying the
promptings of a conscience awakened in the face of the divine word of the
scriptures. [18]
Once
he recognized that he would not be able to rest until he affiliated himself
with the unpopular Church he made the decision to get baptized:
I submitted to the divine ordinance of baptism in the Mississippi,
that is the “father of waters”, and I know I shall never regret it, if I have
strength to go on till the end. [19]
The
date Jones went down into the waters of the Mississippi was Thursday, 19 January 1843.
And even if the day was sunny the water would most certainly have been cold
enough to take one’s breath away at being immersed in it.
Jones’s conversion to the Church was
received with enthusiasm by his now fellow Mormons. But there were several
negative consequences coming from other directions. One was the damage done to
his reputation:
The news of my embracing Mormonism was soon heralded through the
Papers, which injured my influence as a Steam Boat Captain; especially was it
made so by my zeal in defending “Old Joe”, and the principles, against the all
sorts, whom you know, travel those waters. [20]
Another
consequence was the damage done to his transportation business on the Maid of Iowa. Jones’s reaction: “Altho’ this
embarrassed my circumstances much, it did not discourage me until my partner
Mr. Moffat complained seriously of the loss he was sustaining thereby.” [21]
The Captain meets the Prophet
The Mississippi
River provided water for Dan Jones to receive his baptism on 19
January 1843, but it would be a while before Jones could derive any further
benefit from its waters upriver. Travel on the river was difficult during the
winter, but when spring came the Captain had an unusual company to transport up
river. Not only were these his new coreligionists, but also they were fellow
British who had converted in the old country and had come to America on board the Sidney and the Medford. These two ships left within one week
of each other from Liverpool—the Sidney on 17 September 1842 and the Medford on 25 September
1842—but they reached New Orleans within two
days of each other, so the immigrants made the journey from New
Orleans to St. Louis
on the same large steamer, the Alex.
Scott, arriving on 11 December 1842. [22]
The severe winter conditions and ice on the river kept them from continuing on
to Nauvoo until spring. After his baptism Dan Jones was no doubt able to come
to know many of these British Saints who were spending the winter in the St. Louis area.
Spring weather made travel to Nauvoo
from St. Louis
possible. About two hundred of the immigrants who had crossed the Atlantic on
board the Sidney
and the Medford
boarded the Maid of Iowa on about the
first day of April 1843 to make the final leg of their journey from Britain.
[23] Among the passengers on the Maid of
Iowa on the journey from St. Louis
to Nauvoo were Parley P. Pratt and his wife and baby. They had not come from Britain, rather they happened to be in St. Louis at the time the
others were going to Nauvoo. Parley P. Pratt wrote of Dan Jones: “Captain Jones
was a good and kind hearted Welshman, and was much interested in the fulness of
the gospel.” [24]
Joseph Smith wrote of the arrival of
this large group of British Saints:
About five p.m. the steamer Maid
of Iowa hauled up at the Nauvoo House landing, and disembarked about two
hundred Saints, in charge of Elders Parley P. Pratt and Levi Richards. These
had been detained at St. Louis, Alton,
Chester, etc., through the winter, having left Liverpool last fall. Dan Jones, captain of the Maid of Iowa, was baptized a few weeks
since: he has been eleven days coming from St. Louis, being detained by ice. [25]
Dan Jones converted readily to the
beliefs and doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints once
he heard them and understood them. Having never met Joseph Smith, however, he
was considerably less ready to accept him as a divinely-chosen prophet of God:
Somehow I had not a grain of love for that “Joe Smith”; I could have
swallowed almost everything except that he was a prophet of God. I later came
to realize that I had formed some strange fancies about what sort of men the
old prophets were; I considered that they, and consequently “Joe Smith” before
he could be a prophet, would have either sheep or goat skin for clothing, a
long beard, and long white hair; that his face would be long and wrinkled, and
with a haughty and dissenting air; grumbling quite a lot, and very holy. I
almost believed that he ought to be a wanderer on the mountains, never coming
to a house or to a table, but living on locusts, etc.; and when he came among
people to deliver his divine message, that he would do so in a way that would
prove to everyone that he was a prophet! [26]
Thus
it was with a great deal of anticipation that he transported this large group
of Church members up the Mississippi
to see Nauvoo for the first time and also the Prophet Joseph Smith. Jones
describes the occasion:
While groundless fancies such as these were contending for space in my
mind alternately with the thousand and one equally unfounded false accusations
I had heard about this remarkable person, I took my steamboat with over 300
immigrants (Saints) from St. Louis
towards Nauvoo. When we arrived a large crowd of respectable looking people
came to greet us very hospitably; such handshaking and kissing among the women,
and such a hearty welcome on meeting
each other rather surprised me; but to my even greater dismay, when my glance
scanned the crowd for the prophet I had pictured, and failed to see anyone
similar, a large handsome man came up to me in the crowd on the boat, took my
hand and squeezed it kindly, saying, “God
bless you brother”, several times; but before I could ask his name, he was
out of sight; and then he came by again, when I understood that my eyes had
beheld for the second time Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet! [27]
As
he later proved by his extremely aggressive missionary endeavors and energetic
preaching throughout Wales,
Jones was a man of definite and strong opinions, opinions that he did not
hesitate to express and defend. He had no difficulty accepting Mormon beliefs
since they practically coincided with the beliefs he had already developed over
the years. But the concept of a modern-day prophet, especially one that was
just short of five years his senior—Jones was thirty-two years old at their
first meeting—required a major reconstruction of attitude. The Captain tells of
his reaction on this occasion:
Although I was so busy I spared some time to gaze at him, and I saw in
him everything contrary to my expectation. His fair countenance, and his
cheerful and guileless face rather convinced me that he was not the cunning and
deceitful man I had heard about; the wonderful love and respect shown to him by
everyone, and his humility, forced me to believe that this was not that cruel
oppressor who considered everyone his slaves; yes, in a word, I was soon
convinced that much of what I had heard about this man was false accusations.
[28]
The Prophet rolls out the red carpet to the
Captain
Joseph Smith made the day of their
meeting an even more memorable occasion for the Captain by inviting him to his
home to meet his family and then to personally take him on a walking tour of
Nauvoo. Dan Jones remembered the details:
I went with him to his house, and he related to me in a few words the
story of more of his sufferings because of his religion than I had hardly
thought possible for anyone to endure so long. Yet he was as sure of his
subject, and as unshakable in his determination as an everlasting rock. He
boasted through it all as though he had profited from it, and before leaving
his company I was almost surprised how anyone could doubt, if there was such a
thing as a prophet, that it was he. Then I saw and chatted with the one who had
written that part of a letter that had so surprised me; but that did not
contain half her wisdom; around her I saw three boys and one girl, the oldest
being about ten years of age; in her armchair in the corner was his aged mother
(over 80) of whom he was very respectful. He said that the grey hairs of his
old father had taken him to his grave while under persecution. After this I
went with him around the city (for it was worthy of that name by now) [29], and
I saw them all at their various tasks, and looking like other men, but comelier
and more diligent than is common: having circled the place, I failed to find a
drunkard, or a place to get drunk, an oath or any dissipation! Could it be, I
said, that everything I heard about this place and these people is lies? If
not, where is the “huge wall that surrounded the city so that no one could
return from it alive” as I had heard? There were not two stones on top of each
other there to that purpose! Where were all the “slaves” I had heard of, and
the business of “all things in common”, and many other strange things? Everyone
here is as free and independent as anyone I ever saw; yes, and each happily
enjoying his possessions, the fruits of his labor, his family, his money, and
his own thoughts or opinion without hindrance; and with state protection for
that. Instead of “Joseph Smith taking the property of others”, or any of the
other elders either being supported at the cost of others, as are the
“Reverends”, and the authors who accuse them, they support their families at
their own expense. Thus I found everything here opposite to what I had heard
about this place and its inhabitants, until by the time I got back to the boat
I was almost prepared to say that I would not believe anything from now on
about them, except what I saw; or else, decide to believe the opposite of what
their enemies said about the Mormons at least; and no doubt there are hosts
like myself who went there with their minds full of prejudice, and returned
from there with a completely opposite opinion about the place and the people. I
saw hosts of such as these during the time that we were carrying some thousands
of immigrants there after that. [30]
The Maid
of Iowa—the Captain’s and the Prophet’s object of affection
Captain Dan Jones first met the
Prophet Joseph on 12 April 1843, just 441 days before the Martyrdom on 27 June
1844. Before his conversion to Mormonism—83 days before meeting Joseph
Smith—Jones was considerably well off financially. But by the time the Prophet
was killed by assassins’ bullets Jones was essentially penniless, having put
his steamboat and his all on the altar of the religion he would defend to the
day of his death on 3 January 1862, just two weeks short of nineteen years from
the day of his baptism. Over half of this nineteen-year period Dan Jones served
missions for the Church—one from 1844 – 1849 and a second from 1852 – 1856.
The Prophet Joseph Smith took an
immediately liking to Dan Jones and his steamboat. Because of Jones’s native
ability in the Welsh language and his obvious zeal for his new religion a call
was extended to him on 11 May 1843 to “prepare himself to take a mission to Wales”.
[31] The following day Joseph Smith became Dan Jones’s business partner and
half owner of the little steamboat: “Purchased half of the steamer Maid of Iowa, from Moffatt; and Captain
Dan Jones commenced running her between Nauvoo and Montrose as a ferry-boat”.
[32] Levi Moffatt had previously complained to Dan Jones of the loss of
business resulting from Jones’s conversion to an unpopular religion. Jones
relates in his letter to Thomas Bullock the effect of Moffatt’s contact with
Joseph Smith:
He [Moffatt] finally complained to Joseph of sustaining an injury by
my embracing “Mormonism”, that touched the quick fibres of a noble and generous
soul. When I returned to Nauvoo, Joseph came on board and informed me that the
unkind conduct of Mr. Moffat had won me his friendship, and that he had
concluded to buy Mr. Moffat’s interest in the Boat if I would take him for a
partner; adding with humour peculiar to himself, “You know that Prophets’ love
for ‘Maids’ is too proverbial to be denied, and I should really love to ride
this pretty little Maid often”. His generosity drew a response from my heart;
yes Brother Joseph you shall, and nothing would please me better than seeing a
Prophet enjoying himself by riding my “little Maid” tho’ a Prophet and Sailor
would be a novel crew on a “Maid”. [33]
The
entry in The History of the Church
for 2 June 1843 fixes the date and amount of payment: “Closed the contract
whereby I gave two notes for $1,375, and became half owner of the steamboat Maid of Iowa.” [34] Joseph then
commented: “Continued in the office with
Captain Dan Jones most of the morning”. Part of the topic of discussion was
probably Jones’s future with the steamboat in light of his call to “prepare
himself” to go to Wales
on a mission. He was needed at least for a time to effect the transition of the
little steamer from a Mississippi vessel to a
“Mormon” Mississippi
vessel. No particulars of such a conversation are recorded, but certainly
neither Dan nor his new partner anticipated that Jones’s departure would not
happen for more than a year from then.
The use made of the Maid of Iowa from the time of the new partnership
until Jones departed on his mission to Wales fifteen months later varied.
Jones wrote to Bullock:
As the water was too high for so light draught a Boat to cope with the
larger class, he [Joseph Smith] advised to ply her on the Nauvoo Ferry, pleasure
trips, etc. In the summer he desired to put on an upper Cabin, which was done.
[35]
The
first “pleasure trip”, taken on 3 June 1843, the day after Joseph Smith “closed
the contract”, was downriver to Quincy.
A “severe storm” brought about an unexpected ending:
This morning, I, with my family and a large company of brethren and
sisters, started for Quincy,
on a pleasure voyage on the steamboat Maid
of Iowa, had a fine band of music in attendance, and arrived there at about
one p.m… At five p.m. started on our return, but tied up at Keokuk, at one a.m.
on account of a severe storm until daylight, when we started home and were glad
to arrive in Nauvoo at seven a.m. of the 4th. [36]
The Rescue Mission
of the Maid of Iowa
The
second pleasure excursion of the Maid of
Iowa was one for the Temple
hands upriver to Shokoquon on 17 June 1843. Joseph Smith was not present,
however, as four days earlier he had gone by carriage with his wife and
children to visit Emma’s sister, Mrs. Wasson, and her family who lived near Dixon in Lee County,
Illinois. In Nauvoo on Sunday, 18 June 1843, Hyrum Smith received notice from
Judge James Adams of Springfield concerning
Governor Ford’s intention to issue a writ for Joseph’s arrest on the
requisition of Thomas Reynolds, governor of Missouri. Hyrum immediately sent William
Clayton and Stephen Markham to alert Joseph and receive his instructions.
Clayton and Markham rode their horses 212 miles in 66 hours and met up with
Joseph a few miles west of Dixon
on Wednesday 21 June 1843. [37]
The next day Joseph cancelled a scheduled appointment he had to preach
in Dixon. And
the following day, Friday 23 June, as William Clayton went toward Dixon at Joseph’s request
to learn of any happenings there, he met two men who claimed to be Mormon
elders. These men were actually Joseph H. Reynolds, sheriff of Jackson County,
Missouri, and Harmon T. Wilson, constable of Carthage, Illinois,
who were out to arrest the Prophet. Believing that Reynolds and Wilson were
fellow Mormons, Clayton escorted the two back to the Wasson’s farm where they
arrested the Prophet. [38]
Joseph, having been refused the chance to obtain a writ of habeas
corpus, sent Stephen Markham to Dixon
to obtain one for him. Reynolds and Wilson also traveled to Dixon, taking their newly aquired prisoner
with them in their wagon. On Saturday morning, 24 June 1843, in the midst of
various writs being obtained by both sides, Joseph Smith hired a man to take
William Clayton by horse and buggy to Rock
Island. Within fifteen minutes of his arrival in this
town on the Mississippi,
Clayton was able to obtain passage on the Amaranth,
a steamboat that would take him downriver to Nauvoo. [39]
At 2:00 p.m. the following day, Sunday, 25 June 1843, Clayton arrived
in Nauvoo with the news of Joseph’s arrest. Upon hearing of his brother’s
danger Hyrum went to the temple, interrupted the meeting being held, and
requested the brethren to meet him at the Masonic Hall in thirty minutes. So
many came that they could not all fit in the building, so they formed a hollow
square in the green nearby. Hyrum’s call for volunteers to rescue Joseph
brought forth “upwards” of three hundred men “from whom they selected such as
were wanted”. [40]
Generals Wilson Law and Charles C. Rich started toward Dixon that same evening
with a company of about 175 men on horseback to render assistance to their
leader. Another company of about seventy-five men were appointed to journey
down the Mississippi and then up the Illinois
River to search for any steamboats that might be transporting Joseph Smith
downriver from Ottawa,
where it was rumored that Joseph Smith was to be tried. Reports were that a
steamboat had been chartered in St. Louis to
take a company of armed men upriver to Ottawa to
seize Joseph and kidnap him to Missouri.
[41]
Those assigned to the Maid of
Iowa worked through the night loading the boat with firewood and making
other necessary preparations. By the next morning everything was ready. Hyrum
Smith pronounced a blessing on the company, and by 9:15 a.m. Captain Dan Jones
gave orders to the pilot, Daniel M. Burbank, to get the boat underway down the Mississippi on its
mission. The captain of the company was Jonathan Dunham, the mate was Dimick B.
Huntington, the Lieutenant was George W. Langley, the Chaplain was John Taylor,
and the surgeon was John M. Bernhisel. [42]
Twelve hours later the company reached the “point of the bend” and
started up the Illinois River. By 4:00 a.m. on
Tuesday morning, 27 June 1843, they made a stop at Diamond Isle, just north of
the town of Hardin.
Here they learned that the Chicago Belle
had gone up the previous day with a large company of men who intended to take
Joseph Smith “at all hazards” and transport him to Missouri. [43]
The company learned at their next
stop, Erie Landing, about five miles above Beardstown, that the Chicago Belle was twelve hours ahead.
The company had left word that if the Maid
of Iowa followed they would “send the Mormon boat and crew with Jo Smith to
hell.” Despite the warning of the messenger to return, the Maid of Iowa company continued upriver undaunted. [44]
On Wednesday, 28 June 1843, an hour
before daybreak the Maid company
passed Pekin
and found the Chicago Belle aground
in an island chute. Upon seeing the Maid
the Belle company “backed her
star-board wheel and blocked up passage”. Daniel M. Burbank, the pilot of the Maid requested passage with his speaking
trumpet. Upon learning that it was the rescue company the Belle spokesman replied, “You cannot pass, and we will see you all
d___d and in hell first.” Referring to himself in the third person, Burbank tells the story:
The pilot saw a little opening in the willows of about twelve feet
wide on her left, and signaled for the engineer to put on all steam, and drove
her through this narrow channel and a small tow head about five rods, tearing
the willows down on each side with the guards and wheelhouse, the captain
crying out all the time, “Stop her!—stop her! For God’s sake, stop her! You
will smash the boat in pieces!” When the boat had headed round the Belle, and was once more in deep water,
the pilot stopped the engine and asked the captain, “What is the matter?” The
captain was afraid, and said, “My God, you will smash the boat to pieces,” and
was answered, “All is safe, and we will go ahead,” leaving the Belle still aground in the channel. [45]
The Maid then proceeded
upriver about ten miles to Peoria
where they found Jesse P. Harmon and Alanson Ripley, two members of a
detachment led by General Charles C. Rich. This twenty-five-member detachment
had left the main body of the horsemen camp two days earlier to broaden the
search. The detachment arrived at Peoria a few
hours before the arrival of the Maid of
Iowa and had left Harmon and Ripley with an express instructing the
steamboat company to proceed to the mouth of the Fox River near Ottawa. The two horsemen
went with the steamboat company upriver. [46]
In the meantime General Charles C. Rich took his detachment further to
the east and Wednesday night, 28 June 1843, they camped about two miles below
Ottawa. An hour before sunset Rich went by himself across the Illinois River
into Ottawa
where he stayed overnight at the home of Brother Lucien P. Sanger. There he
learned that the Prophet Joseph had been on his way to Ottawa
to obtain a writ of habeas corpus from Judge John D. Caton, judge of the ninth
judicial circuit at Ottawa, Lasalle County.
Upon learning that the judge was absent Joseph Smith and his small company had
returned to Dixon and obtained another writ of habeas corpus and had started in
the direction of Quincy in Adams County. Thus on the morning of 29 June 1843
when the Maid of Iowa reached the
town of Peru an express from Rich was awaiting them in the hands of William F.
Lane with instructions for the steamboat company to return to Quincy and wait
there for further orders. [47]
At about 1:00 p.m. as they headed down the Illinois
River the Maid of Iowa
company once again encountered the Chicago
Belle as it was being wooded. Burbank
relates:
They hailed us to inquire “If old Jo was on board”, and were answered,
“It is none of your business”, when another man on the hurricane deck of the Belle shouted, “Hurrah, hurrah for old
Jo Smith”. [48]
With
no further incident the Maid of Iowa
continued downriver and at 9:00 p.m. reached the point where the Illinois and the Mississippi
joined. It was here that the boat’s tiller rope—the rope attached to the lever
used to turn the boat’s rudder from side to side—broke. Once the appropriate
repairs were made the boat continued up the Mississippi
toward Quincy.
[49]
At about 8:00 p.m. the following
day, 30 June 1843, the steamboat company stopped at an island below Quincy, not wanting to
proceed further until determining it was safe to do so. From here Dan Jones and
four others (John Taylor, Jonathan Dunham, George W. Langley, and Daniel M.
Burbank) took the yawl and went up to Quincy in order to become informed of any
happenings there. Finding that all was peaceful they returned to the boat, got
up steam and proceeded to Quincy,
landing at about midnight. [50]
On Saturday morning, 1 July 1843,
the Maid of Iowa left Quincy for the final leg
of its long rescue journey. After steaming for about eight miles the company
saw two messengers coming in a skiff with a letter from Hyrum Smith with the
news that Joseph had arrived in Nauvoo and with instructions to hurry home.
Only one further mishap occurred before the rescue journey was over—on reaching
Keokuk the boat’s engineer, Benjamin Orum, got “dead drunk”. The first pilot,
Daniel M. Burbank, took over as engineer, and the second pilot took the boat’s
wheel to run it over the rapids to Nauvoo. [51]
The entry in Joseph Smith’s History of the Church for Sunday, 2 July
1843, reads as follows:
About six p.m. the Maid of Iowa
returned to her landing at the Nauvoo House. The company who had been on the
expedition on board of her formed in a procession and walked up to my office,
where they formed a hollow square, and sent in a deputation to me. As soon as I
had bid them welcome, I opened the window of my office and requested that no
man would leave the ground until I had spoken to them. My brother Hyrum and I
went into the hollow square and directed them not to allow their ranks to be
broken. I then shook hands with each man, blessing them and welcoming them
home. I then took off my hat and related to them how I was brought home to the
midst of my friends, and how I regained my liberty. I feel, by the Spirit of
the Lord, that if I had fallen into your hands that you would either have
brought me safe home, or that we should all have died in a heap together. [52]
This
welcome home ceremony was momentarily disturbed by an unidentified man:
A well-dressed stranger broke through the south line. The orderly
sergeant took the stranger by the nape of the neck and kicked him outside the
ranks. As soon as quiet was resumed, I continued my address to the company.
About dusk I dismissed the company, blessing them in the name of the Lord. My
brother Hyrum then blessed them also, commending them for their diligence and
attention to the instructions given by him before their departure. [53]
The developments in Dan Jones’s life during the five-and-a-half months
since his conversion to Mormonism and more especially the twelve weeks since
his first encounter with Joseph Smith were numerous, varied, and anything but
positive. His reputation as a riverboat captain was now severely tarnished by
his association with the fanatics knows as Mormons. His business, and
consequently his finances, had suffered considerably. His business partner was
now Joseph Smith, the spiritual leader of the Mormons. He was now reduced to
the lowly position of ferryboat captain. He was at the beck and call of his new
partner. He was supposed to be preparing to return to his native Wales
where he would most certainly be persecuted for his new religious beliefs.
During the previous week he had risked life and limb in a rescue mission for
Joseph Smith that had nearly cost him his boat. Furthermore, his wife Jane was
not entirely supportive of his new direction in life and quite suspicious of
Dan’s new business partner. And now he was standing in a hollow square in
Nauvoo with seventy-five other men (one of whom had recently been “dead drunk”
on the job and another who had nearly wrecked his steamboat) receiving a few words
of thanks and blessing from Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum. Would it be
inaccurate to assume that he was probably asking himself, “Is this really the
course I want to pursue?” Judging from subsequent developments in his life, the
answer was apparently a resounding “Yes”. For the rest of his life he would be
able to say, like Brigham Young, “My knees have never buckled”. [54]
Financial Woes of the Maid of Iowa
The Maid of Iowa was called on to perform numerous tasks during the
second half of 1843, but only two of these are mentioned in The History of the Church. On Saturday,
15 July 1843, Joseph Smith took his family and about one hundred others on a
pleasure excursion “from the Nauvoo House landing to the north part of the
city, and returned at dusk”. [55] And on Friday, 21 July 1843, “the Maid of Iowa sailed [sic] for the Pinery
in Wisconsin,
with Bishop Miller, Lyman Wight and a large company with their families”. [56]
On 8 January 1844 David S. Hollister
wrote from New Orleans to Joseph Smith concerning the mission he had been sent
on to gather information on the Maid of
Iowa. Three weeks after leaving Nauvoo, Hollister learned at Natchez, Mississippi,
that the Maid had “ascended Red River
and was plying between the raft and Fort
Townsend, about eleven
hundred miles from the mouth”. Hollister passed the Maid in the night after going up the Red River
several hundred miles “without any possibility of boarding her”. By the time he
finally caught up with the steamboat and Captain Dan Jones in New
Orleans the boat was “in the possession of the sheriff for a debt
contracted at St. Louis and so badly damaged by
running through the raft and in the upper Red River”
that Hollister doubted whether she could have “brought at auction over $2,000”.
He offered to “charter [Jones’s] portion of the boat” and raise some money
through his [Hollister’s] friends to get the boat out of its financial
difficulties. But Jones would not agree to any proposal. Part of his reason,
according to Hollister, was his wife:
His wife was commandant in Chief and was fully determined not to give
up the command. She came out on the hurricane deck when Jones and I were
talking and declared that it was just she had expected, a plan of Joseph to
cheat them out of every cent of their hard earned money. [57]
While consulting with lawyers and
trying to come up with a solution to the financial predicament of the
steamboat, including a law suit against Jones, Hollister learned that “Jones
sold one half of the boat to Capt. C. F. Miller who formerly ran the steamboat Des Moines, now owner of
the Steamboat Elizabeth”. At this point Hollister decided that he would simply
“remain on board as clerk representing the interest specified in [his] charter”
awaiting further instructions from Joseph Smith. [58]
Jones explains his side of the story
in a letter to Joseph Smith dated the same day as Hollister’s letter. He begins
by mentioning two earlier letters to the Prophet for which he had received no
answer. He then tells of the difficulty he had had dealing with the person
assigned by Joseph Smith as the boat’s financial clerk, a man by the name of Derby. Jones tells of Derby’s excessive gambling and his refusal to share
information about the boat’s intake or its expenditures, and assures Joseph
that only the high regard he had for him [Joseph] had kept him from “treating [Derby] . . . according to
his demerit”. [59]
Hollister’s insistence on taking
full charge of the boat only added to Jones’s woes, for he could see that it
would only lead to losing it—“he cannot raise funds to liquidate her or to run
her”, he wrote. Jones explained that he had offers of freights to haul on which
he could draw to make the necessary repairs to get the boat operational. With
the income from the freights he could eventually take care of the other debts
and achieve solvency. Because of Hollister’s intransigence Jones’s “sent a
friend to negotiate with him to become equally interested with [Jones] and do
the best we could until we should return”. But Hollister was equally uncompromising
with the friend:
Mr. H. would accept of no proposition short of the comand of the boat,
although she shd [should] be sacrificed, and unless I comply’d that day, in the
morning he would positively take the Boat from me. [60]
Although
Jones does not state specifically in his letter that he had sold his half of
the boat, as stated by Hollister in his letter, he does imply that he did so:
The gentleman whom I have put in my place is a married man, a good
Boatman who will doubtless make money with her, & as he told me today will
advance for Mr. H. what may fall on his part & give him a good situation,
when he could not otherwise have saved himself. [61]
With
a tone of urgency and near desperation Jones appeals to Joseph’s reason in
accepting his behavior in the matter:
And in view of these facts (for facts they are, every
assertion susceptible of positive proof) what should I have done, what
else could I have done under these circumstances? Could I have had yr advise,
you would doubtless have referred me to that first and fundamental principle in
the Law of Nature, which is also an attribute in Nature’s God, a duty I owe my
wife & children, I mean self preservation … To this last resource I have
been ultimately driven by the above conduct. But Oh, how shall I satisfy and
thoroughly convince you & yr worthy family that I have no guile in my
heart, no disposition but what will compare with strict equity and justice; if
to the contrary I fain wd [would] invoke the powers above to reveal it to you
& deal with me according to my conduct in the whole affair. [62]
Subsequent
developments over the next few months suggest that Dan Jones was somehow able
to “thoroughly convince” Joseph Smith that he had “no guile in [his] heart” and
“no disposition but what [compared] with strict equity and justice”. Details of
the process are not available in Church records; however, Dan Jones did become
one of Joseph Smith’s most trusted and intimate friends during the final weeks
of the Prophet’s life.
Dan Jones wrote to Thomas Bullock
about what he did with the Maid of Iowa
during the fall of 1843:
In September she made a trip to St. Louis, thence up the Illinois
River a few trips; but the rivers rising and admitting larger Boats, and the
prejudice against a Mormon Boat being so great, I was advised that I could do
well on the Yarso River, without any competition, and as winter was setting in
I repaired there just after other Boats had got in and secured the winter
trade. I then took a load of Indian traffic up Red River, above the “Raft”, and
a load of cotton down to New Orleans; the Boat sustained considerable damage
there and a Clerk by [the] name of Derby, who betrayed the Nauvoo lodge, put on
board by Joseph having collected all the up and down freights, absconded with
it and left me on board without a dollar of the proceeds to pay the crew,
repair the Boat, or to sustain my wife and two children then there, without
selling my wife’s apparel and my own, while he was strolling along St. Charles
with all but the right sort of company. When my cup was thus nigh full of
grief, down comes a man by the name of Hallister, demanding command of the
Boat, that he had chartered Joseph’s interest; having the word from Joseph on
the subject, nor was Hallister able to manage a Boat, I made arrangements
myself and had the Boat repaired and kept running to repay untill a ship load
of Saints arrived from Liverpool; their passages advanced, with some borrowed
money liberated the Boat, and I returned her and her freight to Nauvoo in April
1844. [63]
Another load of Saints from St. Louis to Nauvoo
The “ship load of Saints arrived
from Liverpool” that Dan Jones mentions in his letter to Thomas Bullock had
crossed the Atlantic on the Fanny. Having left Liverpool on 23
January 1844 they arrived at New
Orleans six weeks later on 7 March 1844 and were
hoping to reach Nauvoo before the conference scheduled for 6 April. Charles
Lambert, one of the Fanny passengers,
upon seeing the Maid of Iowa waiting
at New Orleans
to take them upriver to Nauvoo, was not impressed with what he saw:
This belonged to the Church, but when I saw the boat and engines &
I said it would not do for me … Though my fare was paid to Nauvoo, I told them
I would go to work until I got money to go in a descent vessel. A brother, an engineer,
said he would not trust his family on board, resolved to go on a boat named the
Henry and if I would go he would lend
me the money and I go with them. I
accepted he apostatized soon after he got there in ten days. We was up there but the company was more than
(5) five weeks and suffered much. [64]
However,
William Kay, the leader of the company on board the Fanny was glad to see the Maid
of Iowa at New Orleans:
We have this morning the steamer alongside of us, and intend getting
our luggage on board to day. I assure
you we rejoiced exceedingly at the sight of the steamer, which was the “Maid of
Iowa,” and at the thoughts of going up in a vessel belonging the church, and
commanded by an elder of the church, Brother D. Jones. [65]
Thomas
Steed recorded in his journal a sad incident that occurred the first night as
the passengers made preparations to board the Maid of Iowa:
The passengers had been asked to help pack cord wood into the steam
boat. In doing so Robert Burston,
husband of my cousin, Hannah Steed, with his arms full of wood, fell into the
river and never could be found. My cousin married again and lived childless in New Orleans. [66]
The generosity of Mrs. Bennett
Two
months before the arrival of the Latter-day Saints on board the Fanny Dan Jones had detailed the
financial distress of the Maid of Iowa
in a letter to his partner Joseph Smith. Carrying the company of British Saints
from New Orleans
to Nauvoo was seen as a way to help solve the Maid’s situation, for apparently the boat was still embargoed
because of unpaid debts. The fares paid by those desiring passage to Nauvoo
were insufficient to satisfy the outstanding debts. A passenger by the name of
Priscilla Staines explained in her journal how the dilemma was resolved:
[In New Orleans]
an unexpected difficulty met us. The
steamer Maid of Iowa, belonging to
the Prophet Joseph, and on which the company of Saints had expected to ascend
the Mississippi
to Nauvoo, was embargoed and lashed to the wharf. But Providence
came to our aid. A lady of fortune was
in the company – a Mrs. Bennett – and out of her private purse she not only
lifted the embargo, but also fitted out the steamer with all necessary
provisions, fuel, etc., and soon the company were again on their way. [67]
The Maid of Iowa was so slow in going
upriver that many faster steamers passed her and relayed news to those in
Nauvoo of her many setbacks along the way. Word of Mrs. Bennett’s generosity
also reached Joseph Smith’s ears. Priscilla Staines told Mrs. Bennett of an
impression she had that she would be able to pick out the Prophet Joseph from
the waiting crowd on their arrival. Mrs. Bennett “wondered” at this feeling.
Priscilla wrote of the fulfillment of her feeling:
As we neared the pier the prophet was standing among the crowd. At the moment, however, I recognized him
according to the impression, and pointed him out to Mrs. Bennett, with whom I
was standing alone on the hurricane deck. Scarcely had the boat touched the
pier when, singularly enough, Joseph sprang on board, and, without speaking
with any one, made his way direct to where we were standing, and addressing
Mrs. Bennett by name, thanked her kindly for lifting the embargo from his boat,
and blessed her for so materially aiding the Saints. [68]
The hard journey from New Orleans to Nauvoo
The total time for the Maid of Iowa to complete the journey
from New Orleans to Nauvoo was five weeks,
almost the time it had taken the Fanny
to sail from Liverpool to New Orleans.
The travel-weary Saints had no other choice but to increase in patience and
endurance. William Adams described the experience:
1844 the boat left New Orleans for Nauvoo, Illinois, loaded down to
the guards. The passage was very
tedious, sailing against the current, which was very strong, and the
Mississippi River being swollen and very muddy, especially the Red River, and
others emptying into the Mississippi from the west in which are all very high
at this season of the year. In order to
escape the strong current of the river the pilot would run the boat up sloughs
or bayous, running around and taking many hours and hard work to get her off,
also breaking 2 shafts, and sending down to New Orleans to get new shafts. These accidents were very unpleasant as the
company was very anxious to get to Nauvoo before conference on the 6th of
April… Many of the company were sick by using the water of the river that was
very muddy, which gave diarrhea, or bowel complaint. I was very sick and weak for two months after
I arrived in Nauvoo. [69]
Adams also wrote of the persecution along the way:
We were very much annoyed, also persecuted in towns along the
river. News went ahead that a boat
filled with Mormons was on its way to Nauvoo.
Necessity caused the boat to land to get supplies. Men would rush on to the boat calling us foul
names. "Joe's rats" was a
common salutation we received. Natchez, a town on the
east side of the river set the boat on fire.
It was not discovered till we had left the place over half an hour, and
the side of the boat was ablaze, also several beds and bedding. The fire was extinguished in a short time,
with the loss of several feather beds and bedding. It was a narrow escape for the crew and
passengers, also the boat. [70]
Priscilla
Staines declared that “at nearly every stopping place the emigrants were
shamefully insulted and persecuted by the citizens”. She also wrote of the
attempted arson:
Some villain placed a half consumed cigar under a straw mattress and
other bedding that had been laid out, aft of the ladies' cabin, to air. When we steamed out into the river the draft,
created by the motion of the boat, soon fanned the fire into a quick
flame. Fortunately I myself discovered
the fire and gave the alarm in time to have it extinguished before it had
consumed more than a portion of the adjoining woodwork. Perhaps one minute more of delay in its
discovery, and that company of two hundred and fifty souls would have been
subjected to all the horrors and perils incident to a panic and fire on
shipboard. [71]
Priscilla
Staines also recorded the “furious gale” during the trip that caused the pilot
of the Maid of Iowa to tie up the
boat at a landing and wait until the following morning for calmer conditions in
order to continue upriver. But a mob gathered and “cut the boat adrift”:
The “Maid of Iowa” was now submitted to the triple peril of being
adrift without steam, at the mercy of a treacherous current, and in the midst
of a hurricane. The captain, however,
succeeded in raising the steam, and the boat was brought under sufficient
control to enable her to be brought to, under shelter of a heavy forest, where
she was tied up to the trees and weathered the gale. [72]
William
Adams wrote of another encounter with the foes of Mormonism that could have
turned fatal:
Another town that we landed late in the evening, Captain Jones ordered
that no person be allowed aboard the boat, but men came rushing aboard and
would not be held back. Brother James
Haslem [Haslam] went on the hurricane deck and fired a gun in hopes it would be
a warning to the mob that we would not be run over by them. But in quelling them they ran for firearms
and fired several shots. Things looked
serious, steam was got up as speedily as possible, the boat was shoved off and
they landed three miles up the river and lay over till the next morning, but we
were not molested. [73]
Priscilla
Stains wrote of a similar incident:
At another landing a mob collected and began throwing stones through
the cabin windows, smashing the glass and sash, and jeopardizing the lives of
the passengers. This was a little too
much for human forbearance. The boat was
in command of the famous Mormon captain, Dan Jones; his Welsh blood was now
thoroughly warm; he knew what mobs meant.
Mustering the brethren, with determined wrath he ordered them to parade
with loaded muskets on the side of the boat assailed. Then he informed the mob that if they did not
instantly desist, he would shoot them down like so many dogs; and like so many
dogs they slunk away. [74]
William
Adams recorded yet another incident “where the company was in eminent [sic]
danger of losing their lives and sinking the boat” and one which showed “their
hatred against the Latter-day Saints”:
The lower Mississippi had quite a
number of first class steamboats running between St. Louis
and New Orleans
that made the round trip every week each time they passed the Maid of Iowa we would have a grand
salute by cheering and laughing and calling us bad names. One of those boats—I forget her name—tried to
run us down and would [have] if Captain Jones had not been on the hurricane
deck as he was always on duty, made them shear off by hollowing and threatening
to shoot the pilot. This took place at
night when the company were in their beds. [75]
On Saturday afternoon, 13 April
1844, at about 5:00 the little Maid of
Iowa finally arrived at the Nauvoo landing. A large group of worried
brothers and sisters were on hand to extend their welcome to this group of
British Saints who had had their fill of sea water and river water for the past
eleven weeks. They arrived a week late for the conference that they had hoped
to attend with their beloved prophet and leader. But Joseph Smith was at the
landing to give his personal greetings to the newcomers, all of whom doubtless
shared the feelings of William Adams that he later wrote in his journal:
“I
cannot express the joy and pleasure we enjoyed in just beholding the city of Nauvoo where we could
behold the Prophet of God”. [76]
Final considerations for the mission to
Wales
With the seemingly never-ending difficulties Dan Jones had had to
resolve in connection with the Maid of
Iowa it is no wonder that he was most anxious to return to his homeland and
declare to one and all that at last he had found the truth for which he had
searched for so many years. Jones tells Bullock of his desire to start on his
mission to Wales:
I had frequently profferaed in course of the previous season to start,
in fulfillment of a former appointment on a mission to Wales; but was as often counselled
to delay a while; when I returned this time Joseph said he would endeavour to
get some one to fill my place, and liberate me to go. Aggreeably in the May
following he bought my interest in the Boat for about $1400, I think,
altho’ he had heard others offering me $2000 for it; [77] the difference I
donated to the Temple, for he had desired me not to sell as he would not wish a
worldling to own any in her; I took his counsell and held on untill he
purchased it himself. I had an “Indemnifying Bond” against her enabilities
which is now with my papers in my wife’s possession, much of which I have since
had to pay myself.
Dan
Jones explained further to Thomas Bullock of the final activities of the Maid of Iowa and the honorable
intentions of Joseph Smith to pay for Jones’s half:
Brother Joseph never paid me the first dollar for the Boat; but got me
to make a trip to the Pinery with Lyman Wight and George Miller and effects,
for which I never got anything to pay the expenses save a counterfeit $5. bill
from Wight which caused me to be taken up for passing it at a woodpile, from
which I was liberated at much expense and trouble by proving that I had passed
the Bill without looking at it. I also made a trip up Rock River with the Boat
to Dixon, for provision for the Temple hands; and I did all required of me
after selling it, untill Joseph was killed, he detaining me there untill he
should have money to pay me. A few days previous to being arrested he told me
“I have a check in the house for $1200 as soon as I can get it cashed you shall
have $1100 of it, and the start for Wales, not with your fingers in your mouth
but prepared to buy a Press; and do business aright.” Such were his intentions
no doubt, but that was the last I heard of the check or money, except an
allusion on his part to it while at Carthage.
Sister Emma had better use for it doubtless. And had it not been for the
kindness of President Young in raising me some $30 I think, and
conveyance to Chicago, besides his order for $500 on the office at Liverpool, I
should have been minus of a Boat, save board for myself and wife at the Mansion
House some two or three months, not even a Dollar during the sickness and
death, or towards burying my only two surviving children. I also held Joseph’s
notes, signed by himself, to the amount, so far as I do remember, of about $900
which I sent back to W. W. Phelps to be given President Young agreeably to a
previous request, desiring, if available, to be credited to me in the
Temple a/c but which I have never heard or thought much of since. Not long
before his death Joseph sold the Boat to the Temple Committee
for I think $5000; subsequently they chartered her to a Mr. Ross, without
proper security, against which I remonstrated with them then; but I have not
learned the fate of the “Maid” after that event. [78]
Captain
Jones’s dedication to his new religion and the enthusiasm he felt for his
mission call to Wales
overshadowed whatever concerns he may have had about the money that would never
come to him from the sale of his steamboat:
Thrilled with prospects of my Mission
I left all, rejoicing in the exchange of a Steam Boat for an Eldership on the
deck of the never sinking ship of life. [79]
CHAPTER 1 – NOTES
- It is
“Dan”, not “Daniel” in the parish register entry.
- Halkyn
parish registers. Temple Records Index Bureau for the deaths of Thomas and
Samuel. Dan Jones’s brother Edward performed the temple ordinance work for
these two brothers in 1875.
- Cymru, v. XL, number 23 (May
1911):287.
- Jones,
Dan. Y farw wedi ei chyfodi yn fyw
(The dead raised to life), Wrexham: Printed by William Bayley, Estyn Street,
1845, p. iv.
- Marriage
license. Denbigh parish registers.
- Jones,
Dan. A
review of the lectures of the Rev. E. Roberts (Merthyr Tydfil:
Published and for sale by Capt. Jones, Printed by John Jones, Rhydybont,
1847, p. 26-27. A facsimile translation of this pamphlet is in my Defending the Faith: Early Welsh
Missionary Publications. Provo, Utah: BYU
Religious Studies
Center, 2003, item
J13.
- Ibid.
This is the only known reference to what may be Dan Jones’s first
residence in the United
States. Research of early records by
Jean Metcalf who visited New Salem (now Conneaut), Ohio, has turned up no reference to Dan
Jones. Conneaut (pronounced Caw-nee-ut) is located on Lake Erie and is one
of the most frequented seaway ports on the Lake.
- Enrollment
document for The Ripple. On the enrollment document Dan Jones swore that “he
together with Solon Cummings & Wm Williams of Rock River, in the State
of Illinois are citizens of the United States,
and sole owners of the Ship or Vessel called the Ripple of Saint Louis.”
But his declaration of intent to become a citizen of the United States is dated 28 May
1842, over a year after the date of the enrollment document.
- Warsaw Signal, 24 Nov 1841.
- Dan
Jones letter of 20 January 1855 to Thomas Bullock, p. [21]. Levi Moffat
(1800-1857 purchased a mill-site claim on the Skunk River in 1835 and was
among the first settlers of Augusta, a small town located about twelve
miles north of Nauvoo. The History
of Des Moines County, Iowa, containing a history of the
county, its Cities, Towns, etc. Chicago:
Western Historical Company, 1879, p. 595-96.
- Dan
Jones letter of 20 January 1855 to Thomas Bullock, p. [21].
- Jones,
Dan. History of the Latter-day
Saints. Merthyr Tydfil: Published and
for sale by Capt. Jones. Printed by J. Jones, Rhydybont, [1847], p. 58.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.,
p. 59.
- Ibid.,
p. 59-60. Five years later Dan Jones published a pamphlet in which he gave
numerous reasons why he believed the Spaulding manuscript could not have
been the source for the Book of Mormon. See Welsh Mormon Writings, p. 57-61. Also Defending the Faith, item J13.
- Ibid.,
p. 60. The letter has not been identified.
- Ibid.
The person from whom Dan Jones learned the gospel has not been identified.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
The person who baptized Dan Jones has not been identified. Some Church
historians have stated that Jones was baptized following his first meeting
with Joseph Smith in April 1843. But the Temple Records Index Bureau has
19 January 1843 as the date of his baptism, a date which Jones himself
probably stated when he was to be sealed by Brigham Young to Jane Melling
and Elizabeth Jones Lewis on 8 November 1849. Also in his 1855 letter to
Thomas Bullock, Jones stated, “That winter I was baptized at St. Louis”, p. [21].
- Dan
Jones letter of 20 January 1855 to Thomas Bullock, p. [21].
- Ibid.
His wife Jane apparently did not share his enthusiasm for his new
religious beliefs either. David Hollister wrote in his 8 January 1844
letter to Joseph Smith, “His wife was commandant in Chief and was fully
determined not to give up the command. She came out on the hurrycane deck
when Jones and I were talking and declared that it was just what she had
expected a plan of Joseph to cheat them out of every cent of their hard
earned money”.
- The Alex. Scott is sometimes referred
to as the Alexander Scott. See Conway B. Sonne, Ships,
Saints, and Mariners, University
of Utah Press, 1987,
p. 8.
- A
total of 214 had arrived on the Medford and 180 on the Sidney.
- Pratt
also wrote: “He soon joined the Church, and was finally ordained and
appointed a mission to Wales,
where he preached the fulness of the gospel and gathered thousands into
the Church.” Apparently Pratt did not learn during the eleven-day travel
from St. Louis
to Nauvoo on board the Maid of Iowa
that Captain Jones had already been baptized. Or perhaps this part of his
autobiography he wrote from memory. The quote is from the Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt,
p. 329. SLC: Deseret Book Company, 1970, eighth printing.
- History of the Church 5:354. Dan
Jones put the number of Saints on this journey from St. Louis to Nauvoo at “over 300”. History of the Latter-day Saints,
p. 60.
- History of the Latter-day Saints,
p. 60.
- Ibid.,
p. 61. Jones related this experience to Thomas Bullock in his 20 Jan 1855
letter, p. [21], a bit differently: “That winter I was baptized at St.
Louis, and in the opening of the river took a load of Saints from thence
to Nauvoo, where, and when, I first saw the Prophet and I well remember
his introduction – patting me on the shoulder from behind, in the midst of
the crowd on board, he said, “God help this little man,” and was off. The
second time he did so, and then I was informed who he was that had thus so
singularly blessed me.
- History of the Latter-day Saints,
p. 61.
- The
British are much more sparing than Americans in their use of the term
“city”. A cathedral is necessary in a “city” in Britain for it to be called
such. Also they are generally much more populous than towns.
- Ibid.,
p. 61-62.
- History of the Church 5:386. The
call came from nine of the apostles “assembled in council”, but Joseph
Smith was probably the one who proposed the call.
- Ibid.
- Dan
Jones letter of 20 January 1855 to Thomas Bullock, p. [22]. This was
probably on 2 May 1843 when, according to The History of the Church, “about three p.m., the Maid of Iowa arrived from St. Louis.” There is
no recorded meeting between Joseph Smith and Levi Moffatt, but the
complaint may have come from Moffatt through Brigham Young when the latter
was in Moffatt’s home town of Augusta, about ten miles from Nauvoo, for a
meeting of about 200 Saints on 30 April 1843. See History of the Church 5:371.
- History of the Church 5:417-18.
Need to review the Maid of Iowa’s
papers to determine whether there were two notes totaling $1,375.
- Dan
Jones letter of 20 January 1855 to Thomas Bullock, p. [22].
- History of the Church 5:418. This
was on the 3rd and 4th of June 1843.
- Ibid.,
5:432-36.
- Ibid.,
5:439-40.
- Ibid.,
5:443.
- Ibid.,
5:446-47.
- Ibid.,
5:447; 482.
- Ibid.,
5:482.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.,
5:482-83.
- Ibid.,
5:483.
- Ibid.
Rich’s account differs somewhat: “Here we left Jesse P. Harmon and Alanson
Ripley with instructions to hail the steamer Maid of Iowa, and procure what information they had of the
whereabouts of Brother Joseph Smith.” History
5:486. Rich also states that his detachment reached Peoria at about 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday,
28 June. Burbank puts the Maid at Pekin,
ten miles downriver from Peoria,
at an hour before daybreak. After the altercation with the Chicago Belle it would not have
taken the steamboat much longer to reach Peoria. Perhaps they were stopped there.
- Ibid.,
5:483.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.,
5:484. A “yawl” is a small sailboat.
- Ibid.
Daniel Burbank took special care to point out in his account that Benjamin
Orum was not a member of the Church. A “skiff” is a small, light sailing
ship or rowboat.
- Ibid.,
5:481. According to Burbank’s account of
the rescue mission the Maid of Iowa
left Quincy
at 8:00 o’clock this same morning. Thus its arrival time in Nauvoo was
probably a few hours earlier than 6:00 p.m.
- Ibid.
- This
reference needs to be identified.
- Ibid.,
5:510.
- Ibid.,
5:515. The “pinery” in Wisconsin was the
source of much of the wood used in building the Nauvoo Temple.
- David
S. Hollister letter of 8 January 1844 to Joseph Smith. Journal History of the Church. Original
is in the Church Historian’s Library [need to check].
- Ibid.
The full text of Hollister’s letter is available on the website http://welshmormonhistory.org at
http://welshmormonhistory.org/viewresource.php?resourceid=2279&camefrom=
- Dan
Jones letter of 8 January 1844 to Joseph Smith. The full text of Jones’s
letter is available at http://welshmormonhistory.org/viewresource.php?resourceid=459&camefrom=
- Ibid.
The friend is probably Capt. C. F. Miller mentioned in Hollister’s letter.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Dan
Jones letter of 20 January 1855 to Thomas Bullock, p. [22].
- Lambert,
Charles. Autobiography (Ms 1130 1),
pp. 8-9; Acc. #36339.
- Kay,
William, [Letter] Latter-day Saints Millennial Star 4:12 (April 1844) p.
202.
- Steed,
Thomas, “The Life of Thomas Steed from His Own Diary, 1826-1910,”
(privately printed, 1935?) p.
8. (HDL)
- Stains,
Priscilla. [Reminiscences] IN Tullidge Edward W., The Women of
Mormondom (New York: MP, 1877) pp.
288-91.
- Ibid.,
p. 291.
- Adams,
William. Ms 8039, pp. 2-4; Acc.
#26731. (Typescript) (HDA)
- Ibid.
Priscilla Staines identified the place of the arson as Memphis.
- Stains,
Priscilla. Reminiscences.
- Ibid.
- Adams,
Williams. Ms 8039.
- Stains,
Priscilla. Reminiscenses, p.
289-90. This may have been the same incident that Williams Adams
described.
- Adams,
Williams, Ms 8039, p. 4.
- Ibid.
- Dan
Jones letter of 20 January 1855 to Thomas Bullock, p. [23]. The 15 April
1844 entry in the History of the
Church reads: “At home settling with Dan Jones for steamboat Maid of Iowa. She has returned in
debt about $1,700. After much conversation and deliberation, I agreed to
buy out Jones, by giving him property in the city worth $1,231, and
assuming the debts.” Because of his mission call, however, Jones did not
plan to settle on the property he acquired. Most likely he planned to sell
the property and use the money to finance his mission to Wales.
- Ibid.,
p. [23]-[24]. I need to find the details about the $5,000 selling price
for the Maid of Iowa in the
Whitney papers at BYU.
- Ibid,
p. [24].
CHAPTER 2
– THE MARTYRDOM
Because he was Joseph Smith’s business partner, Dan Jones
had a frequency and closeness of contact with him that not many others enjoyed.
And even though they each had a fifty percent interest in the Maid of Iowa Jones was obviously the
junior partner in that he submitted himself to Joseph’s direction in matters
that dealt with the steamboat as well as with other aspects of his life. Jones
no doubt lamented Joseph’s choice of men such as Derby and Hollister to assist in the
operation of the little steamer; nevertheless, he dealt with such things as
best he could and did not cease to seek the Prophet’s guidance and friendship.
That he achieved the latter is evident in the Prophet’s request to Jones that
he remain by his side in the final days and hours preceding the Martyrdom. Only
the guard’s denial of Jones’s pass to re-enter the jail just hours before the
Martyrdom kept him from being in the upper room to assist Joseph in his final
and futile attempts to ward off the assassins’ bullets.
In
July 1847 Jones published a detailed account of the Martyrdom in Welsh as part
of his History of the Latter-day Saints.
And in a long letter dated 20
January 1855, written in answer to a request from Thomas Bullock, Jones produced
his second eyewitness record of this watershed event in Latter-day Saint
history. I have used several other sources in writing this account of the
Martyrdom; however, these two sources are the most often quoted in order to
bring out the presence of the faithful Captain as the final moments of the
Prophet’s life unfolded. [1]
The
Beginning of the End
On
Wednesday June 12, 1844, Joseph Smith was standing by the side of his brother
Hyrum on the portico of the Mansion House, along with several other friends.
They were waiting to attend the funeral of John Maddock Jones, the little
three-and-a-half-year-old son of Dan and Jane Jones. As Joseph “was about
stepping into a carriage he was accosted by the Sheriff of Hancock County with
a writ to appear before a Magistrate, Smith, in Carthage, charged with
destroying the Press of the Nauvoo
Expositor”. [2] Jones described Joseph’s reaction: “He expostulated in vain
for the privilege of paying the last debt of honour to the remains of the
sacred dead”. Since the writ allowed Joseph Smith to appear before the issuer
“or any other Magistrate in the County” a trial was demanded before Justice
Daniel H. Wells in Nauvoo who honorably acquitted the Prophet. [3]
Saturday
evening, June 22nd, in a meeting in his upper room at the Mansion
House Joseph made the decision to cross over the Mississippi that night and escape to the
west. As he went out of the house he told Abraham C. Hodge and John L. Butler
to take the Maid of Iowa, then in
charge of Daniel M. Repsher, “get it to the upper landing, and put his and
Hyrum’s families and effects upon her; then go down the Mississippi and up the
Ohio river to Portsmouth, where they should hear from them”. [4] Joseph and
Hyrum did cross the river that night, but because they were persuaded to return
to Nauvoo the next day the plan for the Maid
of Iowa was not put into action.
Concerning
Monday morning, June 24th, Dan Jones wrote to Thomas Bullock:
Eventfull day! found
hundreds gathered before the Mansion House early in the morning; - in their
midst with head erect towering above the rest the Prophet stood gazing
alternately on the devoted City and its much loved citizens; in suspense he
listened to the entreaties of the throng, not to give himself up or he would be
murdered; a few, tho’ enough, brave hearted men proposed to escort him where he
would find the protection denied him by the “Christians” among the red “pagans”
of the West: – others, up north would have him go, while a fearless Tar [Dan
Jones, himself], inured to other climes, whose heart was a Malstrom of fury,
proffered him a safe passage on a Steam Boat, then ready by, to whither he
would; a smile of approbation lit up the Seer’s countenance: – his lovely boys
hanging on to his skirts urged on this suite and cryed “Father, O Father don’t
go to Carthage they will kill you.” – a volley of arguments move powerfull yet
from the streaming eyes of her he loved best, and whose embrace was hard to
sever; nor least impressive were the pleadings of his doting Mother whose grey
ringlets honoured a head weather-beaten by the persecutions of near twice ten
years, “My Son, my Son, can you leave me without promising to return? Some
forty times before have I seen you from me dragged, but never before without
saying you would return; what say you now my Son? He stood erect like a beacon
among roaring breakers, – his gigantic mind grasping still higher; the fire
flashed in his eye, with hand uplifted on high he spoke “My friend nay dearer
still my bretheren, I love you, I love the City of Nauvoo too well to save my
life at your expense, – If I go not to them they will come and act out the
horrid Missouri scenes in Nauvoo; – I may prevent it, I fear not death, my work
is well nigh done, keep the faith and I will die for Nauvoo. [5]
The company of between thirty and forty
men on horseback – Captain Dan Jones among them – accompanied Joseph and Hyrum
to the temple on the hill for one last look at the city below and then
proceeded on toward Carthage.
When about four miles from Carthage
they met another company of horsemen coming toward them. Their leader, Captain
Dunn, had orders from Governor Ford to go to Nauvoo and gather up all the arms
from among the citizens. At Dunn’s request the Prophet and all his men returned
to Nauvoo with Dunn and his men to carry out this request. In the evening most
of the men accompanied Joseph and Hyrum back to Carthage, arriving at about midnight. Dan
Jones, “failing to get a horse”, remained in Nauvoo that night. [6]
Tuesday
afternoon, June 25th, Dan Jones obtained a horse and rode to Carthage. “Documents of
importance for the trial being in Mrs. Smith’s possession, by request I took
them out to Carthage
and arrived during the trial of Mr. Smith and the City Council and in time to
give in my evidence, which was admitted to be not the least important in their
favour.” At about 6:30 that same evening Jones went downstairs in Hamilton’s
Hotel and overheard leaders of the mob state that they had eighteen accusations
against Joseph and Hyrum, accusations that were intended to keep them in
Carthage rather than to prove anything against the two.
One of them, by the name
of Jackson, reply’d when I told them to desist
from their cruel persecutions that they had worked too hard to get old Joe to Carthage to let him get
out of it alive, and pointing to his pistols said, “The balls are in there that
will decide his case”. [7]
Jones hastened back upstairs to give
Joseph this information. More than ten years later he wrote to Thomas Bullock
about the few minutes he had with Joseph after telling him the mob’s intent:
[Joseph] informed me “They
are going to take me to prison without a guard; you will not leave me will
you?” to which I reply’d that I had come to die with him the rather. He took me
aside into the front room and asked “Have you anything with you?” One little
bulldog I reply’d, and this switch, pointing to a black hickory club in my
hand, the which parryed the rifles of the asasins in prison by Mr. Taylor. Let
me have the first said he, which was no sooner said than safely deposited where
I wished a dozen more to be. [8]
Shortly afterwards the decision was made
to allow Joseph and Hyrum, despite the danger from the mob, to be escorted to
the jail by guards. Jones wrote:
Being dark, Mr. Smith
asked me to get inside somehow, and Col. Markam on one side, with a hickory
club, while I was on the other, outside the guard, I parry’d off the guns and
bayonets of the drunken rabble who tried to break the ranks to stab them; the
prison doors being open before a light was produced I rushed between the guard
and the door and found my way into the farthest cells unhindered, followed by
the defendants and the [others]. [9]
Following the harrowing events of the
long day Joseph and Hyrum finally found themselves in the “criminal’s cell” of
the Carthage Jail with a handful of faithful and trusted friends: Willard
Richards, John Taylor, Stephen Markham, Edward Southwick, John S. Fullmer,
Lorenzo D. Wasson, and Dan Jones. [10] After some “amusing conversation on
various interesting topics till late” there was a prayer, “which made Carthage prison into the
gate of heaven for awhile”. The last words spoken by the Prophet that night
were, “For the most intelligent dream to night bretheren”. [11]
The
Day Before the Martyrdom
The first words spoken by the Prophet on Wednesday morning,
June 26, 1844, were inquiring after his request of the previous evening for the
“most intelligent dream”. Jones wrote to Bullock that a dream he [Jones] had
had was the only one told:
Portrayed before my mind
was Gov. Ford and troops on their way accross the prairie to Nauvoo, the
prisoners had plead in vain to return with him, although promised by him to go;
with a letter of importance I saw myself driven from Carthage, galloping
through the masses of medley soldiers, half Indians and semi-barbarians, I
hurried across the prairie, had gone down on a boat from Nauvoo towards Quincy,
but while landed at Warsaw awoke, in the midst of powder, smoke, death, and
carnage. [12]
The Prophet’s response to this dream was
that it was “ominous of future events”. He also stated that he did not believe
the Governor would ever take him to Nauvoo alive. Jones reflected back on this
dream about thirty hours later as he rode toward Nauvoo with a letter for
Orville Browning and later when on a steamboat going downriver to Quincy. [13]
After
breakfast the prisoners and their friends were relocated to a room upstairs.
Because the door to this room would not shut properly Jones declares: “Most of
my forenoon’s work consisted in hewing, with my penknife, a wharped door to get
it on the latch, and in preparing to fortify against a night attack, in which Col. Markam was
also industrious.” [14]
Various visitors came to
the jail during the morning, including Governor Ford. During the early
afternoon Joseph related two dreams he had had some time before. In the first
he was in a dry well from which he saw Wilson Law under attack by a “ferocious
wild beast” and his brother William with a huge serpent around his body. Their
cries for help from Joseph were in vain because they had tied his hands behind
his back. In the second dream Joseph saw
himself twice saving a ship from wrecking. Afterwards he marched on a sea of
glass with Hyrum at this side. In the distance Joseph saw his brother Samuel
“light as a fairy, skipping o’er the main”. Jones did not recall other details
of the dream when writing to Thomas Bullock ten years later, but he thought the
interpretation that Joseph gave was that the ship “Uncle Sam” was stranded for
having rejected a safe pilot and that Samuel had come to join his brothers and
“soar on high beyond the ‘rage of mobs and angry strife’”. [15]
In the middle of the
afternoon Joseph and Hyrum went to the court house in much the same fashion as
they had come to the prison the night before. On this occasion, however, Joseph
sought safety by locking arms “with the worst mobocrat he could see” and Hyrum
clenched “the next worse one”. And again Col. Markham was on one side and Dan
Jones on the other with their “switches”. In the evening, after the trial had
been postponed until the following day, they were again escorted to the prison
“amidst the whooping, hallooing and denuncications [denunciations] of
infuriated thousands”. [16]
Later that evening Hyrum
“read and commented upon copious extracts from the Book of Mormon” and Joseph
“bore a powerful testimony to the guards of the divine authenticity of the Book
of Mormon”. Dan Jones, ten years later, recalled the quiet conversation he had
with Joseph and during which Joseph uttered his final prophecy in mortality:
Late we retired to rest,
Joseph and Hyrum on the only bedstead while 4 or 5 lay side by side on
mattresses on the floor, Dr. Richards sitting up writing untill his last candle
left him in the dark; the report of a gun, fired close by, caused Joseph whose
head was by a window, to arise, leave the bed and lay himself by my side in
close embrace; soon after Dr. Richards retired to the bed and while I thought
all but myself and heaven asleep, Joseph asked in a whisper if I was afraid to
die. “Has that time come think you? Engaged in such a cause I do not think that
death would have many terrors,” I replied. “You will see Wales and fulfill the mission
appointed you ere you die” he said. I believed his word and relied upon it
through trying scenes which followed. All the conversation evinced a presentiment
of an approaching crisis. [17]
Sleep finally overtook the Prophet and
Dan Jones. At about midnight there was a commotion outside the jail that
brought Jones out of his slumber. He wrote:
At midnight I was awoke by
heavy treads as of soldiery close by, and I heard a whispering “Who, and how
many shall go in?” under our window; upon arising I saw a large number of men
in front of the prison, and gave the alarm as they rushed up stairs to our room
door; we had taken the precaution to fortify ourselves by placing a chair, the
only defence, against the door, which one of the bretheren seized for a weapon,
and we stood by the door awaiting their entrance; hearing us they hesitated;
when the Prophet with a “Prophets voice” called out “Come on ye assassins we are
ready for you, and would as willingly die now as at daylight”. Hearing this
they retired again, and consulted, advanced and retreated alternately,
evidently failing to agree, untill the assassins terror – the morning light,
chased the murderers with their kindred fiends and the darkness to the abodes
where the reveller in crime was the hero of the day. [18]
The
Final Morning in Carthage
Early
in the morning on Thursday, June 27th, Dan Jones was sent downstairs
to inquire of the guard concerning the commotion at midnight. Jones spoke with
Frank Worrell who was in charge of the Carthage Greys guarding the jail.
Worrell’s reply to Jones was, “We have had too much trouble to bring old Joe
here to let him ever escape out alive, and unless you want to die with him you
better leave before sundown, and you are not a d___n bit better than him for
taking his part”. Jones endeavored to “cool him down and to recall those
threats which so ill became those who were entrusted with the lives of men”.
Worrell responded, “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”. These threats were spoken in the presence of Worrell’s men, one
of whom leveled and cocked his rifle at Jones and swore with an “awful
imprecation” how he “would love to bore a hole through old Joe”. Listening at
the top of the stairs were Joseph and Hyrum. [19]
Joseph
then sent Jones to inform Governor Ford of Worrell’s threats. On his way to the
Hamilton Hotel, Jones heard one of the leaders of the mob addressing a rather
large crowd telling those gathered that they would make a sham discharge in
obedience to orders but that after the Governor had left for Nauvoo they would
“return to town … and tear that prison down and have those two men’s lives
before sundown”. The threat was declared at the top of the speaker’s voice
“which echoed in the walls of the Town Hall and public square” and was
responded to by the cheers of the crowd. [20]
Governor
Thomas Ford was calm as he listened to Dan Jones’s report. He simply replied,
“You are unnecessarily alarmed for your friends safety sir, the people are not
that cruel”. This remark irritated the feisty Captain, and he “urged the
necessity of placing better men than professed assassins to guard [Joseph and
Hyrum]”. He added that they were American citizens “surrendered to his ‘pledged
honour’” and that they were also Master Masons, and as such Jones “demanded the
protection of their lives”. When Ford’s only reaction was a face that “appeared
to be pale with fright or horror”, Jones declared that if Ford “left their
lives in the hands of those men to be sacrificed” he had only one request to
make. “What is that sir?” Ford asked in a “hurried tone”. Jones responded, “It is
that the Almighty will preserve my life to a proper time and place to testify
that you have been timely warned of their danger.” The only effect on the
Governor was to “turn him round and stroll to the other end of the room”. [21]
Jones
was refused entry when he returned to the jail. He later returned to Hamilton
Hotel when Ford was standing in front of the MacDonough troops who were ready
to escort him to Nauvoo. Shouts were heard from the disbanded mob that they
were “going only a short distance out of town and would return and hang old Joe
and Hyrum as soon as the Governor would be gone out of the way”. Jones
approached the Governor to call these threats to his attention and to ask for
passports for himself and others of the Prophet’s friends to be in the jail
with him. Ford’s instructed Col. Demming to give a pass for Dr. Richards, the
Prophet’s secretary, but for no one else. It was given to Jones to take to
Willard Richards. By receiving it Jones “was near being massacred, and was told
by Chauncey Higbee on the street that they ‘were determined to kill Joe and
Hyrum’” and that Jones had better go away to save himself. Jones was not one to
keep still, even when surrounded by members of an angry mob. He wrote to
Bullock of his predicament after the Governor’s departure from Carthage: “I was then
alone in the midst of the turbulent mob with whom I contended for the innocency
of the prisoners, and for their right of trial, untill enraged, they attempted
to seize me, but I eluded their grasp.” [22]
Jones
went with Almon Babbit, whom he had met in the street, to the jail. Babbit was
admitted as counsel. Jones tried to get in by using the pass given to him for
Willard Richards, but to no avail. Richards was allowed to come outside—this
was shortly after noon—and Jones informed him of the threats of the mob a short
time before. Richards put a letter written by the Prophet into Jones’s hands
and instructed him to take the letter posthaste to Orville. H. Browning in Quincy. The guard informed
the mob that the letter contained orders for the Nauvoo Legion to come to Carthage and rescue the
prisoners. As a result the mob gathered around Jones and demanded the letter.
When Jones “utterly refused” to give up the letter some favored taking it by
force while others objected. Some favored not allowing Jones to leave Carthage alive while
others swore that he should not be allowed to stay there any longer. Those who
wished to keep Jones in Carthage
then declared that if he left he would not reach Nauvoo alive, whereupon “about
a dozen started off with rifle in hand to waylay [Jones] where the road runs
through the woods. Jones describes how he escaped from Carthage and how the Lord protected his life
from two groups of the mob:
Having previously ordered
my horse which was already in the street, I took advantage of their
disagreement and no sooner in the saddle than both spurs were to work, and a
race-horse and rider were enveloped in a cloud of dust with balls whistling nor
saw the second scene untill beyond the point of timber stretching into the
prairie half a mile; to my right I discovered the road to Nauvoo, and the Gov.
and escort about 4 miles off having dined there; proving that I was on the
Carthage road, my horse having like myself, lost the waylaid road leading through
the woods, and thereby escaped those awaiting me there. I turned across the
plain to the other road, and passed the Governor, whereas, as was ascertained
afterwards, had I advanced half a mile farther on the Carthage road, I should
have come upon a gang of about 300 painted assassins who were then beyond a
prairie ridge on that road waiting the disappearing of His Excellency in order
to march upon the prison and execute the horrid threats. Thus I was
providentially led as if between two fires unharmed. [23]
Fulfillment
of the Dream and Narrow Escapes
While
riding his horse toward Nauvoo, Jones reflected on the dream he had had two
nights earlier in Carthage Jail. Now he actually had the letter in his
possession, and the troops were in full view. His thoughts of the boat trip
down the Mississippi to Quincy “filled [his] soul with ominous
forebodings of the sequel”—the “powder, smoke, death, and carnage”.
Consequently, upon reaching the outskirts of Nauvoo he “entreated of the crowds
who had assembled to meet His Excellency to haste to Carthage and save the Prophet’s life—the only
alternative”. “But,” lamented Jones, “wiser ones, perhaps, had otherwise
decreed.” [24] The leaders at Nauvoo opted to put their trust in the word of
Governor Ford rather than heed the exhortations of the Welsh steamboat captain.
No
downriver steamboat to carry Jones to Quincy
would arrive at Nauvoo until later in the evening. Thus he was present for the
arrival and the speech of Governor Ford to the people of Nauvoo. Jones wrote of
the experience:
I with thousands more had
the mortification of seeing, formally greeted, withing [within] the mourning
“City of Joseph” the “Pilate” that should have changed places and doom; had the
untold disgrace I say of listening to a man stuck up in front of the Prophet’s
house, and harrangueing an innocent and inoffensive people with insinuations
applicable only to his own party; anything less than the Superhuman endurance
of Saints would have been tantalized to retaliate, when in presence of the
wives, children, and friends of his victims he declared that “a great crime had
been done by placing the City under Martial Law, (which was done only so far as
self preservation from the mobs was demanding,) and a sever[e] atonement
must be made; so prepare your minds for the emergency”. So awful a threat
proceeding from the lips of the highest functionary of a State, while the
victims had surrendered themselves as pledges of his “honour”, drew from
bursting hearts of many bystanders a half stifled shriek of horror as it echoed
in the walls of the Prophets house and drew louder shrieks from his wife and
mother the latter sank into her chair crying “My sons O my sons lives are means
to make the atonement”. Even the obdurate spirit of the speaker felt the
shock; and appeared to quiver from the effects of his own denunciations, from
which he could not recoil. [25]
After the speech the Governor and his
escort were entertained at the Mansion House, “and,” observed Jones, “while
sitting at the Prophet’s table the hands of the assassins were dripping with
his blood, and His Excellency might have said ‘A severe atonement has
been made,’ as doubtless the Prophet and Patriarch were weltering in their own
atoneing blood while their doom was being proclaimed to their families and
friends”. [26]
Later
that night Jones boarded a steamboat that was going downriver to St. Louis. Even though it
had been five or more hours since the Martyrdom, no one in Nauvoo was aware of
the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum. Shortly after 8:00 p.m. a messenger, George D.
Grant, had been sent from Carthage
with a note from Willard Richards. But when he was within about three miles of
Nauvoo he was intercepted by the Governor and his party. Grant was forced to
accompany them back to his home near Carthage
to prevent news from reaching the people in Nauvoo. [27] Sometime after
midnight the steamer landed at Warsaw
where Jones saw a “great excitement on the landing”. When he stepped among
those gathered he heard someone declare that “Joe and Hyrum were both shot
while trying to escape from prison”. The same individual stated that messengers
had been sent to Quincy and the lower counties to “raise the Militia to defend Warsaw against an attack
from the Mormons” but that “their real object was, when they got them there, to
take the beauty and booty of Nauvoo”. Someone else, hoping to stimulate others,
claimed “I now where a chest full of gold is hid in old Joe’s cellar”. The
apparent rejoicing among the people on the landing reminded Jones of the sequel
to his dream, although he “hoped against hope that they boasted of their
desires, rather than of overt acts”. [28]
Jones then reports to Bullock that while at Warsaw he obtained a copy
of the “Warsaw Signal Extra”, a rather small piece of paper that contained only
news of the death of Joseph and Hyrum:
Commencing by putting the
letter J for Joe upside down; it stated “that the Mormons attackted [sic] the
prison; – that the guards were compelled
to shoot the prisoners in defense of their own lives, and to prevent their
escape; – that three of the Citizens of Hancock were shot by Joe; – the Mormons
have killed Governor Ford and suite, burned Carthage, and we look for them to
attack Warsaw every hour; will not the inhabitants of the surrounding Country
rush to our defence before we, our wives and children will be massacred”. [29]
In order to obtain sympathy from people
who lived outside Hancock County the anti-Mormons “had sent a number of women
and children in their night clothes on a previous down Steamer to Quincy”. Furthermore, they
“boasted of ‘Tom Sharps’ long headed shrewdness in the scheme, and exulted in
the prospect of heralding forth that first impression on the public mind so as
to justify the horrid deed”. [30] In 1847 Jones commented about Thomas Sharp
and his accusations: “I was rash enough to contradict him there on the bank [in
Warsaw], from
what I knew; and if the boat had not been at my side for me to jump into, they
would have killed me too for that”. [31]
As
the steamer carrying Dan Jones went downriver toward Quincy it met another steamer coming the
opposite direction. The two boats came to a stop near one another. When the
captain of the boat going upriver asked for news, the other captain, “to the
disgrace of civilization”, replied, “Nothing only old Joe and Hyrum are
killed”. The passengers and crew of the other boat responded with “hearty
cheers and swinging of hats”, and the passengers and crew of Jones’s boat “had
hats off to return the salute. Jones could no longer contain himself and
“shouted at the top of [his] voice”:
Shame gentlemen, shame on
such cruelty, will you by cheering approbate the blackest crime recognized by
the laws of even barbarous nations – will you as civilized men tolerate the
cold blooded murder of American Citizens, and that while laying in prison
untried, while the honour of the State was pledged to protect them? Gentlemen
desist, or whose lives will be safe if Republicanism is swallowed up by such a
blood thirsty spirit as that? [32]
This “inadvertent” outburst by Jones made
“with other power” than his own “carried shame to their faces, and paralized
[sic] the arms that still clenched the hats tho’ drooping by their sides, and
sent them sneaking out of sight”. [33]
When Jones arrived in Quincy, he found it “all in
an uproar”. He saw “a crowd of Militia waiting for a steamer to take them to
the scene of supposed action” and “the Warsaw
mobs’ emissaries inflaming the populace and distributing that infernal Budget
of Tom Sharp the ‘Extra’”. He heard of a meeting to be held in the City Hall
for all citizens and knew he needed to be in attendance. After listening to all
he could stand of the lies told by the mob’s emissaries from Warsaw, Jones “jumped up and demanded a
hearing”. He shouted that he could prove all the statements about the supposed
Mormon attack on Carthage
to be false and that they were made to “excite false alarm”. Jones described
the scene to Bullock:
A fuss followed “Down with
him” “Order, Order”. – “Hear the stranger”; the “Hear” carried and on I spun my
tale; as if with a voice of fearless little thunder, characteristic of truth
alone; I denied that the Mormons had attackted the prison, that I was the last
Mormon but one from Carthage yesterday evening – left all the Mormons peaceably
at Nauvoo about midnight that Gov. Ford nor any of his suit [suite] were
neither killed nor wounded when they left Nauvoo early in the morning – that it
was palpably false about Carthage being burnt; – that the Mormons had no
intention of attacking Warsaw and that neither Militia nor any other need not
trouble themselves about Warsaw or go there, unless they wished to attack
Nauvoo, that that was the only object the mob had had in calling them there;
and I also told them what I had heard at Warsaw – carried a strong influence,
and the Chair decided “No cause of alarm, all go about your business”. [34]
This scene repeated itself a short time
later on a steamboat coming up river with a company of militia on board when it
landed at Quincy.
Jones wrote:
Again my antagonist mounted
the wheelhouse and preached his infuriating sermon, who, before he could put in
the amen, found another alongside of him tearing his Bwcibw [bogeyman] by piece meals, as he had done in the Court
House, to his irremediable chagrin, and swayed a similar proselyting influence,
so that instead of embarking more Militia on board, those already there landed
and remained there. [35]
The
“mobocrats” who had come from Warsaw to Quincy to circulate falsehoods about
the Mormons and stir up animosity against them decided to travel back to Warsaw
on the recently arrived steamboat, “threatening veangeance [sic] on [Jones’s]
head”. And Jones, having accomplished his mission to Quincy, was about to return to Nauvoo on the
same boat. But the captain of the steamer, a good friend of his, warned him of
the “mobocrats’” plan of revenge to take Jones’s life if he were to go upriver
with them. Captain Dan decided to spend a few more hours in Quincy and wait for another steamer. [36]
The
next steamboat headed upriver was the Ohio whose
captain was yet another old friend of Jones’s, Captain Atchinson. Jones had
come to know the captain and the clerk while boating together. As fortune would
have it, some other “mobocrats” were on board the Ohio.
And again Jones incurred their wrath by countering their stories with his
defense of the innocence of Joseph and Hyrum. Certainly, Jones was aware of the
danger of raising his voice against the voices of the openly hostile
anti-Mormons on board. But this danger did not seem of great concern to him
until Captain Atchinson and his clerk informed Jones of a plot they overheard
from some of the mob on board to tell their colleagues at Warsaw that Dan Jones was on board and that
“the mob there will take you ashore and hang you without Judge or Jury”. The
only way that Jones could avoid landing at Warsaw was to somehow leave the boat before
reaching there. But if he were to go ashore on the Illinois side he would have to “travel up
through the heart of a mob country who would hunt me out like hunting a wolf”.
And if he were to land on the Missouri
side “it would be like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire”. His
friends told him “that the fury of the mob was such that they would fire their
cannons into the Boat, as they had done on other Boats bound for Nauvoo”, but
that they would “do what they could do”. Jones told Captain Atchinson and his
clerk that he “would risk the result with God if they would act up to [his]
instructions”. They promised to do so, and they did. Jones wrote to Bullock:
While the mob rushed on
board as she landed crying “Where is Capt. Jones; where is he; bring him out;
out with the d---d Mormon;” and while I could hear a general hallooing on shore
“Bring him out, hang him up” etc., and I had crawled under a mattress alongside
of which many more laid on the Cabin floor owing to the crowded state of the
passengers, the Captain and Officers stood like lions in the Cabin floor
keeping a drove of wolves from a pet lamb, declaring that they had landed me
below the town. Turned off thus the mob returned on shore and back again only
to be repelled the second time, while the mate was busily landing what freight
they had for the place, the Engineer being ready to start by the sound of the
bell for which I listened with breathless silence, nor dared to breathe freely
untill the signal bell rang, and the Boat pushed off; nor did I regret to hear
the mob plunge into the river splash, – splash after each other making for the
shore without their prey, to the great disappointment of hundreds of blood
thirsty mobs on shore, who had prepared a gallows on a tree on the bank and
eagerly anticipated seeing the morning sun shine on a Mormon suspended by it.
[37]
A greatly relieved Jones summed up his
feelings: “Fairly afloat – the God of my Salvation received the tribute of a
grateful heart”. [38]
Back
in Nauvoo with the martyred Joseph and Hyrum
In
his 1847 publication of History of the
Latter-day Saints Dan Jones painted the scene in Nauvoo as he returned
there on Saturday morning, June 29th, from his brief mission to Quincy:
Oh! what a mournful sight
was seen in Nauvoo that day! There never was, and there never will be, its
like; everyone sad in the streets, all the shops closed, and all the business
forgotten. Onward I quickened my steps, until I reached the house of the late
Joseph Smith. I pushed through the grieving crowd, until I reached the room
where his body and his brother’s had been placed (for they had been brought
from Carthage the previous day); there they lay in their coffins, side by side;
noble men, as they had suffered side by side, from one prison to another for
years, and had worked together, shoulder to shoulder, to build the kingdom of
the Immanuel; eternal love had bound them steadfastly to each other and to
their God until death; and now my eyes beheld the blood of the two godly
martyrs mingling in one pool in the middle of the floor—their aged mother,
pious and sorrowful, on her knees in the middle of it between the two, with a
hand on each of her sons who lay in gore—her heart almost breaking with
excruciating agonies and indescribable grief. At the head of the deceased sat
the dear wife of each one, and around their father stood four of Joseph’s
little children, and six of Hyrum’s children, crying out from time to time, “My
dear father;” “And my dear father,” said the others, with no reply but the echo
from the walls, “Oh my father,” and from the hearts of the mothers, “My husband
killed,” and the aged mother groaning sadly, “Oh my sons, my sons.”
Eagerly and sorrowfully
the thousands pushed forward in turn, to have a last look at their dear
brethren, whose profound counsels, and heavenly teaching, had been music to
their ears, a light to their paths, and a joy to their hearts many times. In
the streets round about, there reigned almost the stillness of the grave; but
all, rich and poor, had crystal tears streaming down their cheeks. Even the sun
and the elements had become still as if in surprise, and all of nature looked
at the man’s endless fury towards the finest on earth in every age and part of
it. I shall always remember my feelings at the time. Now I saw the two men of
greatest virtue and wisdom on earth without doubt, whom I saw just now it
seemed preaching tenderly, from between the iron bars of their prison, the
gospel of peace to those who sought to kill them; the two stood like two reeds
in the midst of storms as witnesses to Jesus, despite the jealous rage of the
press, the pulpits, and the mobs of
the age, straightening like the reed with its head up after each breeze by
despising profit and worldly fame, they held steadfastly to their aim until
they finished their work, and like their elder brothers, and their Leader
before them, they did not love their lives unto death, they did not refuse to
face knowingly the slaughter; but leapt on the bloody altar which they saw awaiting them in
Carthage, “that they might have a better resurrection”. But what pen can
describe that scene and the feelings of the thousands of mourners? The only
comfort which sustained them from sinking under the oppression and the loss was
that a day of swift reckoning on this was coming soon, that he who has the just
scales in his hand perceives it all and will—, but I shall restrain myself. It
is easier for the reader to imagine this scene and its consequences than it is
for me to describe them. [39]
And
seven years later, in his letter to Thomas Bullock, Captain Dan Jones painted
the same scene with different strokes:
In the forenoon I landed
at the welcome shore of the Nauvoo, but Oh what a scene! Never to be pictured
or painted by the pencil of art! Sad as the tombs, cheerless groups mourning
wend their way by closed stores and windows of former busy life towards the
place where lay the bloody corpses of the martyrs! Old, young, male and female
together bewail the day—their much loved Prophet and Patriarch from their
embraces by ruthless assassins were untimely torn—how can they be comforted?
The Sun and the Moon of the City’s moral hemisphere are untimely set behind a
cheerless bank of storm clouds. The wonted buoyant atmosphere seemed
impregnated with death by suffocation—nor could heaven maintain its usual
smiles, its face it vailed, and commiserating wept a shower of tears to
commingle with those of the Saints below. Heart rending as was the scene along
the streets as I passed along the crisis did not come nor the scene beggar
description untill within the dining room of the Mansion House, statue like I
stood, and saw in their coffins on tables laid the Prophet and Patriarch! Ah
yes, fond hope no longer found a place to doubt, they are they—the lips from
whence flowed the words of life like rivers that quenched the thirsting souls
of thousands are closed in death—those eyes, the heaven lit torches, are dim
and motionless, the spirit has fled. At the head of the one, bathed in tears,
was seen the wife of the Prophet with her little boys and adopted Julia—at the
other no less so was the Patriarch’s wife surrounded by six little children who
alternately with the grey haired Mother while kneeling in a pool of the
commingling dripping gore of the Martyrs on the floor, with her streaming eyes
first on one, then on the other cry “My husband, my husband too”. “My father in
blood.” And “my father is dead too”, and “My sons, my sons” were the pitiful
murmuring of the anguished widows and orphans that echoed in the walls which as
but yesterday danced at the music of the Prophets voice. On, on in solid
columns the moving throng moved steadily to and off the solemn scene to take
the last long look on those they loved most dearly—like the inexhaustible
current of the mighty “Father of waters” as it for ages flows to the ocean
appeared the passing current of mourning friends. The holes of the bullets, the
bleeding gashes of the fatal bayonet need not the finger to point them out, nor
need the assembled millions as[k] Who are they? when their “Elder Brother” from
them will be distinguished by the prints of the nails in his hands and feet.
But why linger o’er the horrid scene of humane [human] fiendish conduct they
are free, the Prophet and Patriarch have soared on high beyond the rage of
mobs, their testimony sealed with their hearts blood when they could have
escaped if they would, but heroic like demi-gods they firmly trod the road to
death and glory; they boldly leaped on the scaffold with eyes open and souls
unsullied—forever honoured be their memories. [40]
Jones’s fervent devotion to Joseph and
Hyrum and their memory would continue undiminished over the years until his own
death seventeen years later.
Governor
Ford’s Address to the People of the State of Illinois
Dan
Jones included in his 1847 History of the
Latter-day Saints the written statement made by Governor Ford two days
following the Martyrdom. His Welsh version of this statement is not a word-for-word
translation of the original, and some phrases and sentences are omitted;
nevertheless, it is accurate in overall meaning. Jones’s bracketed comments
throughout Ford’s statement are valuable to review here, for they come from an
individual who witnessed many of the events immediately preceding the
Martyrdom. Jones’s comments are bracketed and underlined following Ford’s
words:
I desire to give a brief
but true description of the disgraceful affair which took place in Carthage, in regard to the
Smiths, as far as my knowledge extends. The Smiths, Joseph and Hyrum, have been
assassinated in jail; I do not know by whom, but I will know. [He could not
have forgotten the names of those who threatened that to his face!] I had
pledged myself that they would receive protection, and on that basis they
surrendered as prisoners. The Mormons surrendered all the arms in their
possession, and the Nauvoo Legion
submitted to the command of Capt. Singleton of Brown County,
willingly and obediently. And I had sent him there for that purpose. The
rioters required all this to prove that the Mormons were peaceably disposed;
but it appears that every obedience and submission on the part of the Mormons
proved ineffective in bringing them [the rioters] to peace. It was not I
alone that gave the pledge of security to the Smiths, but my officers and men
assured me that they would assist me in protecting them. [So much the worse
then was their crime and their treachery, and he should have known better from
their previous “honor” than to
entrust men’s lives to their bloody hands.] If this deed was committed by
these people [we answer that it was, and how did he not know?], they
have added treachery to murder, and have done all they could to disgrace the
state, and sully the public ‘honor’. [!!Whose
“public honor”, I wonder? Where was
it hiding before? Was it in the bosoms of the murderers?] On the morning of
the day the deed was committed, we had proposed to march the entire army to
Nauvoo; but I discovered clearly that the army would not be satisfied with less
than the utter destruction of the city [and still leaving the prisoners in
their hands after discovering that much!]; and that once we arrived there,
pretexts would not be wanting for commencing hostilities. The Mormons had already
complied with everything required of them, and had submitted to more than
should have been asked of them. An attack on our part against them in the
present season, with the harvest on our hands, would be as impolitic as it was
disgraceful [and so, having killed the two best, it appears that the thanks
of the other thousands for their lives were not due to him, but to the harvest
which called them!]; and because of this [that is the ‘harvest’, and not
because of justice, and the desire to prevent the shedding of more innocent
blood], we decided in a council [of traitors] to disband the army [so
that they could be more free, and less responsible for the murder], except
three companies; two of which were promised to guard the jail [only 70 in
all], and with the other I went to Nauvoo to address the people [he did,
poor things, and he was a worse comforter than Job’s as well], and to tell
them what they might expect in case they designedly provoked a disturbance [yes,
he threatened that their houses would be in ashes, and that their wives and
children would be burned in the conflagration, and that he could not defend
them!! but that he would not or did not, is what he meant]. I think I
performed this duty keenly and fully [says he; yes, in a way that no one
since the days of Nero, except his partner Clark from Missouri, has done];
and having returned about 3 miles towards Carthage, I met a messenger from
there who informed me of what had taken place there. I hastened on to that
place. I am told that the guards did
their duty [but it was proved to him later that there was a clear
understanding between them, and that the guards
had written a letter to the other rioters, telling them the best time to fire,
and of course for their part that they would empty their barrels into the air
above their heads! The letter came to hand later]; but that the majority
were overpowered [if so, how was not even one from either side wounded?].
Many families had fled from Carthage,
and others were preparing to follow them; and as I considered there was danger
of the Mormons’ wreaking vengeance, I supported this. Gen. Demming volunteered
to remain here with a small number of soldiers, to defend property from damage
as far as he could. I decided to proceed to Quincy, to prepare a force sufficient to
suppress disorder. I have hopes that the Mormons will not start, or cause any
disturbance. But I may be disappointed in this [if he had been, it would
have been the first time for them to disappoint him]; I fear the opposition
will not be satisfied. They may recommence their atrocities. I am determined to
preserve the peace as far as I can, whatever the consequences. I think I have
sufficient pretext to summon up an army, to be ready at my disposal at a
moment’s warning. Establishing myself at Quincy
will enable me to get all news with greater celerity. Thomas Ford, Governor,
and Commander in Chief. [41]
Jones’s reaction to the Governor’s
apparent indifference concerning the prisoners’ danger as he spoke with him the
morning of June 27, 1844, was that he had one desire—that the Almighty would
preserve his life to a proper time and place, and he might testify that Ford
had been timely warned of their danger. His life was spared at least three
times during the thirty-six hours following the Martyrdom. And certainly Jones
testified verbally on numerous occasions that Ford had been warned of the
danger to Joseph and Hyrum while in Carthage.
The foregoing is Jones’s only known published witness.
CHAPTER 2 – NOTES
- See
“The martyrdom of Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum, by Dan Jones”, in BYU Studies, Winter 1984, pp.
78-109. This article contains both accounts. The English translation for
the one in Welsh from Hanes Saint y
Dyddiau Diweddaf (History of the Latter-day Saints) is mine.
- 20
January 1855 letter of Dan Jones to Thomas Bullock, p. [1]. Original is in
the LDS Church Historian’s Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.
- Ibid.
- History of the Church 6:546.
- Letter
to Bullock, p. 2-3.
- Ibid.,
p. 3.
- History of the Church 6:568-69.
Letter to Bullock, p. 4. Joseph H. Jackson is the man’s full name.
- Letter
to Bullock, p. 4.
- Ibid.,
p. 5.
- History of the Church 6:600. [Need
to check the accuracy of this list.]
- Letter
to Bullock, p. 5.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.,
p. 6.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.,
p. 7.
- Ibid.,
p. 9.
- Ibid.,
p. 9-10.
- Ibid.,
p. 10.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.,
p. 11-12.
- Ibid.,
p. 12. Chauncey Higbee had been excommunicated from the Church two years
earlier.
- Ibid.,
p. 13-14. In History of the Church
6:613 the time of Jones’s departure is given as 12:20 p.m. and in 6:612
the time of Governor Ford’s departure is “some time in the forenoon”.
- Letter
to Bullock, p. 14. Underlining is in the original.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.,
p. 15. Underlining is in the original.
- History of the Church 6:624. This
account says there were two messengers, George D. Grant and David
Bettisworth, who came together. John Taylor in his account says that a
second messenger “was treated similarly”. History of the Church 7:110. According to History of the Church 6:624 Grant obtained another horse after
being left at his house and returned to Nauvoo that night with the news.
- Letter
to Bullock, p. 15.
- Ibid.
[I would like to have a copy of this “Extra” in the book.]
- Ibid.,
p. 16.
- Jones,
History of the Latter-day Saints,
p. 81.
- Letter
to Bullock, p. 16.
- Ibid.,
p. 16-17.
- Ibid.,
p. 17. The last Mormon to leave Carthage
the day before was most likely Stephen Markham who had forcefully been put
on his horse and warned at the point of a bayonet not to come back. History of the Church 6:614.
- Letter
to Bullock, p. 17.
- Ibid.,
p. 18.
- Ibid.,
p. 18-19.
- Ibid.,
p. 19.
- Jones,
History of the Latter-day Saints,
p. 82. Italics are in the original.
- Letter
to Bullock, p. 19-20.
- Jones,
History of the Latter-day Saints,
p. 87-88. See Times and Seasons,
p. 564-65 for Ford’s pre-translation address in English.
CHAPTER 3
– FULFILLMENT OF PROPHECY – THE MISSION
BEGINS
At a ten o’clock meeting held on 11
May 1843 in Nauvoo the nine apostles present decided that Dan Jones should
“prepare himself to take a mission to Wales”. [1] This mission call came
only four months after Jones’s baptism into the Church and just one month after
his first encounter with Joseph Smith. But it would not be until fifteen months
following his call that Dan Jones would finally leave Nauvoo for his mission.
The History of the Church entry for
Wednesday, 28 August 1844, reads: “Elders Wilford Woodruff, Dan Jones, and
Hiram Clark with their families started this afternoon for England”. [2]
Return to Wales
Joseph Smith made mention of Jones’s
mission call in Carthage Jail the night preceding the Martyrdom: “You will see Wales
and fulfill the mission appointed you ere you die.” [3] Certainly Captain
Jones, now Elder Jones, had reflected on these words many times during the two
months after he heard them fall from the Prophet’s lips, his final, recorded
prophecy in mortality.
Dan and Jane Jones did not leave
behind a house in Nauvoo. During their fourteen-month acquaintance with Joseph
Smith and his family they had lived either on the Maid of Iowa or in the Mansion House. [4] They did, however, leave
the graves of two little children in the cemetery, a cause of great sadness for
the now childless Dan and Jane. [5] In his 3 December 1845 letter to Brigham
Young, Jones reflected back on the graves of his children in Nauvoo: “And Oh,
cruel thoughts, I speak advisedly – to leave my lovely babes, sweet flowers of
my heart, their sacred graves deserted by all my friends to be trod under the
iron heels of fiends incarnate; may Angels guard them till the dawn of that glorious
morn.” He added a request: “May I beg of you to ask Bro. John Scott to leave a
trace on the hallowed spot where they lay, that I may find them e’er I pass
that way.”[6]
One material possession left behind
was their half of the Maid of Iowa.
On 12 May 1843 Joseph Smith became Dan Jones’s business partner when he bought
out Levi Moffatt’s half of the steamboat. [7] The boat was built at Augusta, Iowa,
just 9 miles northwest of Nauvoo, during the summer of 1842. Moffatt was “to
furnish all lumber and pay for the wood work, with the exception of the foreman
carpenter, who I was to pay, besides furnishing all machinery, nails, etc., and
each to have and to hold an undivided half of the boat [8]. The arrangement was
that Joseph would purchase Dan’s half when he left for Wales on his mission. That Joseph
fully intended to pay Jones for his interest in the Maid of Iowa is indicated by Jones’s written comments to Thomas
Bullock: “A few days previous to being arrested he [Joseph Smith] told me, “I
have a check in the house for $1,200; as soon as I can get it cashed you shall
have $1,100 of it, and the start for Wales, not with your fingers in your mouth
but prepared to buy a Press; and do business aright” [9]. Because of the
Martyrdom, Jones did not receive the money Joseph indicated that he would. He
did receive, however, from Brigham Young an “order for $500 on the office at Liverpool” to help sustain him on his mission [10]. The
remaining amount Jones donated toward the construction of the Nauvoo Temple.
After presenting to Thomas Bullock his account of his sale of the Maid of Iowa and how it was that he did
not ever receive “the first dollar” as payment, Dan Jones declared: “Thrilled
with the prospects of my Mission I left all, rejoicing in the exchange of a Steam
Boat for an Eldership on the deck of the never sinking ship of life” [11].
The Journey
In his 1847 History of the Latter-day Saints Jones described the journey from
Nauvoo to Britain:
We traveled across the state of Illinois
as far as Chicago,
about 250 miles, in wagons, visiting several churches along the way. There we
took a steam boat to cross the lakes, Michigan,
Huron, Erie,
St. Clair, and Ontario, as far as Oswego in the state of New York, about 1400
miles; and from there we came in lovely canal
boats as far as Albany, over 300 miles; and then in a steamboat down the
Hudson river, 160 miles, to New York. We stayed in this city, preaching and
ministering in the area until the return of brother Woodruff from the state of Maine. The three of us,
and our families, together with two other missionaries called Hardy and Holmes,
set off on board a ship [the John R.
Skiddy] from New York to Liverpool
at the beginning of October; and after a stormy voyage, we arrived at the
pleasant port on the first day of January, 1845. [12]
During the passage Jones, the newly
called missionary, was anxious to learn from Wilford Woodruff, the experienced
and highly successful missionary. Among the topics of
conversation between the two was most certainly the phenomenal success that
Elder Woodruff had had on his mission to Britain in 1840, especially the
hundreds of converts he had brought into the fold from among the United
Brethren in Herefordshire. That the energetic Captain entertained the notion of
similar success during his mission among the Welsh is suggested in the opening
sentence of his 24 February 1845 letter to Woodruff written from Wrexham just
under nine weeks into his proselytizing efforts: “I have neglected
writing until now, expecting to have the better news to give you, because I had
some forebodings of glorious consequences”. [13] In a letter to Elder Woodruff
dated 2 January 1846, nearly a year later and about two weeks after Jones was
transferred from North Wales to Merthyr Tydfil to preside over the missionary
work for all of Wales, he mentions “those glorious
anticipations which we fondly cherished for many a sweet hour while pacing the
Deck, at the still hours of the midnight watch”. [14]
The First Few Weeks
Elder
Joseph A. Stratton, who had arrived in Britain
several months before the arrival of Dan Jones, spent some time with Elder
Jones in North Wales a short time before Jones
wrote the 24 February 1845 letter to Woodruff. “Since [Stratton’s departure],”
Jones wrote, “I have been working my way into the heart of the Welsh colliers,
& Ironworks, but have found my way blocked up by the preposesed prejudices,
predicated upon the ffalse statements of returning apostates as well as all
other lies that any Impostors or bad men have ever been guilty of”. [15]
Converts to Mormonism had been made
about four years earlier in the Overton area, just five miles southeast of
Wrexham, but Dan Jones gives no indication that he was even aware of such
fellow Saints. [16] Rumors and scurrilous accounts of the Mormons, however,
were circulating in the Wrexham area when Dan Jones began his mission there:
“All the stories that the Devil & his Priests can think of are sent the
rounds here too.” [17]
Jones had grown up in the Halkyn
area about thirteen miles to the northwest of Wrexham. His father Thomas Jones
worked as a miner in the lead mines in that area. Dan’s chronic lung ailments
frequently mentioned in his letters may have resulted from time he spent in the
lead mines as a boy. The negative health effects from the mines, together with
the proximity of his boyhood home to the River Dee (only about two miles to the
northeast from Halkyn), may have provided the motivation for Dan to take to the
sea. On 4 April 1845 in the preface to his first publication he declared: “I
have been for over eighteen years, almost continuously, among other languages,
where I heard not a word of Welsh; and this especially so in the past seven
years”. [18] The mathematic calculations would put him away from Wales at about age sixteen or seventeen and in America
when he was about twenty-eight years of age. He married Jane Melling on 3
January 1837, and the first record of his being in the United States is May 1840.
Consequently he and Jane came to America during this interim.
On 15 July 1840 Dan’s sister
Elizabeth (born 1813) married William Willcock in the Marchwiel Parish Church
(located on the outskirts of Wrexham), and on the same day and in the same
location in what was apparently a double wedding his sister Sarah (born 1815)
married Richard Arnold. Dan’s father died at Wrexham on 6 February 1847 and his
mother (Ruth Roberts Jones) died at Marchwiel on 20 December 1855. Thus Dan had
family in the Wrexham area during his first and second missions to Wales.
[19]
Dan believed, however, that he was
making some inroads that would eventually lead to some conversions in the area
of Wrexham:
But as luck wd [would] have it, by being a little sly I scaled some of
their ramparts before they were aware, and I hope, have put in a little leaven;
but the Priests here are not doing much else but consulting together what to do
with me; the first thing of cours was to turn me out of the good old Synagogue
and caution all their sheep, not to believe, or talk to me; they wd [would] not
allow me to give my Reasons for leaving them”. [20]
Also it appears that he was able to
preach in one of the chapels on 16 February 1845: “but through the influence of
a friend, I got possesition of one of their Sanctuarys last Sabboth week about
5 miles from here & got my own play for the time, but since then the deacon
has been under the eeves of that Sanctum”. [21] In view of his lack of success
in gaining permission to preach in any of the many chapels in the vicinity Dan
declares his plan: “The only cours that I can take is to preach in the streets,
which I am resolved to do when the weather gets finer, and my family affairs
admit of my going through the country”. [22] The “family affairs” were probably
his wife’s illness, mentioned in the letter to Wilford Woodruff, an illness
possibly connected to a pregnancy. [23]
Since the money from the sale of the
Maid of Iowa was not ever paid to Dan
Jones, he was left to sort things out the best he could. That the order for
$500 at Liverpool was available to him only
through his file leaders is suggested by this comment in his letter to Wilford
Woodruff following his request for £16:
I have to depend on you to send me that amt, by that time, for I need
not expect any quarters from any source, neither would I have any one know here
my financial affairs, upon any consideration; I have had to steer between wind
& water, with friend & foe, and carry a stiff upper lip, for I have to
pay my board here & wife”. [24]
The Printing Begins
His reason for requesting the £16 was to pay the printing costs for
his first pamphlet in defense of Mormonism. The money from the sale of the Maid of Iowa would have allowed Jones to
purchase a press, as Joseph Smith had suggested. But without the press Jones’s
only alternative was to find someone to print his first pamphlet. He explained
to Wilford Woodruff:
Since Br. Stratton left I have prepared a work for the press,
principally about the order of the Kingdom set up in the days of the apostles,
& illustrating the first principles, the immutability of the Gospel,
&c.; something similar to P. P. Pratts, on the Kingdom, in the Voice of
Warning, but Welsh of course; twil be in pamphlet form about two sheets, or 48
pages, of twelve fold, close type, they wanted £16. pr 1000; but tomorrow I
have to go & see another Printer & will make a trade with him for a
thousand copies for something less & get him to print them in two weeks”.
[25]
The
printer he ended up using for his pamphlet was William Bayley whose press was
located on Estyn Street
in Wrexham.
Conference in Manchester
Certainly Jones was eager to have
the pamphlet off the press “in two weeks” so he could have it as a tool to
strengthen his proselytizing endeavors as soon as possible. But he may well
have had a second purpose – that of having tangible evidence that he was
fulfilling his missionary responsibilities in his native land when he attended
the upcoming conference in Manchester.
There is no indication that he achieved the second purpose. The preface to the
pamphlet bears the date of 4 April 1845, and the Manchester conference was held on the 5th
and 6th of April. Thus it is doubtful that he was able to carry any
copies of the pamphlet with him to the gathering. If indeed he desired to cast
himself in a favorable light among his fellow missionaries when he met with
them in Manchester,
the comments of the scribe of the meeting are evidence that he accomplished his
wish:
Elder Dan Jones, from Wales, rose, under an attack of the
fever and ague, and remarked that he believed it was the intention of the evil
one to prevent him speaking that evening, but he was determined to bear his
testimony in spite of every opposing power. He said that he came not in the
character of a delegate: he represented no conference; for if he had but
baptized one, he should be able to represent three. But he would speak of a
nation renowned in history, one of the most ancient nations of the earth, who
had never been subdued, and to whom he hoped to be instrumental in bearing the
tidings of the work of God, in the last days. He enlarged on the
characteristics of his people in a manner, and with an eloquence, that told how
ardently he loved his native tribe and his fatherland. He remarked that, for
many years, as a mariner, he had been in search of the principles of truth—he
had sought it in almost every clime—among the red men of the woods, or the
civilized denizens of the city, but he had found it not until he came in
contact with the followers of the prophet of the Lord, the notorious Joseph
Smith; but of that despised individual he would bear his testimony, and though
he might feel more at home among a tribe of Indians, or on the deck of a ship,
than upon that platform and before such an audience, yet he would not flinch
from bearing a faithful testimony to the character of the servant of the Lord.
He had been with him in the domestic circle, he had been with him in peril and
in prison, and only left him about an hour before the murderous deed of his
assassination was perpetrated; and he had now come in obedience to the counsel of
the martyred prophet, as a messenger to his native land, to bear testimony of
the work for which his brother had died, and which he had sealed with his blood.
[26]
After
writing this much concerning Jones’s presentation to the congregation the
scribe decided to put aside his scribal responsibilities in order to gain more
personal benefit from this stirring discourse. His final comment was:
We would here remark that we are utterly
incapable of doing anything like justice to the address of Captain Dan Jones,
for though delivered while struggling with disease, such was its effect upon
ourselves, and we also believe upon others, that we ceased to write, in order
to give way to the effect produced upon our feelings”. [27]
During his
missions Dan Jones’s power of oratory and his writing skills would have a
powerful influence on thousands of individuals. Although he most likely did not
carry evidence of the latter with him to the April 1845 Manchester gathering, he did give a strong
display of the former—this, despite his illness and his three months of
proselytizing with no baptisms.
Around North Wales
Following
the conference in Manchester,
Jones returned to Wrexham where he oversaw the publication of two thousand
copies of his 48-page pamphlet. The title he gave it was Y farw wedi ei chyfodi yn fyw: neu’r hen grefydd newydd. Traethawd yn
dangos anghyfnewidioldeb teyrnas Dduw. (The dead raised to life: or the old
religion anew. Treatise showing the immutability of the kingdom of God.)
It is a borrowing and an elaboration of segments of Parley P. Pratt’s Voice of Warning, published in 1837. But
nowhere in the pamphlet’s lengthy and flamboyantly written line of logic does
Jones ever mention the words “Mormon” or “Mormonism” or even the official name
of the Church he represented. His readers, however, knew perfectly well with
which denomination Jones was associated. The pamphlet sold for sixpence each,
but Jones gives no indication in his writings as to how well it did
financially. Five years later John Davis, Jones’s successor as Church printer
in Wales
in 1849, declared that copies were extremely difficult to find even for half a
crown. [28]
Producing
two thousand copies of such a large pamphlet to sell at sixpence was a huge
undertaking in 1845. Jones was a lone voice in the wilderness of North Wales
with his closest lifeline of support in Liverpool.
To have several boxes of pamphlets stacked in his modest living conditions
waiting to be sold to an unreceptive and even hostile public must have seemed
to him a daunting task. And while Jones’s writing style and his use of
inordinately long and very involved sentences were characteristic of other
religious writings of the day, but they were anything but light reading to the
humble and unschooled Welsh laborer.
The great
advantage that Dan Jones had during his proselytizing in Wales was that people generally
attributed importance and significance to religion. In the mid-nineteenth
century the Welsh were quickly becoming a Nonconformist society – i.e., they
were turning their backs on the Church of England, even when the name was
changed to the “Church of Wales”, in favor of the variety of denominations that
did not conform to the “High
Church”. Instead of the
modern-day religious apathy the typical Welsh family felt the need to be
involved in religious activity of some kind. So when a missionary from America
came around preaching a “restored” gospel it became important for those who had
committed to one faith to refute the new one in order to feel justified in
pursuing their chosen one. Many people were willing to listen to new ideas, and
some listeners would become converted. No wonder, then, that the ministers
proclaimed, “Do not listen to them”. [29]
Some time
following his return from the Manchester
conference and the completion of The dead
raised to life: or the old religion anew Elder Jones began his travels
around North Wales to inject some “life” into
his “dead” compatriots. He describes his experience in his 1847 publication History of the Latter-day Saints: “I went on a journey through the northern
counties, and great was the excitement it caused and the opposition I received
almost everywhere from the most zealous sectarians, but others listened
attentively.” [30]
Elder Jones’s
First Visit to Merthyr Tydfil
Jones
comments on his first convert baptism: “The first branch of The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints I established was in Rhosllanerchrugog; and the
first Welshman baptized was a man from there, when he heard and believed the
gospel, by the name of Robert Evans, formerly a gifted preacher with the
Campbellites.” [31]
Jones’s
travels finally took him to South Wales. He
describes this eye-opening experience:
The following summer [1845] I visited
Merthyr Tydfil and the surrounding areas, where I found a number of branches,
comprising over two hundred Saints, who had heard the gospel from an elder by
the name of Wm. Henshaw, who had come here from England some time before; and I
shall never forget my happiness when I met so many of my blood brothers and
sisters who had come to the bond of the same eternal covenant, to see alike,
and to walk together along the same paths, to drink from the same divine
Spirit, and to strive towards the same objective. In various branches here they
enjoyed the gifts of the Holy Spirit abundantly, and their increase was in
proportion to the persecutions they suffered at the hands of professors of the
faith of gentle Jesus! [32]
William
Henshaw was living in Wolverhampton when Lorenzo Snow issued a call to him to
take his young family to Merthyr Tydfil and
serve a mission. [33] One is left to wonder why a non-speaker of Welsh would be
sent to an area where the vast majority of the residents spoke only Welsh. It
may have had something to do with his wife’s maiden name being Lewis, usually a
Welsh name. One can speculate that perhaps Henshaw met his wife when working
somewhere in Wales.
Born in Cornwall in about 1808 Henshaw may have
worked in Wales
and met his wife in the process. If Mary Ann, born about 1813, was Welsh speaking
or had family in the Merthyr Tydfil area perhaps that would explain the
reasoning behind the missionary call. Whatever prompted the call, the Henshaw
family obediently went to the growing mining town named after a legendary
princess, Tydfil (pronounced “Tidvil”), whose family was killed by marauders in
about the fifth century AD. She was known as a martyr (merthyr in Welsh), and a church was named in her honor. Elder
Henshaw obtained work in the mines where he met William R. Davis who must have
spoken at least a little English in addition to his native Welsh. Davis and his wife Rachel
and two of their sons were baptized 13 February 1843, the firstfruits of
Henshaw’s labors. By the end of that year there were 50 baptized members in Merthyr Tydfil and another 29 in nearby Rhymney. Four
months later the total was 124. And by April 1845 there were 316 Church members
in Wales.
When Captain Jones visited Henshaw in Merthyr Tydfil
during the summer of 1845 the count was over 350. [34]. And by the time Jones
was transferred to Merthyr Tydfil in December
1845 the report lists 493 baptized members. Henshaw’s efforts for his first two
years in Wales
represent an average of nearly 250 baptisms per year. And during 1845 Dan
Jones, a native speaker of Welsh, succeeded in bringing only three persons into
the fold. Certainly his mind was swimming with wonderment as to how in the
world Henshaw’s efforts were so outrageously successful while his own, by
comparison, went largely unrewarded.
The first
meeting between Jones and Henshaw was at the Manchester gathering in April 1845. No
written account of their thoughts on this occasion has been found, but one can
safely infer that one was favorably impressed with the other. It is certain
that Henshaw stood in awe of Jones’s
oratorical skills in English and his native fluency in Welsh, a language that
Henshaw would like to have spoken. It is equally certain that Jones stood in
awe and probably wonderment at Henshaw’s remarkable accomplishments among the
Welsh speakers in Merthyr Tydfil. During
January, February, and March Jones had struggled to establish a presence on his
home turf in North Wales among friends and family, but in Manchester among his
peers he could only declare that “had [he] but baptized one, he should be able
to represent three” (MS 5:170). But Henshaw was able to report a total of 316
baptized members in South Wales, an increase
of 192 during the previous year. And while it is true that his figures included
those of Abergavenny, a town about 20 miles west of Merthyr Tydfil which had
only recently been added to his Conference, it is also true that in the area of
Merthyr Tydfil he had achieved an average
increase of nearly 15 convert baptisms per month. This would mean about 45
baptisms under his leadership during the same time period that Jones had none
in the unproductive North Wales. How could
this kind of performance not give the Captain pause?
Following
the conference Jones and Henshaw returned to their separate areas of missionary
endeavor. Sometime in early July Elder Jones opened his copy of the Millennial Star, the issue dated 1 July
1845, and on page 28 he read a glowing report, dated 1 June 1845, written to
the editor by Elder William Henshaw of his recent successes:
We held a conference in the Large Room, at
Merthyr, according to appointment; the day was fine, and many of the Saints
were present from a distance of twenty miles or more. One sister nearly seventy
years of age walked forty-two miles. I spoke much on the object for which we
were met, and exhorted them to continue in love and union, and the Spirit of
the Lord would crown our labours with success. Elder Rees, and others, spoke on
the organization of the church in an interesting manner; many strangers were
present; and we feel that much good will be done here. We have baptized forty
since the General Conference: the Lord is rolling on his work. This has been
the best Conference held in South Wales, it
lasted two days, and truly it was a time of rejoicing. The Saints are in good
spirits, and are determined to spread the gospel, and very soon will many arise
and cross the mighty deep to the Land
of Zion (Millennial Star 1 July 1845, p. 28).
“We have baptized forty since the General Conference” must
have caught Jones’s attention with greater force than any other phrase in
Henshaw’s letter. That meant that for each of the eight weeks since the
conference there had been an average of five new members baptized into the
Church under Henshaw’s leadership. Jones’s journey to South
Wales shortly thereafter may well have been prompted by his
reading of such remarkable accomplishments. What better way to learn Henshaw’s
secret of success than to spend some time with him?
In his
brief account of the time he spent in South Wales Jones unfortunately does not
tell his readers what he learned from observing his fellow missionary, but he
did comment on one of the reasons behind the growth: “Their increase was in
proportion to the persecutions they suffered at the hands of professors of the
faith of gentle Jesus!” [35]
The Saints Are
Protected
On 9 August 1845, during Jones’s visit to
South Wales, a mine explosion occurred in Merthyr Tydfil
that claimed the lives of twenty-eight miners. Some Latter-day Saints were
employed by this particular mine, but none of them was killed by the explosion.
Concerning the incident William Henshaw sent a letter to his leaders at Liverpool in which he stated: “A many of the Saints were
at work in the pit at the time of the explosion, not one of whom was injured,
for which they feel truly thankful to the Heavenly Father”. [36] Dan Jones was
in Liverpool sometime between the first and
the middle of September and presented “additional particulars” to the editor of
the Millennial Star. The editor
presented Jones’s further details in the 15 September 1845 issue:
The Saints who regularly were employed in
the pit, were not there at the time of the explosion. They had been warned by
vision, of the catastrophe, and absented themselves from their work. While on
the other hand, the individuals who were destroyed, had particularly
distinguished themselves by disturbing a meeting of the Saints, and crying out
for a sign, little deeming that their request would be granted so speedily, and
in so awful a manner”. [37]
This
apparent contradiction between the reports of Henshaw and Jones could have
resulted because of the language barrier. Henshaw, after all, did have to rely
on interpreters for anything said in Welsh whereas Jones was bilingual. Or
perhaps Jones had conducted further inquiry among those who “regularly
were employed in the pit” for his “additional particulars”. Or perhaps Jones
simply used of a bit of hyperbole, as he was inclined to do on occasion, [38]
to heighten the contrast between Saints and sinners and to all the more
graphically illustrate on which side God could always be found. Jones continued
his report:
The services of the Saints, however, were
called into requisition to bring up the bodies of those that were destroyed,
nor would the agents, or overlookers of the works attempt it, unless preceded
and assisted by the Saints; and the general impression in the neighbourhood,
amongst all people, is, that it was a signal judgment upon the people for their
persecution of the Saints, and it has created a strong feeling in favour of the
spread of the truth”. [39]
Jones used
the mine explosion incident to good purpose when he spoke to a congregation
during this visit to Liverpool: “Subsequently, elder Jones exhorted the people
in a meeting to repentance and baptism for remission of sins, stating that they
were not safe even in retiring to their homes to seek the repose of the night,
without first entering into covenant with God”. [40]
Report to Brigham
Young
Ten weeks
following his first visit to South Wales during 1845 Dan Jones was back in the
south to borrow a press to print his translation of the twelve-page Proclamation of the Twelve Apostles, a
pamphlet that was published in English about nine months earlier in New York. The owner of
the press was the Reverend John Jones, Dan’s oldest brother. John was the
ordained Congregationalist minister in Rhydybont, a village about two miles
east of the market town of Llanybydder in Carmarthenshire. The evening of 3
December 1845, immediately after personally finishing the work of printing four
thousand copies of the Proclamation
Elder Jones wrote a letter to Brigham Young. His opening lines contain a
jubilant declaration of having completed the translation and publishing task
that had been assigned him:
After so long silence I take the liberty thus to reintroduce myself,
and send you & each of the twelve, a copy of the Welsh translation of yr
“Proclamation”. tho’ now near midnight, tis but a few minutes since I finished
printing 4000, with my own hands on a borrowed press; which I intend to spread
far and wide through my native land & send them to the nobility, judges,
rulers, priests and people, that all may hear the great, the glorious truths
contained therein and be ready to escape if they will, or be inexcusable if
they don’t. [43]
Jones then wrote a number of lines concerning his belief in
the existence of a tribe of Indians in America
who were descendants of a group of Welsh who went from Wales to America in 1261. One of Jones’s
fondest wishes was to locate these Welsh-speaking Indians, convert them to
Mormonism, and take some of them back to Wales as missionaries. [44]
After expressing his sympathy to Brigham
Young and the Saints in Nauvoo concerning their banishment, Jones proceeds to
express his gratitude for his mission:
But now dear Brother twil be interesting to you I know to hear how
about the kingdom in Wales
e’er this. Acept of my thousand thanks for assisting to make arrangements for
me to come when I did, I am only sorry that I did not come years before, that
by this time the nation wd be turned upside down, so as to become the right
side up. for the wrong side has been uppermost too long already. Ever since I
came over I have been preaching in Welsh, so that now I prefer it to the
English. I am sorry that I spent so much of my precious time in the
insignificant & contemptible office of a commander of the Missisippi Steam
Boat. I wd not change now my office for the best on the western waters, or on
the five oceans, although then with my pockets lined & now empty, tho my
Banker is rich. [46]
Apparently Jones had gone for so many years without much
use of the Welsh language that upon returning to Wales he had had to relearn it. In
the preface of his first pamphlet he even offered an apology for any
grammatical mistakes that might be found in his writing: “Let no principled man
find fault with my language, if it is not so grammatical; for I have been among
Welshmen very little since my boyhood.” [47] Jones left plenty of evidence that
he had managed to regain his native tongue.
Then comes a brief description of his proselytizing
efforts:
I have traveled (preaching almost every night) through nearly all the
principal Towns in Wales,
without having hardly a meal’s vittles or a nights lodging without paying the
Cash for it. It requires a fortune to carry on this way in this country long. A
great difference (I am ashamed to tell) between my country and yours in this
respect. [48]
In his characteristic and flowery language Jones expresses
his determination to succeed:
Yet I am not discouraged as long as I can keep going, and that I’l
[I’ll] do anyhow while I live; something will turn out. I came here to preach
Mormonism and I will be heard, while I have strength, tho satan rage, priests
howl, earth trembles, and Baal marshall all his hosts – The lofty sumits of the
Welsh mountains shall like seven thunders reverberate the sound to the deepest
glens of my Fatherland, that Mormonism is an eternal truth, and God is the
author of it, if one of my Kindred shall tell me in a coming day, they did not know,
twil be because they have hid themselves from it. [49]
Jones describes the opposition he had faced thus far and
with obvious pride announces two more convert baptisms:
The family of Demetrius [the silversmith of Ephesus who feared for his
trade and left the opposition against Paul – see Acts 19:24-41] of course in
their zeal for their craft, formed the front rank in the army of the aliens as
usual; they had enough of public debates already, & in two instances their
big guns after a fair drubbing had the honesty to come forward & obey the
Gospel. I ordained them Priests, they are good boys now; & help me set fire
to the Welsh mountains God bless them. [50]
Jones
gives an interesting description of his battle with the clergy:
Then finding that course wd [would] not answer, their Priests warn the
people tis dangerous to hear me, that I’m the Arch imposter of Wales: many an
honest fellow has been turned out of their Synagogues for coming to hear me,
while the old women send their children to cry false prophets, etc., etc.,
after me through the streets, and sometimes a hundred of these little urchins
amuse me by their parrot tongues, this does me no harm, this they wd do with my
master were he here; tis no more than I expected. Poor folks they know not what
they are doing. [51]
He tells of his battle with the press:
The second rank of my oposers are the Gentry that ride the iron horse
(the press) and they keep his brass sinews ringing with the thousand lies that
have been buried in America long ago, and the Saints have preached their
funeral Sermons; but strange to say there’s been a resurrection somewere
[somewhere] or a transportation of them here, while all except myself hail and
report their arrival with great pomp, wereas [whereas] not one of the replys have
escaped a watery grave, showing that, “a lie will set the world on fire while
truth is lighting his match,” and yet all this will not do, for I am there
among them, & have refuted every one of the newspapers and religious
magazines woe be them; some have refused to publish my defence, those I
bring out in pamphlets for the public shall hear of the blackhearted Editors
who publish lies knowingly, & I’m glad to say that some of them are already
pulling in their horns and promise better. [52]
Jones bore a powerful witness of Joseph Smith’s divine
calling:
Let a man tell me that Joseph Smith was a bad man, he finds himself in
the wrong box then – they are astonished, and end the controversy when I tell
that I have had a personal acquaintance with that holy prophet for years, [53]
in public & in private, that I have been with him while the mob raged for
his innocent blood, that in the dungeon of Carthage jail I heard his testimony
until me thought the cell, the gate of paradise. I have known him! yes and
slept in his arms with my heard on his pure bosom the last night he lived in
this mean world. I have heard him preach to & pray for the sprites
[spirits] that thrusted their baynets through the iron bars to try to take his
life in the meantime. Was he a bad man! Oh, No, all the host of heaven say No.
All the exalted of the earth join in the Chorus, No!, and e’er long all earth
& hell will say the same. Amen! I tell them, tis true, & defy them by
the laws of evidence to gainsay my testimony if they can, and hitherto the
prophecy of our worthy & departed prophet on my head has been fulfilled,
i.e., “My enemies tho all the priests on Babel’s walls combined should not
gainsay my testimony.” Thank heaven for such a testimony, tis enough to condemn
this whole nation & I know it, hence seven woes hang over my head if I make
not the right use of it. For this & this alone I live, for this
I’m willing to die. Was it not for my powerful testimony amounting to facts,
I could not have prospered here. [54]
Jones gives a brief report of how things are going in South Wales:
In the [South] a very worthy Bro. Henshaw has been preaching in
English successfully, & converts Welsh who understand no English; another
new thing under the sun. This caps Solomon’s wisdom. A noble Bro, God bless
him, he has a Mormon soul. That’s the secret of his success. Already about a
dozen branches of Welsh Saints enjoying the gifts of the spirit abundantly. All
cemented in the bond of love & union. Twd [it would] do yr heart good to be
among them a while. Upwards of 20 preaching Welsh, many of them have been
preaching with the Sects for years. [55]
Much
of the strength of the missionary effort in South Wales
and the apparent secret to Henshaw’s success was the group of twenty
“preachers” of the gospel in Welsh. Few if any of these were full-time
missionaries; usually they worked in the mines and spread their message to
fellow workers and neighbors. Some were asked to take their families and locate
outside the Merthyr Tydfil area where they
were to establish a branch of the Church. The priesthood holder would become
the branch president, and his branch would be part of a district (often called
a “conference”). His file leader would be a district president, and presiding
over the various districts was the person that is now referred to as the
mission president; however, as the Church grew in numbers in Wales the title was eventually the “President of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Wales”.
Jones’s
closing comments in the letter had to do with the Maid of Iowa and his finances:
I had almost forgotten all about my business left with you. I mean the
concern of the Maid of Iowa. You have I presume foreclosed that concern
amicably all round. tho I have been afraid of trouble with Mr. Moffat That note of Bro. Joseph you have I doubt not
received and applyd to the best advantage. I have received over half of yr
order from Bro Woodruff, but tis gone, whence more will go, to support my
family, publish pamphlets, and bear my expences, that’s all the use I find for
money now a days. But my wife and child are now with the Saints, since I made
some Saints, for the Gospel had not been preached in the Welsh language in
these regions, & for a long time I was alone but now thank God I have
company, & will yet have more soon. [56]
A Call to Preside
Judging from the final sentences of the
letter one would think that Jones fully expected to return to North
Wales and continue his proselytizing activities there, assisted by
the three converts he had made during the first year of his mission. At the 15
December 1845 conference held in Manchester,
however, Wilford Woodruff suggested a change in assignment for his Welsh
friend:
Brother Woodruff rose to remark that as
brother Dan Jones had been sent on a special mission to Wales, by brother
Joseph when living, he wished to see that appointment acknowledged by this
conference; he considered it but just, and highly important, as brother Jones
was the only person we had in this country who could speak, read, write, and publish
in the Welsh language, he therefore proposed, that he receive the sanction of
this meeting in his appointment, and that he preside over the churches in
Wales, subject, of course, to the presidency in England. The motion being put
was carried unanimously [56]
Following the December conference in Manchester,
Jones accompanied Henshaw back to Merthyr Tydfil by way of Wolverhampton, Birmingham, and Bristol.
From Bristol they took the packet (a small
passenger boat) to Cardiff, and from Cardiff they traveled by train to Merthyr
Tydfil. On 2 January 1846 Jones wrote to Wilford Woodruff that
they had met with the Saints in Bristol on
Sunday [December 21], that they had held a meeting in Merthyr
Tydfil on Christmas Day and a conference on Sunday [December 28]. Since
he does not mention his wife and child in the letter it is not clear whether
they were still in North Wales at this point or whether Jones had earlier moved
them down to Merthyr Tydfil in anticipation of
his new assignment. Whatever the case, their new home was a miner’s cottage in
a row of such cottages called Cyfarthfa Row. Theirs was number 45. [57]
That Dan
Jones was not entirely clear as to the nature and extent of his new assignment
is suggested in a request made in a postscript to his letter:
Please advise . . . for the benefit &
peace of Br H. [Henshaw] what position I hold now, in relation to Wales, wether
[whether] I have authority to organise other Conferences than Merthyr &
Wrexham, wether all those delegates shd [should] come to Manchester from all
parts of wether we hold a general conference here & one from here represent
all others at Manchester, for we might by & by have many delegates there
who could not understand a word of English. Some hints about these things &
others from you would preserve peace in the family, if I prophecy
aright. [58]
Jones obviously felt a bit awkward about being put in a
position of authority over the person who had built the Church from the ground
up over the past three years in Merthyr Tydfil.
And logically he was also concerned about Henshaw’s feelings in being relegated
to a position of inferiority and the probable confusion among the new members
in this change. It was important to Jones that the clarification come from
Woodruff; thus the underlined “you” in the postscript.
Thomas Jones, The
Apostate
William
Henshaw was the only leader that Church members in South
Wales had known, and welcoming his replacement may have posed a
challenge for some. A change would have been easier to deal with had Henshaw simply
been released in order to emigrate to America with his family, but he
continued on his mission for several more years until 1851. Furthermore,
Henshaw received assignments from President Jones, his new file leader. To what
extent this may have resulted in friction between the two is subject to debate;
however, an excommunicated member of the Church by the name of Thomas Jones
used the transfer of leadership as a way of exacting revenge on those who had deprived
him of his membership. On 4 June 1846 he granted an interview to David
Williams, a lay Baptist minister from Abercanaid, a village just to the south
of Merthyr Tydfil. [59] Thomas Jones consented
to the interview on the condition that a transcript of it be published in the
periodical The Baptist. Williams
agreed to the condition and asked him a series of prepared questions. One of
these questions was concerning visionary deceit among the Mormons. Here is
Thomas Jones’s published answer:
Before the man called Captain Jones came here another was in charge;
and as this man was an Englishman and not a Welshman, and the Captain himself a
Welshman, we thought it would be better to change them. And as our first leader
rebelled slightly against the Captain, and as he was considered the chief
minister for Wales then, we were in a predicament as to how to move away the
first so that the second could have his place, but to do this one of my friends
told me that he knew the way to succeed, and that he would say that he had had
a revelation directly from God – that our old friend had misbehaved with
another man’s wife, and myself and others agreed with him in the lie and the
boldness, yes, in the awful task and such a terrible wrong! [60]
Thomas
Jones then claimed that he refused to cooperate in the scheme. Captain Jones
refuted the printed interview: “The coming of the latter president to this
country had no effect in any way on the one who was residing here before”. [61]
William Henshaw in a letter that was refused publication by the editor of The Baptist declared: “Since I myself am
that first president to whom Thomas Jones refers, I must state that what he
says is entirely untrue. Never did Capt. D. Jones seek my office. His office
has no effect whatsoever on my duties; and furthermore, there was not one of the
Saints guilty of inventing the terrible calumny that Thomas Jones mentions,
except he himself.” [62]
David Williams characterized Thomas
Jones as follows: “This was no common man among them (or we
would not make such a fuss over him), but one of the most noble officers, one
of the most humorous preachers among them, if they can be called preachers – a
man considered by them to be as high as the Son of God”. [63]
And now
Dan Jones’s characterization:
His accusations against us are no different
from the poisonous effects of his own vindictive heart, accusations which were
made after he was excommunicated from our
church and after he was proven guilty of many sins more atrocious than we
wish to name. He tried to come back several times, yes, even after his first
letter appeared in the Baptist, he
said that he would be glad to come back to our church. There are hundreds who
testify that they heard him say, after being cut off, that “no one else has the
true religion except our church. Despite that, his immoral and unrepentant
behavior continued as such, so that when he stood up before our church to
request his place in our midst, not so much as one of nearly three hundred
members raised his hand in his favor! He asserted at that time that he had not
made the above accusations to the Baptists, when we knew that he had already
done so. When he saw that he would not be accepted, he had such an emotional
outburst that he made public threats, saying that he wished revenge against us
somehow, and that he would publish everything he could against us in the Baptist, etc., which proved to everyone
that he was not truly repentant for his previous sins; and as a result, our
church rules did not allow him, or anyone else like him, membership in our
midst. This man became so unruly that the officers were obliged to turn him out
of one meeting before the end. [64]
Dan
Jones declares in his refutation that Thomas Jones, after trying in vain to be
accepted in one of the Baptist chapels in the area, was “sanctified with the holy
water of the Papists” and that he also had his children baptized as Catholics.
[65]
CHAPTER 3 – NOTES
- History of the Church, 5:386.
- Ibid.,
7:264.
- December
1855 letter of Dan Jones to Thomas Bullock, p. [10], LDS Church
Historian’s Library.
- “Board
for myself and wife at the Mansion House some two or three months.” Ibid.,
p. 23.
- Jones
refers to these as his “only two surviving children.” Ibid., p. [24]. Thus
there was at least one other, perhaps more, who had died since his first
visit to Nauvoo on 12 April 1843. Also on page [22] he mentions his “wife
and two children then there”, but it is unclear whether he meant they were
in New Orleans
or on the Maid of Iowa.
- 3
December 1845 letter of Dan Jones to Brigham Young, LDS Church Historian’s
Library.
- History of the Church, 5:386. Payment
of “two notes for $1,375”was made on 2 June, but it is not clear whether
this amount was for each of the two notes or whether it was a combined
total. Ibid., 5:417.
- Dec
1855 letter of Dan Jones to Thomas Bullock, p. [21].
- Ibid.,
p. [23].
- Ibid.
- Ibid.,
p. [24].
- According
to Conway Sonne the John R. Skiddy
sailed out of New York harbor on 6
December 1844 and arrived at Liverpool on
3 January 1845. The “stormy voyage”, as Jones describes it, at one point
left the passengers terrified. Elder Woodruff recorded the event in his
journal: “We kneeled down and unitedly prayed that the storm might cease
and that the wind might change so that we could go forward and not
backward. In a short time the wind suddenly ceased and finally changed to
the southwest which gave us a fair wind.” Conway B. Sonne, Ships, Saints, and Mariners: a Maritime Encyclopedia of Mormon
Migration, 1830-1890, p. 122. (Find p. __ in WW journal.) The two
missionaries were Leonard Wilford Hardy and Milton Holmes. During Jones’s
stay in New York
he became acquainted with The
Prophet, a weekly newspaper then edited by Sam Brannan. The title of
this publication may well have influenced Jones’s choice for the title for
his own publication about a year-and-a-half later: Prophet of the Jubilee (Prophwyd y Jubili).
- 24
February 1845 letter from Dan Jones to Wilford Woodruff, LDS Church
Historian’s Library.
- 2
January 1846 letter from Dan Jones to Wilford Woodruff, LDS Church
Historian’s Library.
- 24
February 1845 letter from Dan Jones to Wilford Woodruff, LDS Church
Historian’s Library. Original spelling maintained.
- The
first missionary to be called to serve in Wales was Henry Royal, a
British convert. His call came at the 6 October 1840 Manchester conference to go to “Cly” [Cloy],
near Overton, in Flintshire. He was accompanied by Frederick Cook, a
priest. Millennial Star 1:168.
By the end of October Royal and Cook had established a branch of the
Church with thirty-two baptized members. Millennial Star 1:192. Next month they were joined by Elder
James Burnham who on 23 November 1840 reported fifty-six members. Millennial Star 1:212. The month
printed is actually December, but it appears to be a typographical error.
In his 22 December 1840 letter Burnham reported “near 100” members (Millennial Star 1:238-39) and
“about 150” members in his 10 February 1841 letter (Millennial Star 1:284). The Overton area is on the border
between Wales and England
and its inhabitants were not Welsh speaking.
- 24
February 1845 letter.
- Dan
Jones, Y farw wedi ei chyfodi yn
fyw: neu’r hen grefydd newydd. Traethawd yn dangos anghyfnewidioldeb
teyrnas Dduw (The dead raised to life: or the old religion anew.
Treatise showing the immutability of the kingdom of God.),
Wrexham: Printed by William Bayley, Estyn Street, 1845, p. iv.
- His
oldest brother John (born 1801) moved from North
Wales to Rhydybont, a village next to Llanybydder in
Carmarthenshire, in 1842. His older brother Edward (born 1803) was working
in England as a gardner. Logically he
would have gone to them early on in his mission to proclaim his new
beliefs, but there is no indication that his parents or sisters ever
converted. His brother Edward converted 22 July 1851 in Britain while Dan was in Utah. He came with his wife and three
children to America on
board the Golconda
in 1854 and settled in Ephraim,
Utah. He left no
descendants, having survived his wife and children. His brother John did
not convert; however, his wife and two daughters (Elizabeth and Sarah) did
convert and came to America
in 1855 on board the Chimborazo. John died at Cincinnati
in 1856, and his wife and daughters settled in Ironton, Lawrence County, Ohio.
- 24
February 1845 letter.
- Ibid.
Going “to church” in Wales
means going to the Church of England, but going “to chapel” means going to
one of the “Nonconformist” churches (i.e., Baptist, Methodist,
Congregational, Unitarian, etc.).
- Ibid.
- Dan
and Jane had buried two, possibly three children in Nauvoo. Jane would
give birth to three more children during this first mission: Emily, mentioned
in Thomas Jeremy’s journal; Elizabeth, mentioned in Wm Howell’s letter
about her burial (her name comes from the death registers of Merthyr
Tydfil); and Claudia, born 8 February 1849 in Merthyr Tydfil just days
before the departure from Swansea to Liverpool.
- 24
February 1845 letter.
- Ibid.
- Millennial Star 5:170.
- Ibid.
- Udgorn Seion
(Zion’s Trumpet), 1850, wrapper, p. [iv].
- Dan
Jones published a pamphlet with this title in 1854. Ronald D. Dennis, Welsh Mormon Writings from 1844 to
1862: a Historical Bibliography (Religious Studies Center, Brigham
Young University: Provo, Utah, 1988), p. 184.
- Hanes Saint y Dyddiau Diweddaf, o’u
sefydliad yn y flwyddyn 1823, hyd yr amser yr alltudiwyd tri chan mil o
honynt o’r America oherwydd eu crefydd, yn y flwyddyn 1846 (History of
the Latter-day Saints, from their establishment in the year 1823, until
the time that three hundred thousand of them were exiled from America
because of their religion, in the year 1846). Merthyr
Tydfil: Printed by J. Jones, Rhydybont, [1847], p. 93.
- Ibid.
Jones could not have mean that Robert Evans was the first Welshman ever
baptized, as he knew William Henshaw’s success in South Wales preceded his
(Jones’s) arrival in Wales
to begin his mission in 1845.
- Ibid.,
p. 93-94.
- Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo
Snow, compiled by Eliza R. Snow Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret News
Company, 1884), p. 53. After serving as a missionary for eight years
Henshaw took his wife and four children to America
on board the Olympus
in 1851. He died in St. Louis
in 1870 (Saints’ Herald 17:732).
Eliza R. Snow summarized her brother’s feelings about Henshaw: “It is
a matter of deep regret that, after
having performed a great and good work – after having been instrumental in
bringing into the Church, among the many whom he baptized, several persons
who became prominent and influential preachers of the Gospel, that he
should make shipwreck of his faith through that destructive demon,
intemperance, and by intoxication destroy the powerful faculties with
which God had endowed him. He crossed the ocean, and, in St. Louis, died a drunkard. Once beloved
and highly respected, he yielded to the weakness of the flesh, and ‘died
as a food dieth’ – an object of regret and pity, a warning to those
similarly tempted.” (Biography and
Family Record of Lorenzo Snow, p. 53.)
- In his
account Dan Jones reported “over two hundred”. Perhaps only that number
were active Church members at that time.
- History of the Latter-day Saints,
p. 93-94.
- Millennial
Star 6:94.
- Ibid.,
p. 110.
- For
example, Jones put in the title of his 1847 History of the Latter-day Saints an indication that there were
300,000 members of the Church in 1846. In his defense, others had been
guilty of huge overestimates of the Church’s population. On 13 May 1844
Joseph Smith wrote that the Church numbered 200,000 people (Times and Seasons 5:547). And
Bishop George Miller is quoted in the 26 February 1845 Nauvoo Neighbor as estimating the
Church membership “with our families, little less than 300,000 souls”.
- Millennial Star 6:110.
- Ibid.
- Welsh Mormon Writings, p. 16-19.
- All of
Dan Jones’s publications during the rest of his first mission, with the
exception of the final two issues of his periodical Prophet of the Jubilee, were printed on his brother’s press at
Rhydybont.
- 3 December
1845 letter of Dan Jones to Brigham Young. Church Historian’s Library.
- Here
is the full text of Jones’s comments in his 3 December 1845 letter to
Brigham Young about the Welsh Indians: “Another view I have in presenting
it to you is, hoping it may form some clue to bring to light a very
important topic, one which has merited my attention for many years,
especially of late, I have thought much, dreamed often, and wondered, why
so, yet I could not help it. Tis in regard to the descendants of a colony
who left Wales A. D. 1261, sailed in ten ships under the command of the
celebrated Welsh Chief Madoc ab Owen Gwynedd that they landed in
America is a fact, and became a powerful nation, the tombstone of the
chief with his name and year corresponding is now to be seen near
Charleston S. C. That they, about 40 years ago, inhabited Illinois is also
proved beyond a doubt, and the hunters, & trappers of late years,
report having seen a tribe near the head waters of Missouri, speaking the
Welsh language fluently. They are purely Welsh in their marriage &
funeral ceremonies, otherwise resembling other Indians, and about a year
ago two Indians traveling through Wisconsin spoke Welsh to some Welshmen
there and stated that they lived a great distance in the western wilds,
but refused to give any particulars; Who knows but the Lord has kept them
hid from the sectarian dogmas in order that they be better prepared to
receive the fullness of the gospel in his own time, and for my part, I
feel as though that time is at hand, however I cant but think so; would it
was, what a help that wd be to enhance the work among the other tribes; If
I could but have some of them (pagans) to preach the gospel to these
(zealous religionists) of their Fatherland. that wd be something new under
the sun; and the whole nation wd flock to hear such; for the topic, of
their still existing has created much sensation in this country so that at
different times contributions have been raised to send me in search of
them, but all hitherto has been abortive, for some wise and doubtless,
perhaps you will be enquiry find out something of them as you go to the
west; God grant it, is my constant prayer; twd be hailed as the greatest
discovery of the age. result in much good to us. and revolutionise the
history of the Continent pluck the laurels from the head of Columbus and restore them to the Ancient Britons,
their rightful heirs; tis proved that Columbus
traded to Britain,
and learnt by them of a continent West before he aplyd for an expedition
in search of it. Thrice in night visions was I told the name of that
tribe, but thrice forgot e’er I awoke. You doubtless know the way to ask,
so as to get an answer.”
- 3
December 1845 letter.
- Ibid.
- The dead raised to life, p. [iv].
- 3
December 1845 letter.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
The identity of these two converts has not been established.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- From
the time Jones first met Joseph Smith on 12 April 1843 until the Martyrdom
was just over fourteen months.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Millennial Star 7:7-8. {I need to
verify the volume number.}
- Cyfarthfa
Row was a row of miners cottages located in the area of Meerthyr Tydfil
known as Georgetown.
The cottages were demolished in the 1980s.
- 2
January 1846 letter of Dan Jones to Wilford Woodruff.
- David
Williams was the author of the first anti-Mormon pamphlet in Welsh, a
32-page rebuttal to Dan Jones’s The
dead raised to life. Williams’s pamphlet, Twyll y Seintiau Diweddaf yn cael ei ddynoethi [The fraud of
the Latter Saints exposed), was published in Merthyr
Tydfil in late 1845 or early 1846. Only a copy of the second
edition published in 1846 is extant.
- Y Bedyddiwr (The Baptist), July
1846, p. 250-51.
- Prophet of the Jubilee, December
1846, p. 151.
- Ibid.,
p. 153. After Jones’s arrival, Henshaw initially continued as a
“conference president”, the same title he had previously. Jones was given
the title of “President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
in Wales”.
Perhaps because Henshaw was not supplanted in his duties as conference
president he and Jones considered this as having “no effect” on Henshaw’s
duties.
- Y Bedyddiwr (The Baptist), July
1846, p. 250-51.
- Ibid.
- Jones
also takes Williams to task about his unseemly behavior. This will be
discussed elsewhere.
CHAPTER 4
– FIRST YEAR AS PRESIDENT JONES – 1846
“Those glorious anticipations which we
fondly cherished for many a sweet hour while pacing the Deck, at the still
hours of the midnight watch, are being realised beyond my expectations.” Such
were the words of Dan Jones written to Wilford Woodruff on 2 January 1846 from
Merthyr Tydfil two weeks after receiving the call to relocate and preside over
missionary work in all of Wales.
[1]
At this point in his mission Captain Jones
had spent what was doubtless a frustrating year in North
Wales. He had had no companion except for his wife Jane. He had
had only three convert baptisms to report. His pamphlet The dead raised to life had stirred up widespread opposition to him
and his “wild” religious claims. And his recent translation of Proclamation of the Twelve Apostles was
adding fuel to the flames.
The move to Merthyr Tydfil
When he transferred his base of operations
to Merthyr Tydfil after being called during the Manchester
conference to preside over all of the missionary work in Wales, Dan Jones did not, at least
in terms of numbers, have many results to rejoice about. Yet he declared to
Wilford Woodruff that the “glorious anticipations” of the deck conversations
were being “realised beyond [his] expectations”. Perhaps the basis for such an
optimistic observation was the relatively large gathering he presided over in Merthyr Tydfil just ten days after his arrival there in
his new capacity. [2] Getting better acquainted with Church members in South
Wales, especially with the dozen or so missionaries then serving, must
certainly have given him hope for the future of the Church in Wales. After an entire year of
virtually being on his own, mingling with several hundred Welsh-speaking
brothers and sisters gathered for the conference in a demonstration of strength
would logically have opened his mind to growth opportunities for the fledgling
Church in his native land. Such expectations, wrote Jones, were “in fulfilment
of the predictions of our beloved prophet e'er I started on this mission &
e'er his exit to the abode of bliss.” [3]
Addressing a sympathetic audience in Merthyr Tydfil was a welcome change from speaking in the
open to hostile listeners and hecklers, Jones’s typical audience over the
previous year. Near the parish church in Merthyr Tydfil
the Saints had rented a large hall known as the “Neuadd Cymreigyddion”. This
was actually a “long room” over the White Lion Inn, a well-known public house
in the area at the time. [4]. A meeting was held there on Christmas day, about
a week after Jones’s arrival; another conference was held there also three days
later. In his letter to Wilford Woodruff, Jones’s excitement was transparent:
“Held a conference in the same Hall, representing 18 branches all in healthy
and thriving conditions showing an increase of about 200, since last April,
about half of that no. [number] in this branch alone, & making in all about
600 Saints in Wales.”
[5] Jones praised the “love & union of the Welsh Saints” and the “double
portion of the Same Spirit cementing those of different nations (speaking
alternately, Welsh & English) as children of one family in the bonds of one
Covenant.” Dealing with a congregation consisting mainly of Welsh speakers with
a small percentage of English speakers, and an even smaller percentage of
bilinguals, was a situation no one had ever had to deal with in the Church. The
pattern appears to have been to alternate Welsh speakers with English speakers
and for someone to give an occasional summary in Welsh of a speech given in
English and vice versa. No mention is ever made of the use of simultaneous
interpreting.
The “tea party” that followed the evening
session of the conference contributed even more to Jones’s excitement: “I have
been informed that some 400 cards were sold previous to the time and perhaps
twice the number partook of the feast; the Co.
[company] was as respectable in apearance, conduct, & circumstances as any
tea party of the times.” [6] Jones commented on the “ample proof” that the tea
party was “the means of doing good in various ways”:
All the preposessed prejudices of the guests
gave way before it, many of the Sectarians and some of the Priests I was
informed came through the Hall to see our “liberty”, and the more the better,
for we had a specimen of that worthy of their admiration.” [7]
He reports hearing comments such as: “These must be a good
& a loving people” and “These cannot be guilty of the charges prefered
against them by our preachers” and even “I will be babtized e’er I go home”.
[8]
Toward the end of the letter Jones makes
some observations and predictions about “The Joint Stock Company”, a venture
designed to open an economical way for the British converts to travel to America.
He reports that “some 9.5 shares were taken besides upwards of 80 previously
taken”. [9] Following the tea party Jones read the rules of the Joint Stock
Company in Welsh, whereupon a vote was passed to have them published in Welsh.
He closed his letter to Wilford Woodruff in
metaphorical language:
So now I must close by saying go ahead
Mormonism with thy colors nailed to the mast head, success to the “Joint Stock”
till its ships shall meet auspicious breeses to fill their sails, blow high,
blow low, in every clime, Dr [Dear] Br. Woodruff. Adieu altho you return &
leave me behind, may Neptune’s hosts, Vancuard [vanguard] yr Westward course,
& Eden’s
breeses waft you home in peace.” [10]
In a postscript Jones requested:
I shd [should] be pleased if you wd [would]
send me a letter authorising me to collect what I can from the Welsh Saints on
ac [account], &c., to enable me to bring out another pamphlet now, in
answer to one now just out by the joint stock of Priests just such another as
the “Mormonism Unveiled” tho in Welsh, published in this place; if it is not
answered some weak Saints & sinners may stumbl at it. [11]
The anti-Mormon pamphlet was entitled The fraud of the Latter Saints exposed and was written by David
Williams, a lay Baptist minister from Abercanaid, a small village in the
outskirts of Merthyr Tydfil. Several Nonconformist priests had pooled their
resources to finance the publication of the pamphlet, and they had selected
David Williams to write what resulted in a 32-page pamphlet that was published
in late December 1845. [12]
In his preface Williams comments
about Jones’s preface and takes exception to Jones’s “boastful language” in
claiming to be the “only one of Gomer’s lineage” to know of the new doctrine
put forth in his pamphlet, doctrine that Williams calls an “abortion”. [13]
Throughout his pamphlet Williams challenges Jones’s statements in itemized
fashion using reason and scripture to explain what he perceives as Jones’s
folly. And toward the end of the pamphlet Williams expresses particular shock
at Jones’s second publication, Proclamation
of the Twelve Apostles: [14]
By the time I had glanced over the above treatise on the kingdom of
God, yet another one came to my attention, one so presumptuous as if it had
been written by the fingers of the devil, who had dipped his pen in the venom
of dragons or in the fiery furnace itself, and had it printed in the gates of
hell, and this under the name “Proclamation of the Twelve Apostles – the
Saints, etc., to all the kings of the earth, etc.” Oh my! for human nature to
have sunk so low, and become so impudent as to assert such majestic things in a
deceitful way. The above booklet, that is the Proclamation, has gone so far in its baseless assertions, that all
one Welshman has to do is read it carefully to see its madness. [15]
By
the time Williams’s pamphlet appeared in print Dan Jones had organized a good
part of a 24-page pamphlet, his third, entitled A reply to the objections which are most commonly brought throughout
the country against the Latter-day Saints, and the doctrine which they profess.
[16] Jones took his inspiration for the format from Orson Pratt’s “Dialogue
between tradition, reason, and scriptus,” which had appeared in his Prophetic Almanac, for 1845. [17] But instead of having a three-way conversation, as
does Orson Pratt, Jones reduces the conversation to one just between a Saint
and a sectarian. The sectarian poses a question, and the Saint gives a fairly
detailed answer representing the Mormon position on such topics as baptism,
authority, the apostasy, etc. In his 7 February 1846 letter to Reuben Hedlock,
Jones declares: “I have now the last form of my pamphlet in press, and am
busily engaged working them off myself.” [18] Jones wrote the letter from his
brother’s house in Rhydybont and had probably spent considerable time there in
order to get the type set and be “working them off” his brother’s press.
His brother’s assistant, a young man
by the name of John Davis, took a great interest in the content of Jones’s
pamphlet as he set the type for it. His conversion and baptism two months later
would be greatly beneficial to the Church in Wales,
especially when Jones returned to America in early 1849. At this time
John Davis was called to be a counselor in the mission presidency with
responsibilities for all the printing activities of the mission. In addition to
continuing the monthly periodical and publishing a score of pamphlets he would
also translate into Welsh and publish the Doctrine and Covenants, the Book of
Mormon, and the Pearl of Great Price before his own emigration in 1854. [19]
The towns and villages that surrounded
the cattle market town of Llanybydder would during the next few months
constitute a fruitful area for Dan Jones’s proselytizing efforts. He declares
in his 7 February 1846 letter to Reuben Hedlock:
I have more places to preach in, round here, than I can possibly
attend to. I have one elder in this circuit besides. In fact, the prospect is
good everywhere for a plentiful crop of good souls ere long. The people tell
such lies about us as to stir up the curiosity of many to hear us. I have two
chapels now in the neighbourhood to preach in when I can. [20]
Two
persons who were likely numbered in Jones’s predicted “plentiful crop of good
souls” were Thomas Jeremy and his wife Sarah who lived at Glantrenfawr with
their four young children. The twins Sarah was expecting at this time would be
born in May 1846. Their farmhouse at Glantrenfawr would be the meeting place
for the dozens of converts in the area over the next three years. It was also
the guest house for the many missionaries who frequented that area. A stream
ran close by Glantrenfawr. Perhaps a pool was created in this stream in order
for Captain Jones to baptize Thomas Jeremy on 3 March 1846 along with two
others, Richard Jones and Benjamin Jones. Sarah Jeremy’s baptism was delayed
until 7 July 1846, two months after giving birth to twin daughters. [21]
Jones established residence in an
area of Merthyr Tydfil known as Georgetown.
He lived in a miner’s cottage, number 45, located on Cyfarthfa Row. The hub of
the Church and its main growth was in the Merthyr Tydfil
area; however, because of Jones’s focus on publishing materials in defense of
Mormonism, he had a second base of operations in the Llanybydder area of
Carmarthenshire. The Jeremy’s home at Glantrenfawr was the gathering place of
the new converts, and his brother’s press at Rhydybont, about two miles
distant, was Jones’s “weapons depot”. [22]
The Reverend W. R. Davies, Dowlais
Mormonism’s most vociferous foe in Wales
during the 1840s was without doubt the Reverend W. R. Davies. From his pulpit
in Caersalem Chapel in Dowlais and from his articles in the various religious
periodicals of the time came a constant stream of venom against the intruders
known as Mormons. [23] Things had gone relatively well for Davies from the time
of his ordination as minister of the Baptist congregation at Caersalem Chapel
in 1838 until early 1843. At this time the Mormon missionary William Henshaw,
among his first dozen converts, baptized one of Davies’s parishioners. In an
unpublished letter dated 6 May 1843 Davies commented on the newcomers:
There is here a new sect, the “Latter-day
Saints,” as they call themselves; they baptize as we do, and that at night.
They profess to be able to do everything which the apostles could do: to heal
the sick, cast out devils, raise the dead, speak in tongues, etc., etc. Their
minister has been in the house with me trying to convince me. He is having
success and has baptized from 10 to 12 in the last three months. And he
baptized one woman who was a member with us. [24]
Ten months later his first anti-Mormon article appeared in Y Bedyddiwr (The Baptist), one of the
many religious periodicals of the time, and was signed with the pseudonym
“Tobit ger y Bont” (Tobit near the bridge). The first few sentences set the
stage for all his successive writings concerning the troublesome, new
denomination:
The foolish and mad men who call themselves
“Latter-day Saints” have arrived in Pendaran [Penydarren]. They profess to work
miracles, to prophesy, to speak in unknown tongues, yea, in a word to do
everything that the apostles did. I am sorry to say that a number of dregs of
society are now believers. They baptize at night, and those receiving baptism
must undress for them and go to the water stark naked! [25]
In his second article, published in the same periodical
just one month later, Davies gives “a small account of [the Mormons’] failure
together with their successes”. [26] To illustrate their failure he tells of
their debate with a Baptist preacher by the name of Dafydd Oliver in which Oliver
easily confused them and soundly defeated them. And to illustrate their success
Davies relates an incident that took place between the Mormons and the
Independents, or “men of the sprinkle”, as they were called by the Baptists.
The lay minister selected by the Independents of the Bethesda Chapel in Merthyr Tydfil engaged in two debates with the Mormons.
Midway through the second this “intelligent and gifted young man” announced his
conversion to Mormonism and went down to the river with the missionaries and
was baptized that same night. This was probably Abel Evans who, after a
six-year mission with the Mormons, Dan Jones called an “indefatigable veteran”.
[27]
At this
point Davies lapses into nearly a two-year silence, in the periodicals at
least, about the Latter-day Saints in Wales. The coming of the fiery
Captain Dan Jones to Merthyr Tydfil appears to
have been the catalyst for Davies’s re-entry into the arena, for about three
weeks following Jones’s arrival, a written challenge dated 10 January 1846 was
supposedly sent through the post to Davies by Abel Evans and William Henshaw.
The challenge, published in the March 1846 Y
Bedyddiwr, was as follows:
We...are sending you this letter to compel
you as an honest man to come to the field to defend that which you said
previously, to face the public next Thursday night, the fifteenth of this
month, and make yourself known to the public. If you come, our celebrated
Apostle, Capt. Dan Jones, will be there to face you....Your absence will be
proof of your heresy. [28]
Elders Evans and Henshaw immediately sent a letter of
protest to the editor of Y Bedyddiwr
and stated: “We testify in soberness and truth in the presence of God and men,
that we did not write nor did we cause to be written the aforementioned letter,
or any other writing ever to that man.” [29] Surprisingly, the editor published
their letter, but not surprisingly he added this observation: “Whether the
letter referred to is false or authentic, the handwriting is very much like the
handwriting of this letter. They are so similar that everyone who saw them
decided at once that it was the same hand that wrote the two letters.” [30] W.
R. Davies defended himself in the following issue of the periodical, claiming
he had witnesses to prove he had received the letter through the mail. He also
stated: “I consider it to be your responsibility as the editor and publisher of
a monthly periodical (for the sake of religion and your fellow nation) to
publish the tricks of these Satanists every now and again.” [31]
The
Reverend John Jones from Rhyd-y-bont, Dan Jones’s older brother, had some words
of counsel for W. R. Davies and other opponents of Mormonism:
If Abel Evans and William Henshaw wrote this
letter to Mr. D[avies], they deserve to be rebuked; but not half as much as he
himself deserves for the letter he sent in reply. Ah! if only he would hide his
letter from the eyes of the country; or the Editors would do it for him. Here
are his words to them—“over-learned”, “senseless rubbish”, “sinful creature”, “weak-headed”,
“corrupt men”, fool-headed Henshaw”, “devilish tribe”, “they laugh up their
sleeves at those who believe them”, “unconscionable idlers”, “sons of a devil”,
“Atheists”, “Deists”, “the worst sort of Chartists”, etc. It is true that many
heresies are preached by them; but, in the name of goodness, what is consuming
Mr. Davies, and the others who write against them? Do you not know that the
best way to increase a strange sect is to persecute it, and [consequently] take
on a more unclean and libelous character than it? Is there anyone at all around
Merthyr and Dowlais, of the men who slander them, who dares attack their subjects? We beg, for the sake of the
character of our literature, that our Editors not release any more such
persecution into their pages; and for the sake of the withering and ending of
the Mormons, that no one persecute or disrespect them. . . We expect to see some pamphlet appearing, by
now, on their new subjects; and if
the author were to see fit, nothing would be more delightful to us than
printing it. [32]
Also in the March 1846 Y Bedyddiwr were two other anti-Mormon articles. The first was a
Welsh translation of a letter that had appeared in the 9 December 1845 New York Sun. [33] Dated 20 November 1845 and
attributed to Emma Smith, wife of the Prophet Joseph Smith, the letter contains
her supposed admission that never did she really believe in her husband’s
visions and revelations. Emma Smith wrote to James Arlington Bennett, probably
the real author of the letter, that it was a forgery, but her disclaimer was
not published in the New York Sun
until 25 January 1846. Nothing further is written about these letters by the
opponents of Mormonism in Wales
or by the Mormons themselves.
The second article to appear in the March
1846 Y Bedyddiwr (besides the one
about the Evans-Henshaw letter) was one entitled “A MIRACLE! A MIRACLE! AT
LAST!” Using the Welsh pseudonym “Quick-yn-Dwr”—the translation is “quick in
the water”, but its meaning is unclear—W. R. Davies ridicules the Latter-day Saints
for claiming the occurrence of miracles among them in Wales. More specifically he
discusses the supposed “miraculous” healing of William Hughes’s leg, broken in
a mining accident. The Latter-day Saints stated that Hughes, a member of the Merthyr Tydfil branch, made a quick and miraculous
recovery almost immediately after receiving a blessing from some of their
missionaries. To disprove such a claim Davies states that when the doctor went
to check on Hughes, “To [the doctor’s] surprise some fool had taken off the
bandage which he had put [on the leg] the day before . . . And after being
asked, the sufferer confessed the whole thing, and to this day the fool-headed
wretch has not gotten better, and he is being supported by the Merthyr parish.”
[34]
The editor’s observation that the
handwriting of the “challenge” letter and the “defense” letter were obviously
the same to anyone who was to compare the two prompted Dan Jones to pay a visit
to the office of the The Baptist in
Cardiff, about twenty miles from Merthyr Tydfil. “We went to the office soon
after that,” Jones wrote in October 1846, “we showed him the great wrong we had
suffered, but we did not see those two writings either.” Jones explained his
reasoning:
Since Mr. Davies claims that it was some man
who brought that letter to his house, and the Editor of the Baptist was an eyewitness to that, why
do they not say who gave him that letter? They admit that the key to the
mystery of that fictitious letter is in their hand; and if they do not bring it
out into the open, who will not attribute the false letter to them? But more of
this later. We continue to defend ourselves, while these two partners continue
to accuse us falsely. Once again we say—It was not our brothers who wrote this
challenge to Mr. Davies to come out to debate; its creators are obviously
enemies of ours. Was it not Mr. Davies, and his brother from Cardiff, who lends his name to be a witness
for him, who composed the false challenge in order to disgrace us? The Baptist’s action in claiming that it was
the same hand that wrote the challenge as wrote the defense to be put in his
monthly, and his action in failing to show the two pieces of writing before our
eyes, and his action also in standing so conveniently as a witness for his
brother, although there are twenty miles between the homes of the two, and
every other plan and scheme of theirs, lead us to suspect them strongly,
despite ourselves. This is a serious accusation against Mr. D.; but let it be
remembered that it would then be against the man who has employed all his
inventiveness, for years, to falsely accuse us, and who has traveled a great
deal throughout the country to disgrace us—against the polite man who has
dubbed us with two or three dozen nicknames through the press and the pulpit.
And we do not accuse anyone of eating dirt except the one who usually has dirt
on his plate. That is all. If Mr. D. writhes (and who would not writhe from
such a suspicion?); let him name the
bearer of that evil old letter, then, and then he will be free, and not
before. It is a pity that we, who have so many important tasks relating to the
salvation of the age on our hands, should have to waste time with these things;
but any other behavior on our part would be to suffer like a murderer or a
thief. [35]
Merthyr
Tydfil Conference, 15 & 16 March 1846
Three
months after Dan Jones had been called to preside over the Church in all of Wales, a conference was held in Merthyr Tydfil. In the Sunday morning session Jones
reported 24 branches in Wales
and 102 baptisms performed during the previous three months with the total
number of Saints in Wales
at 600. “The elders represented the general state of the churches to be good,”
wrote Jones, “and the prospects flattering.” [36] The Saints’ meeting held at
2:00 p.m. was “well attended”. The sacrament was administered, and “the Saints
bore strong and interesting testimonies of the wonderful goodness of God, in
the language in which they were born”. All during the meeting the Saints
glanced at the door hoping for the arrival of President John Banks, second
counselor to Reuben Hedlock, who was assigned to be in attendance. But being
detained in coming from Bristol, he arrived in time for the evening meeting at
6:00 p.m. Addressing a Welsh audience for the first time, President Banks
“enlarged upon the beauties and glories of the kingdom with such eloquence,
that it charmed the hearts and filled the souls of all who understood it with
new life and vigour”. [37] For the benefit of those who did not understand
English, probably the majority, Dan Jones “translated the principle part of the
discourse into Welsh”. Concerning the Monday morning session Jones wrote:
Some unpleasant cases of aspiring spirits
were examined and amicably adjusted, and the offenders restored to full
confidence and fellowship, so that when the evening meeting closed, peace and
universal restoration were established among all the Saints. [38]
Unfortunately Jones does not elaborate on the “aspiring
spirits” that needed to be dealt with, but it appears to have been a lack of
understanding in matters of Church government on the part of a few. No wonder
there was a bit of confusion among the relatively new and poorly instructed
priesthood holders; after all, their leader, William Henshaw, for the first three
years of the Church’s existence in Merthyr Tydfil
had not been able to communicate directly in the language of the majority of
the members. Furthermore, President Banks appears to have been the first of the
leadership in Liverpool ever to visit the area
in a conference.
Another
item of business about which Jones failed to elaborate was President Banks’s
motion “that Captain D. Jones preside over Merthyr Tydvil conference, in
addition to his former presidency over Wales”. The motion carried
unanimously and apparently sidelined William Henshaw from any leadership
capacity. He continued, however, on his mission for five more years.
In the
Tuesday evening “open council” meeting Banks “instructed the different officers
on the importance of discharging their various duties faithfully, and the
beauty and glory of the priesthood, etc.” Wednesday evening was devoted to a
meeting about the “Joint Stock Company” during which Banks “in a very clear
manner, showed the advantages that would result from the “Joint Stock Company”,
and the necessity of the same to the happiness of the Saints”. [39] At this
point hopes were still high about this venture that would put emigration within
the reach of even the poor miners who composed the majority of the Church
membership in Wales.
Jones reported at the end of his letter:
I am happy to say that, we have some of the
noble spirits of the days of yore in our midst, the sons of noble sires, yes,
from the unconquered race of mountain chiefs, who will go, two by two, in a
very short time, and sound the trumpet through every part of Wales, until the
aspiring summits of Cambria’s hills shall echo the sound to every glen, and
warn them faithfully. May the God of their fathers be propitious to them. [40]
The Captain/Elder
becomes a polemicist
Two or
three weeks after the March conference Dan Jones published his first
“polemical” pamphlet. The long title sets the tone throughout the entire
sixteen pages: The scales, in which are
seen David weighing Williams, and Williams weighing David; or David Williams,
from Abercanaid, contradicting himself, caught in his deceit, and proved
deistic. [41] The title page bears two scriptural quotations obviously
aimed at David Williams. The first is Job 15:6—“Thine own mouth condemneth
thee, and not I: yea, thing own lips testify against thee”. And the second is
Job 11:3—“Should thy lies make men hold their peace? and when thou mockest,
shall no man make thee ashamed?” The four-line poem on the title page depicts
Jones’s calling as defender of the faith:
No matter
the depth of the dust and muck
Which
has been thrown on the Mormons’ majesty;
Good is
our plea, God is on our side,
Despite
the ugly commotion of all the wolves. [42]
Jones’s pamphlets The
dead raised to life and Reply to the
objections were portrayals of Latter-day Saints beliefs and doctrine; the Proclamation of the Twelve Apostles was
simply a translation. The scales, however,
projected Jones into a new mode of writing, that of polemicist. Certainly he
had engaged in many heated, verbal arguments during his first fifteen months as
a missionary in explaining and defending Mormonism and in countering the
arguments of his opponents. However, this was his first time—but definitely not
his last—to unleash his arsenal of carefully constructed satire and derision
aimed at bringing forth the contradictions and eventually the total destruction
of his opponent. The following segments are typical of Jones’s heavy handed and
often humorous style throughout:
Who says that? Williams, I think, for David
in the previous two lines says the complete opposite to that in this admission.
. . . Which one do you believe? David or Williams? I believe David now. . . .
Well done, Williams! Although he lost before, he wins now, and is closer to the
truth than David. [43]
The first section of the pamphlet, entitled “To the
reader”, bears quoting:
I
appeal to the reader in this essay, for it would be foolishness to appeal to
Mr. Williams, for reason or scripture, when his work proves him devoid of the
one and the other, he being chained so close to his prejudiced traditions, that
one might think that he would lose his life before losing them. He resembles
that poor man who had sunk down into a bog on the bank of a great river in America
after great floods. When some traveler came past that way, after the surface
had hardened, he saw a hat in front of him. He picked it up, and to his great
surprise, beheld a head underneath it. After staring at it until he believed
his own eyes, he grasped it with all his strength thinking to pull it to the
bank by its hair; but with the first pull the poor man shouted out loudly,
“Don’t, don’t take me to the bank, for I have a good horse underneath me and a
pair of new boots on my feet; I would rather sink with them than lose them!!!”
Perhaps some will say
that this is wasted effort—that this little man, and his pamphlet, are beneath
notice. I admit from experience that that was the first thought, and quite
reasonable, of every principled man; but on second thought I remembered the second
advice of the wise man: “Answer the fool according to his foolishness, lest he
be wise in his own sight.” When I understood that this “scribe” is a
“mouth-piece” for some conference of bullies, and a bell hammer for their
belfry, I thought that if I did not defend myself and the truth in the face of
such terrible false accusations, and show the foolishness, deceit, and idiocy
of this “clique,” there would be no peace for the Saints at their work, or on
the streets, or in their meeting houses either, from the “nation of brawlers”
upsetting them in public; and since “silent contempt” after long trial did
nothing but make them worse still, one must “shut up their mouths” with the
truth. Read unbiasedly, oh reader, and give fair play to The Scales to turn properly. [44]
It is unfortunate that voice recording devices were not
developed until many years
after Jones died in order to hear one of his powerful
discourses. A perusal of his writing, however, can help one to imagine his
oratorical skills. The mock fear that he often uses in his polemical pamphlets
and articles is particularly entertaining. Here is an example from The Scales:
But, hush! Next, I hear the sound of great
thunder, and the tumult of war! I imagine hearing the roar of cannons, until
the earth almost shakes around about me! What! is it an earthquake? oh no, it
is the roar of the brave general’s trump sounding before him,--“Captain, I am
coming out as an opponent to you; for your way is heretical in my sight.” Let
every mouse take fright, let the snail pull its two horns back into its shell;
let the dogs of Pentrebach not turn a tongue in their heads; for behold this
great, great Goliath from Abercanaid, comes out to battle! Dear women, snatch
your children from the streets, lest they be trampled under his iron soles into
the dust; yes, there are all his Sanhedrin leaving their rails and all, and
following his tail. Flee, you Saints,
otherwise the end of the world will be on your heads now! Oh, woe is me, poor
man! there he raises his great lance into the air, and opens his mouth wide to
swallow me! Oh no; thanks be to him, he gives me one chance for my life! Who
would expect such a great giant, to spare the life of one so small in his
sight? [45]
Events during
June and July
On Sunday
31 May 1846 and for the next two days Dan Jones was in attendance at the
conference held at the Hall of Science in Manchester.
On this occasion he represented hundreds of Welsh members instead of a handful
as was the case with previous conferences. Furthermore, he was able to report
nearly two hundred convert baptisms during the five months since the December
conference. He published over three pages of detailed minutes of the conference
in the August 1846 issue of his periodical Prophet
of the Jubilee. [46] Jones proposed in the Monday morning session “that
eleven of the churches in Monmouthshire be a Conference belonging to Wales,
and that John Morris preside over it”. [47] The proposal received unanimous
approval. Another proposal that had a direct effect on Jones’s responsibilities
in Wales was one made by J.
Johnson “that the Garway District be linked with Wales, under the presidency of D.
Jones”. [48] Later that year Jones would send William Henshaw to preside over
the Garway District, just over the border into Herefordshire. [49]
District
presidents throughout Britain
were to report to the presidency in Liverpool.
But because there were district presidents in Wales
who did not speak or understand English a special arrangement was set up at the
conference to have the district presidents in Wales report directly to Dan Jones.
In the minutes in Welsh that appeared in the Prophet of the Jubilee Jones wrote:
The President [Reuben Hedlock] made it known
that D. Jones had been sent from America by the highest authority in the church
to preside over all the Districts throughout Wales, and that his duty is to
organize all maters in them, and arrange the best measures in order to spread
the work throughout Wales. [50]
Apparently nearly six months after Dan Jones had been made
President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Wales
[51] there was still need in the minds of some for clarification concerning
Jones’s role. And perhaps the main person who needed clarification was William
Henshaw.
Following the conference Elder Jones took
the long way home to Merthyr Tydfil, thus
being able to visit his fellow missionaries in various places along the way.
His report a few weeks later to President Reuben Hedlock differed considerably
from those submitted the previous year:
Since I left you, I have been preaching on
my way through the principal towns of eight counties, in each place had the
consolation to know that some more or less believed the gospel, although I
baptized only four, organized two branches, ordained two priests, three
teachers, and two deacons. [52]
Jones elected to include details of the baptism of a young
man with a bad leg “because the power of God is manifested thereby”:
In one place a young man who had a sore
leg—past cure by the doctors—upwards of twenty pieces of bone having been
worked out of it! and he was not able to walk without a crutch since a year
last Christmas. When he believed the gospel, I told him he would be healed if
he would obey; he walked about a mile with crutches. By the river side we
prayed that he might be enabled to dispense with his crutch, and he walked into
the water without it—out again, and home—and so far as I have heard has never
used it since. I carried his crutch home through the town on my back, the man
telling them that he was healed, but strange to say they would neither believe
him nor their own eyes, but cried out impostors, etc., and that he might have
walked before!! although they knew better; but however, the man got a blessing,
and when I left, the wounds in his leg were closing finely, and free from pain.
[53]
Two other healings were reported in far less detail: “Two
others, a priest and a Saint, were miraculously healed by the power of God
publicly, yet for all that, there were none but the Saints that would ‘return
glory to God’”. [54]
On
Tuesday, 7 July 1846, the Captain was back in Llanybydder, Carmarthenshire.
Four months earlier Thomas Jeremy was baptized, but his wife Sarah was not.
Sarah, having given birth to twin girls on May 11th, was now ready
to be baptized also. This particular baptismal service was highly publicized
and was attended by a large crowd of people. The vast majority of them were
there, however, not to witness the baptism of Sarah Jeremy, rather the baptism
of a blind man by the name of Daniel Jones. Captain Jones related the incident
to President Hedlock:
In another place, a blind man was persuaded,
as I had reason to believe, and for a sign came forward to be baptized. I
questioned him hard, suspecting his integrity, but he insisted on being
baptized, so then I could forestall his wickedness and frustrate their plan
only by publishing a public baptism of a blind man, far and wide, to take place
on a certain time. It was astonishing to see the crowds that came from the
regions round about; both priests, preachers, persecutors, and people. Oh, what
an opportunity that was to explain the whys and wherefores of Mormonism, sign
seeking, etc. They all listened with the greatest attention for about two
hours, although many had come on purpose to oppose, but I could not get a try
out of any of them. I shewed them that our religion was true, whether the blind
man got his sight or not; it was true before the blind man was heard of, that
it would remain as true when he was dead and forgotten, and that it is
eternally true, and I knew it. But after the baptism, while walking up to the
house to be confirmed, it was amusing to hear the remarks as the crowd
followed, crossing and recrossing to peep at; his eyes, to see whether his
sight was restored; some said it was, some that he was blinder than before, and
that was difficult. But there and then Madam Slander filled the baskets of her
pedlars with a variety of trinkets that were recalled out again at a
fine rate, until even her own markets were entirely deluged. However, I
confirmed the man, anointed and laid hands on him, and he shouted for joy in
the presence of all, and testified that while hands were on his head he could “see
the candle in the candlestick on the table; that he was more than satisfied”.
But the fun of the matter was, that after I left, the sign-seekers who
persuaded him to come, found themselves in their own trap, and again persuaded
the man that it was all “conjuring”, imposition, &c., and were not
satisfied until they got the man back to his former blindness, spiritually and
bodily. If this is not a specimen of the “blind leading the blind”, tell me
what is? However, it is only a prophecy fulfilled, “that both will fall in the
ditch together”. [55]
The new convert attended only two meetings after his
baptism, confirmation, and the priesthood blessing that brought momentary
vision to his sightless eyes. [56] Not long afterwards the blind man began to
speak out against the Latter-day Saints. He claimed that he was deceived by
them and their promises that he would receive his sight upon coming in to their
fold. About three months after the public baptism of the blind man Elders Dan
Jones and Thomas Jeremy crossed paths with him. Jeremy wrote of the incident:
Capt. D. Jones questioned him about how he
had become such a persecutor of the Saints. Daniel did not give one reason in
answer, but he indicated clearly enough that he was an enemy of the Saints.
Capt. D. Jones told him, that if he persecuted and falsely accused the Saints,
the hand of God would be upon him, and his fate would be hotter than that of
Cora, Dathan, and Abiram. [57]
Despite the warning, the blind man was persuaded to
participate in the publication of a twelve-page pamphlet that appeared in print
early the following year. The purpose of the pamphlet is part of the title: The correct image wherein one can perceive
clearly the deceit of the Mormons, or “The Latter-day Saints”; in the form of
questions and answers, between Daniel and his friend. The friend mentioned
in the title was the Reverend Josiah Thomas Jones, a Congregational minister
and the editor of the periodical The Congregational Treasury. [58]
The blind
man states in the preface of the pamphlet that his motivation behind such a
publication was to “deliver some and prevent others from the grasp of such
deception and heresy . . . so that enlightened Wales will not be darkened by
deceivers, and many misled by false teachers as I was”. [59] After the preface
is a ballad that became quite popular in the area. Here is the non-poetic
translation of one of the eight stanzas:
So I too
was deceived
Their
words I believed,
And with
them I did join,
But behold
my cry—I was disappointed. [60]
Dan Jones was prompt in publishing an eight-page response
to the blind man and his friend entitled “Haman”
hanging from his own gallows! or Daniel Jones [the blind] and his booklet
proving the truth of Mormonism!! [61] His introductory comments evidence
the “righteous indignation” he obviously felt at the deception of the blind man
and the willingness of Josiah Thomas Jones to facilitate publication of The correct image:
The excuse we offer to our readers for
calling their attention to an object so unworthy and wretched as a singer of
ballads and his slanderous ballad is
the support and circulation which the authors, the “Reverends,” and the
believers of our country have given to his ballad.
Not only has the “Reverend” editor of the “Times”
quoted extensively the morsels which suit his taste best, and placed them as
truths on the table of his readers, but his ballads are being sold in chapels
and Sunday schools, giving a high character to the author now, though it has
been but a short while since he was excommunicated by the Independents for
transgressions the law does not allow us to name! But, surprise! Who but one of
the “Reverends” of that denomination, namely Josiah Thomas Jones, editor of the
“Treasury”, is already seen taking
advantage of the first opportunity to print, if not to be a “friend”, then to
help him to form the false accusations against others, out of hostility toward
the truth! Two rather comparable partners. Here is the Reverend who published
that crooked “profession” of the
Saints in his polluted Treasury and
who refused us permission to defend ourselves. And it is likely that one of his
pranks under the pain of the whipping that it received in the Prophet is what has caused him to get
revenge in this way. But since his own fingers were hottest in the fire because
the blind man was unable to sell the ballad in his own country, rather he was
chased away by even the boys of the fairs because of his deception, behold his
dear brother from Liverpool, publisher, a constant patron of the continual
false accusations against the Saints, helps him out of the scrape, and boosts the sales of the ballad by lifting it to the
wind in the fan of the “Times”. And
yet they failed to sell them all until the distributed them to their Sunday
schools and their chapels, and since the story has a “Reverend” at its tail, even the brotherhood in Bethesda, Merthyr, considered it a high honor to get
to be salesmen of the ballads in public in their meetings on Sunday! [62]
The pamphlet is a series of questions posed by Josiah
Thomas Jones and rather lengthy answers given by Daniel Jones, the blind man,
concerning the details of his brief sojourn with the Mormons and the reasons
for his disassociation from them and their beliefs.
The
curious title stems from Haman in the Old Testament who was hanged from a
gallows he had had built for Mordecai. Captain Dan’s intent in this pamphlet
was to show how the blind man’s intentions to prove Mormonism false had
backfired on him. “Haman” appeared in
print shortly before 25 April 1847, the date of Dan Jones’s letter in the Millennial Star, in which he states that
he has replied to the blind man’s pamphlet. In the letter Jones describes the
fulfillment of the dire prophecy he had pronounced on the blind man’s head
several months earlier:
No sooner was the reply out of press, than
on the old blind man it came, hot and heavy. He cried out that he was burning
up alive; his friends poured cold water on him night and day in vain! He would
rush out from them to a pool that was by, and there he would roll, and wallow,
and yelp until he terrified the passers by. [63]
The blind man “died a monument of the displeasure of a just
God for hypocrisy,” added Jones.
But the
whole affair did not end with the blind man’s death. Not only was there a
second edition of his pamphlet over a year later, but those behind it claimed
that the blind man was still alive. However, Thomas Jeremy, who lived about
three miles from where poor Daniel Jones died, states in a letter to Captain
Dan Jones: “I have been with Mr. James Evans, the Registrar, who recorded the
death of Daniel Jones, and he is willing to give a copy to anyone who wants it,
by paying two shillings and sixpence and the postage.” [64]
Conference of 12
and 13 July 1846
After the baptism of the blind man in Llanybydder on 7 July
1846 Dan Jones crossed the Black Mountains and returned to Merthyr
Tydfil in time for the conference held there on 12 and 13 July. He
wrote in glowing terms to President Reuben Hedlock of the “grand” conference:
For a grand one it was, though of the many
who had promised to visit us then, not one came, nor brother Kimball either.
Whatever loss we sustained by their absence, we were not the only losers I
think. . . The hall was thronged in the morning with a warm-hearted and
respectable audience. The presiding elders represented 20 branches, almost
universally in the bonds of love and union, and in flourishing conditions,
containing 23 elders, 42 priests, 25 teachers, 15 deacons. Baptized in the last
three months 210. Total, 780. . . The meetings were carried on as usual, only
much more of the spirit of God among us than I ever before witnessed. I heard
not a whisper or an apostate’s rumour throughout, nor do I like such dull
music. [65]
In the Monday morning session the business consisted of
priesthood ordinations—9 elders, 23 priests, 11 teachers, and 4 deacons—the
organization of three new branches, and the ratification of the organization of
the Monmouthshire conference. By two o’clock in the afternoon “the scenery was
considerably changed”, for the “ladies [had brought] in their China, cakes, and delicacies” for a
“glorious Tea Party”. Jones reported: “About one thousand partook of the
feast”. [66] Also during this large gathering a “Missionary Society” was
formed. Jones explained:
I hope that the name will not be deemed
unfit for it, since it is formed expressly to raise funds, by voluntary
contributions, to assist the travelling elders to preach the glad tidings in
new places; and so great has been its success already, that it enabled twelve
to go into the vineyard and devote their whole time where the fullness of the
gospel was never heard. [67]
The profits of the tea party (£22 and 10 shillings) were
donated to the new society. Jones directed all presiding elders in the branches
throughout Wales
to form a committee and then appropriate the funds “as the majority may
direct”. Jones invited direction from President Reuben Hedlock:
We have appointed a prayer meeting to be
kept in every branch, on the first Monday evening in every month, then to
contribute according as the Lord has blessed them. I trust it is so organized
as to prevent impositions, misunderstandings, and personal interests, which are
the basis of most institutions. If it meets your approval and worthy of your
prayers, or if you have any amendments to make, as I hope you will, please
advise with me. [68]
Ironically, Dan Jones was asking for guidance on Church
fiscal matters from someone who eight days before had been disfellowshipped for
misuse of Church funds. [69] Jones comments in the beginning paragraph of the
letter: “I have been lost to the Liverpool
world, and they to me for some time”. So perhaps he was still unaware of the
recent developments concerning Reuben Hedlock.
Dan’s older
brother
The
Reverend John Jones, or “J. Jones, Llangollen” as he often called himself, did
more for his brother Dan Jones than simply allow him to use his press in the
defense of Mormonism. He was very likely the inspiration for Prophet of the Jubilee, the first
periodical in a language other than English to be published by the Latter-day
Saints. Dan Jones was in his brother’s house in the village of Rhyd-y-bont
in early December 1845 when he (Dan) wrote the 3 December 1845 letter to
Brigham Young announcing that he had just finished printing four thousand
copies of Proclamation of the Twelve
Apostles. And at this time John Jones was making preparations to launch his
own periodical The editor, and the
first number appeared in January 1846. [70] The first number of Prophet of the Jubilee that came off the
press six months later is basically the same format as The Editor, the principal difference being the nature of the
contents. Everything in the Prophet
had, of course, a Mormon slant—all the contents being to propagate and defend
Mormonism.
Five years
earlier in early 1841, about the time Dan Jones was preparing to ply The Ripple on the Mississippi
River, John Jones was preparing to wage verbal warfare throughout
the Principality of Wales against the principle of baptism by immersion. He had
come into prominence as a lecturer on temperance, having served as secretary of
the great temperance meeting held at Caernarvon
in 1837. In a letter dated 11 February 1841 to the Reverend David Owen, editor
of the Anglican periodical The sun,
John Jones expressed appreciation for having been featured in a recent issue.
He also sent a copy of the first number of his own new periodical The Baptist in hopes that David Owen
would see fit to review it in The sun.
[71]
The Baptist would eventually come out in
nine parts with a total of three hundred pages. The date of the preface, 28
October 1842, indicates nearly two years of John Jones’s erudite writing,
publishing, and financing endeavors. Most of the writing was done in North Wales where John Jones lived with his wife and
their four small children in a small house named Rhos Cottage, “Near Wrexham”.
[72] The printing was done on the press of Rees and Thomas in far away
Llanelli, South Wales. And the financing was
accomplished by John Jones’s giving lectures on baptism throughout the most
highly populated parts of Wales.
[73] He would receive permission from friendly ministers to give a presentation
on baptism in their chapels. There he would sell segments of his publication as
they became available and make an appeal for further funding to be able to
bring out the remaining segments.
His gift
for oratory in explaining baptism by sprinkling was well received by the
Methodists, the Independents, and other denominations who shared a like view of
this mode of baptism. The Baptists, however, saw Jones with far less enthusiasm
and even as a threat to the growth of their congregations. On 18 October 1841
in the town of Rhymney, about five miles to the
east of Merthyr Tydfil, the Reverend D.
Roberts—the Baptist minister from nearby Sirhowy—expressed a desire to turn
Jones’s lecture into a debate. Jones responded that since a lecture was what
had been advertised he would stay with that format; however, he invited Roberts
to take a few minutes at the end of the lecture to point out whatever
weaknesses he wished. When Jones finished his lecture Roberts stood and
declared that the whole thing was not worthy of a response and that it was
“false logic” and “empty deceit”. As Jones responded to these criticisms,
others of the listeners called out to him that a debate was in order. The
Reverend Morgan James, a Baptist minister, offered his large chapel in Rhymney,
known as Penuel Chapel, as the venue for such a debate. He also offered to
search out a worthy opponent as “learned” as John Jones to have on hand at the
debate. Each was to speak in alternating periods of ten minutes. Jones agreed
to the date, place, and format. [74]
The debate
was scheduled for Monday, November 1st, at 2:00 p.m. Four hours
earlier interested listeners began to gather. They came from miles around to
hear the topic of baptism debated by John Jones and the Reverend Thomas. G.
Jones from Haverfordwest. The time allotted to each was reduced to alternating
periods of seven minutes, but from the transcript of the debate no one ever
took more than a minute or two before being interrupted by the other. Four
scribes prepared a transcript of the debate which was then published by the
press of Rees and Thomas in Llanelli, a press owned by the Independents. [75]
The Baptists declared victory for their representative, and those who accepted
baptism by sprinkling believed that John Jones had emerged triumphant.
Because of
his performance in the debate John Jones was invited by the congregation of the
Independents in the village of Rhyd-y-bont to become their ordained minister, a
position he assumed nearly one year later on 6 October 1842. [76] His eventual
acquisition of a press was fortuitous, for three years later his brother Dan
would be in desperate need of one when he wished to print Proclamation of the Twelve Apostles. Dan declared that no other
press in Wales
was willing to print anything for the Mormons. Opponents of Mormonism called
the press at Rhydybont the “prostitute press” because its owner used it to
print the “dull and idiotic” writings of the Mormons, [77] but the Reverend
Jones’s reaction to such attitudes was rather cavalier: “Our work in printing
their books proves nothing more than the fact that our press is made of iron
and its owner is a free craftsman”. [78]
After
winning such acclaim as a proponent of baptism by sprinkling, John Jones was
not about to be persuaded to change his position by his younger brother who
appeared at his home in Rhydybont representing not the Baptists, but the
Latter-day Saints who also advocated immersion baptisms. Had he reversed his stance
on baptism and become a Baptist he would at least have won the admiration of
the large number of Baptists in Wales
while losing the support and love of the other denominations who baptized by
sprinkling. But accepting the teachings his brother offered him was tantamount
to total disgrace with all the Nonconformists of Wales. Dan was no doubt very
disappointed at being unable to bring his brother into the fold of Mormonism.
What a powerful force that would have been to have the well-known, albeit very
controversial “J. Jones, Llangollen” as “Elder J. Jones” joining his younger
brother “Captain D. Jones” and delivering powerful sermons in favor of
Mormonism up and down Wales. [79]
Prophet of the Jubilee
Fortunately
for the Latter-day Saint missionary effort in Wales, Dan’s brother John had no
qualms about using his press to print materials for a religion he preached
against and had no inclination to join. Other printers may have been willing to
have a business relationship with the Mormons had it not been for the negative
publicity that would inevitably have come their way. One can imagine the
thoughts that were probably racing through Dan Jones’s mind when he saw the
first issue of his brother’s new periodical The
Editor in January 1846. Captain Dan had just spent what must have been a
highly frustrating year in North Wales. Nine
months earlier he had published his first pamphlet on a press in Wrexham. About
a month earlier he had published his Welsh translation of Proclamation of the Twelve Apostles on his brother’s press, and
certainly he was inclined to publish more pamphlets in defense of Mormonism. At
the time Dan was in Rhydybont helping to print the Proclamation his brother was in the middle of preparing the first
issue of his periodical. That Dan had thoughts of also printing a periodical is
evident in the 7 February 1846 letter he wrote to Reuben Hedlock:
I intend publishing a Welsh magazine,
monthly, price threepence, to proclaim the everlasting truths of Mormonism
through Wales, as I hinted at Manchester [the mid-December conference], and I
have greater encouragements continually; then I will also insert your
communications with pleasure. [80]
It would
have been simple enough to have copies of the Millennial Star sent from Liverpool to Merthyr Tydfil for
distribution throughout Wales.
But since the vast majority of the population in Wales could not understand English
these copies would have been of little use to them. With only a few hundred
baptized members of the Church in Wales at this time publishing a
monthly periodical constituted a highly ambitious and costly undertaking. The
only way to succeed in such a venture was to use the new Church leaders and
missionaries as distributors and salesmen. The proceeds would then be cycled
back into the cost of producing this vehicle meant to sow the seeds of
Mormonism.
Volume I,
number 1 of Prophet of the Jubilee
came off the Rhydybont press in July 1846. With 28 pages and a four-page
printed wrapper it was nearly identical in format to The Editor (John’s periodical) which had 24 pages and a four-page
printed wrapper. The most glaring difference, of course, was that Mormon
doctrine was emanating from the Prophet’s
pages in place of the Nonconformist teachings that The Editor contained. The price was three-and-one-half pence per
issue or three pence each to subscribers. In the preface to his “Fellow
Countrymen” Dan Jones made no attempt to conceal his excitement:
We had no way of keeping our characters
above all invention, libel, and lies, except, like you, through the medium of
the printing press. You know how we have been accused of every evil, trickery,
yes, and of every foolishness. We sent, in the mildest manner, to the monthlies
which accused us, letters asserting our innocence. But, were they allowed to
appear? No! Were we accused in the Times,
Star of Gomer, Educator, Baptist, etc.? Yes, yes. Was space provided for us
to clear ourselves? No, no! rather every poor excuse was sought. What shall we
do? Do we claim more than every other sect claims? Does not each one of them
claim to be right? Is that not a condemnation of the peculiarity of every other
sect? We do not damn anyone; and if we did, we could scrape plenty of examples
out of books already in the language, of how to phrase our condemnations. Is
everyone allowed to put out his magazine
but us? Is the press locked against us? Is that the freedom of Wales
in the nineteenth century? Have the monthlies been locked against us? We shall
open our own monthly, then. Has the press been polluted by libeling us? We
shall cleanse it by defending ourselves, then. And in the name of all reason
and history, what danger can happen to anybody? If our message is untrue, the
message of all the Christians of our country is untrue, for Christianity is our
burden, and our privilege, and our reward. [81]
Half the twenty-eight pages of this first issue of the new
periodical were devoted to scripturally-based explanations of angelic beings
and their importance to the ancient and even to the modern-day world. Three
pages were a greeting to the readers. Five pages contain the early history of
Joseph Smith and how he obtained the gold plates. And it should come as no
surprise that a significant portion, the final six pages, was a blistering
portrayal of the Reverend W. R. Davies and his vicious attacks on Mormonism. No
longer was the Captain at the mercy of his opponents and the editors who
refused to print his rebuttals. No longer did he have to plead for fairness,
for at his disposal now was an instrument of battle even more powerful than a
pulpit in one of the chapels or churches. Now he had placed himself on an equal
footing with his opponents, and his message could be read throughout the
Principality by anyone who cared to do so.
In this
first issue of Prophet of the Jubilee
Jones focused on the March 1846 articles of W. R. Davies, especially his
ridicule of the “supposed” healing of William Hughes’s left leg that had been
broken when a heavy weight fell on it while he was working in the Cyfarthfa
coal mine. As he begins his analysis of Davies’s writing Jones writes: “I
confess that we have never before seen a treatise half as large as this
published, especially in a periodical that professes to be religious, but not
more than one statement of it was truth, in some corner or another.” [82] He
then proceeds to enumerate the “lies” that Davies had told in his article,
ending with a letter that William Hughes had sent to the editor of The Baptist but which was refused space.
Hughes’s detailed account of the healing of his broken leg contains the
testimonies of eleven eye-witnesses, four of them not members of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. On the final page is a 16-line poem entitled
“Verses of Greeting”. The following non-poetic translation will give some idea
as to Jones’s optimistic outlook for the future of Mormonism in Wales
against those who predicted its failure:
There is a
race of rascals—passionate
For
disputations;
Others
like witches, far worse thing,
Pre-judge
us in their pleading.
They glory
in being arid—in harrying,
In
obstructing the valid!
It’s their
disgrace they cannot win
Their war
against our doctrine.
Let all
their stalwarts come with plans—bitterly,
To
beat the Mormons:
To injure,
yet to no effect,
Our faith
stands firm and perfect.
Their
failure strives in fury—but flounders;
In
a feeble hurry!
We raise
the cross in our age
And win—we
have the advantage! [83]
The August
1846 issue of Prophet of the Jubilee
contains mostly doctrinal and historical information about the Latter-day
Saints plus ten pages of conference reports—one held in Manchester
and the other in Merthyr Tydfil.
Over half the September 1846 issue consists
of two articles aimed at W. R. Davies. The first article is the first of four
installments about Davies’s twenty-page pamphlet entitled The Latter Saints. Substance of a Sermon on the Miracles, in order to
enlighten the public, and show the deceit of the creatures who call themselves
Latter-day Saints. [84] The
pamphlet’s preface is dated March 1846, the same month that W. R. Davies’s
other writings appeared in The Baptist.
The second article having to do with W. R. Davies is a detailed explanation
about the “forged” letter that, according to Davies, William Henshaw and Abel
Evans sent to him several months earlier in January.
The October 1846 issue has a six-page
article entitled “Epistle of Demetrius, the Silversmith, to all of his
fellow-craftsmen, showing the best way to defend their craft, and to silence
the ‘Latter-day Saints’”. Jones bases this clever piece on a broadside of
Parley P. Pratt of a similar title and puts the setting in Wales. Demetrius represents the
priests and pastors (the silversmiths) throughout Wales who are concerned that the
Mormons will invade their congregations and spirit off their parishioners. In
his “epistle” Demetrius calls for a cooperative effort on the part of all his
colleagues of the cloth to combine their efforts in formulating a plan to
thwart the efforts of the Mormons. One of the failed plans he reviews has obvious
reference to W. R. Davies:
Does not the failure of our praiseworthy
brother from Dowlais, despite his hard work and his diligence for years,
speaking throughout the south against them, with many of his faithful brethren,
giving them every bad name they could invent, such as “Satanists”, “devilish
men”, “sorcerers”, “Deists”, “Atheists”, “Chartists”, etc., prove to us that we
cannot succeed in that way? [85]
The
November 1846 issue contains an enthusiastic report on the British and American
Commercial Joint Stock Company, a company that had been formed by some of the
Church leaders and members in Liverpool as a means of helping Church members in
Britain to emigrate to America.
But a few pages later is Dan Jones’s report of the Manchester Conference in
mid-October in which it was decided to postpone proceeding with the Joint Stock
Company for the present time. Apparently the first article was prepared before
Jones went to the conference in Manchester
and not altered before this issue of Prophet
of the Jubilee went to press. Not long afterwards the Joint Stock Company
failed, and several of its officers were reprimanded or disfellowshiped. [86]
Of the £1,644 collected from the British Saints only £68 came from the Saints
in Wales.
The money was “spent, squandered, [and] devoured”, [87] leaving practically
nothing to be returned to the investors. The principal offender in this whole
matter was Reuben Hedlock who absconded with over £400, a serious blow to the
thousands who looked to him with great honor and respect as their president.
The final
installment of Jones’s commentary on W. R. Davies’s twenty-page pamphlet
appeared in the December 1846 issue along with an eight-page defense of the
Saints. The defense was concerning an article published in the October 1846
issue of The Baptist by David
Williams, the author of the first anti-Mormon pamphlet in December 1845.
Williams had interviewed the apostate Mormon, Thomas Jones, as to why he had
left the Mormons. After the interview was published in the July 1846 issue of The Baptist Thomas Jones went back to
the Mormons in an attempt to be re-baptized after being excommunicated. When
David Williams got word of all this confusion he sent more of his first and
only interview with Thomas Jones to The
Baptist and made it look like he had had a second interview with him. Dan
Jones takes David Williams to task for his anti-Mormon activities and mentions
that Williams preaches against seeking vengeance from his pulpit but “is heard
in the pubs on Saturday nights scolding the Saints, among drunks, swearers and
profaners”. [88] Jones observes: “We heard of some persecuting preacher who
failed to keep his feet under him, and where do you suppose he found himself,
rather, where he was found by others, upon returning from preaching on Sunday
night, but in a duck pond! We shall not give the identity of that unfortunate
wretch.” [89] But of course the identity was obviously David Williams.
William
Phillips, William Henshaw, and Thomas Pugh wrote a letter to the editor of The Baptist in answer to the October
1846 article. The letter was refused and then was printed in the December 1846 Prophet of the Jubilee. Preceding the
letter is an account of their encounter with the editor of The Baptist when they went to Cardiff
to persuade him to print their defense:
We implored earnestly and humbly for the
opportunity to clear ourselves from the villainous filth with which we were
plastered without provocation; but, as usual, the answer we received from him
was a shameless refusal! Yes, poor
thing, he was terrified; he turned blue, red, black and pale; he fumed and
raged without a single cause except the malicious agitations of a guilty
conscience until his knees and his whole body trembled worse than those of
Belshazzar of long ago. [90]
Also in the December 1846 issue is a very informative
“Missionary Work in the Counties of Wales”, a review of the accomplishments of
the various missionaries then serving. Twelve of these were devoting “their
whole time where the fullness of the gospel was never heard”. [91] Here is a
list of places and missionaries (some are mentioned more than once):
Pembrokeshire G[eorge] Davies, J[ohn] Price
Carmarthenshire Thomas Jeremy, Thomas Harris, John
Morris, Abel Evans
Cardiganshire Alfred Clark
Montgomeryshire
Merionethshire William Jones
Caernarvonshire Eleazer Edwards, Jonah Richards
Anglesey Jonah
Richards, Abel Evans
Denbighshire Abel Evans, William Evans,
Richard Griffiths
Flintshire R. Evans, Abel Evans
Dan Jones’s contentment is transparent in his report of the
baptism of the John Parry family from Newmarket:
It gives us great pleasure to announce also
that the divine gospel is having great success with our fellow-countrymen in Cheshire and Liverpool.
No doubt it will cause the Saints great happiness to hear that Mr. John Parry
(formerly of Newmarket), his three sons, and his
wife, like the family of that Lydia
of old, have become subjects of the kingdom of the living God. Mr. Parry’s name
is respected, and is quite well known throughout the principality, especially
in Gwynedd, as a fervent revivalist, as a lover of the truth wherever he finds
it, regardless of prejudice and party. . . Mr. Parry was one of the main
founders and a pillar of Campbellism in Wales, and many of the churches he planted
accepted his advice as a father, and followed him from darkness to degrees of
light through frowns and scorn; we hope they will follow him again into the
middle of the blazing light of the eternal gospel. Mr. Parry and his eldest son
have been ordained elders, and we hope their former brethren will have the
honor of hearing them, and complying with their heavenly call, before next
summer. [92]
First Welsh
Mormon Hymnal
In the
November and December 1846 issues of Prophet
of the Jubilee is this announcement:
Published recently, price Four Pence, Hymns,
composed and collected most particularly for the use of the Latter-day Saints. Merthyr Tydfil: published and for sale by Capt. D. Jones.
[93]
In addition to all else that Dan Jones occupied himself with,
he also put together this little hymnal of 64 pages, containing 133 hymns. He
explained its purpose in the foreword:
Each sect has its hymns, together with its
particular practices. Some of the hymns of the other denominations are
sufficiently suitable to be sung by us, but not all; and since there is not a
collection of hymns in the language, on which we can place our complete
approval, we have no other choice but to compose and gather together such hymns
as we consider suitable for us to sing in our worship services. That is the
reason for publishing this small book; and although we are not releasing it as
the highest-flying or the greatest of poetic accomplishments, we do think that
it will coincide with the doctrine and spiritual tastes of the Saints. Hoping
that it will bring pleasure and edification to them in their congregations and
in their homes, it is presented to them by their humble brother, D. Jones. [94]
Unlike modern-day hymnals this little hymnal had only the
words and a reference to some familiar tune to which they were to be sung. The
hymns range from four lines to thirty and are grouped under thirteen section
headings:
1.
The Holy Ghost and his
work
2.
The second coming of
Christ and the Millennium
3.
The Lord’s Supper
4.
Charity and brotherly
love
5.
The gospel
6.
To be sung in council
[meeting]
7.
God and his word
8.
Principles and
ordinances
9.
Death, resurrection,
and the other world
10.
Praise to the Lord
11.
Conference songs
12.
Sundry topics
13.
Parting
In 1849 John Davis printed a second hymnal intended to be
bound together with the one Dan Jones published in 1846. And in 1851, when the
Jones hymnal was out of print, Davis
printed a word-for-word second edition of the 1846 hymnal. Then in 1852 he
published yet another hymnal containing 303 new hymns, nearly all the hymns from
his 1849 hymnal, and two-thirds of Jones’s hymns. [95]
Letter to Orson
Hyde dated 2 December 1846
In a
letter to Orson Hyde dated 2 December 1846 Dan Jones comments on Prophet of the Jubilee:
I have not a dollar by me now, having remitted the last to pay for the
publishing of the “Welsh Star”. That
does not now (the first year) sustain itself, nor anything like it; besides I
have been enabled, by means of my publication, not only of diffusing much
information through ever[y] county in Wales, but also to sustain, principally,
some ten or twelve travelling Elders abroad through this season thereby; and I
have great cause to rejoice already that I have been enabled so to do, and that
the great God has abundantly crowned our labours with success. [96]
The money to subsidize publication of the periodical
probably came from what was left of the $500 that was put on order for Dan
Jones at the Liverpool office. The traveling
elders were allowed to profit from the sale of issues of Prophet of the Jubilee to sustain themselves.
Jones
reported in glowing terms to Orson Hyde concerning the progress of the Church
in Wales:
Great and glorious reports continue to greet
my ears daily, of the success of the gospel through all parts of Wales.
I have three letters before me now, welcome heralds, showing that thirty have
been baptized last week in four branches only, besides a host at the door.
Hardly a letter arrives but brings intelligence of some one in some place or
other having been born again; and not only do they come in, but almost
universally they stay in; and more
cheering still, they go on rejoicing in the glorious hopes of “life and
immortality”, and of that “crown which fadeth not away”. You will believe me
when I assert that they are a blessed, a good, yes, the best people I ever
saw—such love, union, and ambition to go on towards perfection. May the great
God bless them, I say, and keep them onward, for I do love them, and I know
that brother Hyde will love them and bless them in their simplicity and
innocence when he sees them. [97]
To this point the Saints in Wales
had not received a visit from any of the apostles, although many of them had
visited England and Scotland.
Jones had been disappointed that no one from Liverpool had come to the Merthyr Tydfil conference in July—“of the many who had
promised to visit us then, not one came”. [98] This apparent indifference to
Jones’s previous requests for an apostle to visit the Welsh Saints would
explain his insistence in the letter:
Pray when will that time come? They are
continually asking me when will the Apostles visit Wales? In reply, I have assured
them that they shall have a hearty shake of the hand with one or two, if not
the three of the Apostles, at our next annual conference, which will commence
at Merthyr, on Sunday the 27th instant, being the first Sunday after
Christmas-day. There is a general expectation among all ranks for you here, and
woe be to poor me if some of you don’t come; you know I have allowed much
time—had a promise, and afterwards—“a long silence gives consent”. Excuse me
therefore for stirring up your pure minds by way of remembrance, and I desire
you to jog the minds of brothers Pratt and Taylor. [99]
Jones then closes his letter in metaphorical language that
must have entertained his colleagues in Liverpool:
But were I to write more I could only say
that the great car of Mormonism is traversing over the Cambrian hills with
astonishing rapidity—crushing all who oppose its mighty impetus into powder
beneath its huge diamond wheels, and onward it goes again, as though it was
destined to pick up thousands of the “Ancient Briton” race in its golden
carriages, and land them on the everlasting hills of heaven. May angels help to
drag or push it onward, till it lands us all at home, is my prayer. What say
you, dear brother? [100]
Dan Jones’s insistence to Orson Hyde paid off, for Wales
did indeed receive a visit from an apostle at their Christmas conference held 3
and 4 January 1847, one week later than Jones had indicated to Orson Hyde.
Jones indicated the stir caused by the announcement of Elder John Taylor’s
visit to Wales and Jones’s own excitement in looking back on the event a few
days later in his 9 January 1847 letter to Orson Hyde: “The report of his
arrival spread far and near, over snowy mountains, until, on the second day,
Saints and sinners had crowded the largest hall in these regions to
overflowing. Such a turnout I never saw here before!” Jones described the
positive impact on his Welsh converts in hearing addressed in English by a man
whom they accepted as an apostle but had never before seen:
Brother Taylor taught them many glorious
principles, unfolded the beauties of future ages, the hope of the Saints, as
though he was well acquainted with the eternal councils, since the “Sons of God
shouted for joy”; and although the majority did not understand the English
language, or brother Taylor the Welsh, yet it vibrated their nerves like
electricity, by the spirit, I suppose, until they were highly edified. At
length brother Taylor (for some reason, I know not, unless because he loved us)
set to work trying to stumble some of us professedly so. He told all the worst
tricks of ancient and modern saints—the last first, which proved far the least.
He tried them every way, but utterly failed to stumble any of them, though some
whined because he compared their “little captain to one of the little boys of Zion”, as he said; but I
thought that as much gospel as any thing he said. [101]
What the Welsh could not understand of Elder Taylor’s
orations they most likely understood through the spirit of his singing. He and
a Brother Webb from Bristol
“sang songs which they had composed in praise to God for the occasion”. [102]
Dan Jones
was obviously very pleased to report the growth statistics for the previous
five months for both the Glamorganshire and the Monmouthshire conferences:
Number of branches, 38; elders, 34; priests, 61; teachers, 35; deacons, 22;
baptized in the last five months, 341; total membership, 979. For the
five-and-one-half months since the previous conference there had been nearly
seventy convert baptisms per month, and the total number of members since
Jones’s arrival just over a year before had nearly doubled, an astounding
difference between Jones’s experience as a missionary in 1845 and his
experience as what would now be called a “mission president” during 1846. Jones
could not resist making a few carefully chosen comments to his opponents as a
postscript to the minutes of the conference as recorded by William Davies and
Edward Edwards:
I hope those prophets who prophesied from
chapel to chapel of the death of Mormonism, some within six months, others
before the end of the year, etc., will read these accounts, and ask themselves
which sect among them has experienced a similar increase in the same time! Let
them, and the preachers and authors who are preaching the funeral sermon of
Mormonism, contemplate a bit until she has died, for up to now she is not even
sick, nor is there any likelihood of that either! I wonder if by now they will
confess that it is they who are the “false prophets of the latter days”? But
whatever they do it makes no difference, for “by their fruits shall they be
known” after all. It is useless for them to shout false prophets at the Saints, in order to blind the people, when
their own prophecies prove so clearly as Nathan said to David, “Thou art the man.” But go on, you poor
wretches; vomit out your desires, and the wickedness of your hearts, through
prophecies. [103]
Jones then does a little prophesying of his own:
We shall go forth, preaching the gospel, to
save souls, until, through the power of our God, our country will be filled
with knowledge from God through “Mormonism”, and all those whom you have
deluded will hear her, and they will be released from their tiresome bondage to
the glorious freedom of the children of God; their shackles will be broken, and
their heavy burdens, and their taxes and excessive loads, to maintain the great
sectarian goddess of this age, will be cast down. Soon the light of the Jubilee
will banish their names and their priesthood from our country. [104]
CHAPTER 4 – NOTES
- 2 January 1846 letter from
Dan Jones to Wilford Woodruff, LDS Church Historian’s Library.
- Ibid. He does not specify how
many people were in attendance, but any number of Welsh converts would
have seemed large to him after his difficult first year in North Wales.
- Ibid.
- “Neuadd
Cymreigyddion” means “Hall for Welsh speakers”.
- The
total number is probably a bit high. At the Manchester Conference two
weeks earlier William Henshaw reported 493 baptized members.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
The Joint Stock Company may possibly have been a profitable venture had
the money gathered been used properly and especially if Reuben Hedlock had
not absconded with £403, about 25% of the total.
- Ibid. His comment “altho you return” has reference to
Woodruff’s return to America
to join with the main body of the Saints.
- Ibid.
- Williams,
David. Twyll y Seintiau Diweddaf yn
cael ei ddynoethi. [Merthyr: Printed by D. Jones, Heol-Fawr, 1845]. Only
the second edition of this pamphlet is extant, published in 1846.
- Ibid.
Nineteenth-century Welsh scholars believed that the Welsh people were
descendants of Gomer, one of the sons of Japheth.
- Jones,
Dan. Annerchiad y Deuddeg Apostol yn
Eglwys Iesu Grist, Saint y Dyddiau Diweddaf. Rhydybont: Translated and
published by Capt. Jones. Printed by John Jones, 1845. A facsimile
translation is in my Defending the
Faith: Early Welsh Missionary Publications, Provo,
Utah: Brigham Young
University Religious
Studies Center,
2003.
- Williams,
Twyll, p. 28-29.
- Atebydd y gwrthddadleuon a ddygir yn
fwyaf cyffredinol drwy y wlad yn erbyn Saint y Dyddiau Diweddaf, a’r
athrwawiaeth a broffesant. Merthyr Tydfil:
Published and for sale by the author. Printed by John Jones, Rhydybont,
[1846]. A facsimile translation is in my Defending the Faith.
- Prophetic Almanac, for 1845. New York: Published
at the Prophet office, No. 7
Spruce street, [1844].
- 7
February 1846 letter from Dan Jones to Reuben Hedlock, Millennial Star 7:62.
- Whitney,
Orson F. History of Utah. Salt Lake City:
Cannon and sons, 1892, volume 4, p. 352-53.
- 7
February 1846 letter from Dan Jones to Reuben Hedlock. The elder is
probably Elder Thomas Harris, the missionary who baptized John Davis on 19
April 1846. See Thomas Jeremy Copy
Book, LDS Church Historian’s Library, _______.
- Thomas Jeremy Copy Book.
- Dan
Jones’s older brother John was a Congregational minister at Rhydybont
Chapel. The house next to the chapel was probably the one owned by the
congregation and made available to the minister and his family. The press
was most likely located in the vicinity of the chapel and the house.
Materials printed on this press were Dan Jones’s most powerful weapons in
propagating and defending Mormonism.
- Dowlais
is located two miles to the northeast of Merthyr
Tydfil and was home of the world famous iron works during the
nineteenth century.
- W. R. Davies to William Jones, 6 May 1843, Cwrtmawr
Collection, National Library of Wales. See my article “The
Reverend W. R. Davies vs. Captain Dan Jones in BYU Studies, volume 27, number 2, Spring 1987, p. 53 – 65.
- Y Bedyddiwr 3 (April 1844):99. Penydarren is an area contiguous
to Merthyr Tydfil.
- Y Bedyddiwr 3 (April 1844):123.
- Ibid. See also my Indefatigable Veteran:
History and Biography of Abel Evans, a Welsh Mormon Elder. Rhydybont Press, Provo, 1994, p. 9-15.
- Y Bedyddiwr 5 (March 1846):91
- Y Bedyddiwr 5 (May 1846):193
- Ibid.,
p. 194.
- Ibid.
- The Editor, April 1846, p. 89-90. Italics are in the original.
- Y Bedyddiwr 5 (March 1846):90.
- Ibid.,
p. 112.
- Prophet of
the Jubilee, October 1846 wrapper, p.
2.
- Millennial Star 7:104-105.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Jones,
Dan. Y glorian, yn yr hon y gwelir
David yn pwyso Williams, a Williams yn pwyso David; neu David Williams, o
Abercanaid, yn gwrthddweyd ei hun, wedi ei ddal yn ei dwyll, a’i brofi yn
ddeistaidd. Merthyr Tydfil: Published
and for sale by the author. J. Jones, Printer, Rhydybont, 1846.
- This
is merely an informational translation with no attempt to capture the
rhythm or verse.
- Jones,
The scales, p. 4.
- Ibid.,
p. [2].
- Ibid.,
p. 6.
- Prophet of the Jubilee, August
1846, p. 47-50.
- Ibid.,
p. 48. John Morris was later sent to preside over the Pembrokeshire
Conference and received a specially printed certificate of appreciation
from his missionary colleagues when he was released to emigrate. See his
individual file on welshmormonhistory.org for biographical
information and an image of the certificate.
- Ibid.
- 2
December 1846 letter of Dan Jones to Orson Hyde, Millennial Star 8:176-77.
- Prophet of the Jubilee, August
1846, p. 48.
- Such
was the official title at that time. See Millennial Star ____________.
- 24
July 1846 letter of Dan Jones to Reuben Hedlock, Millennial Star 8:40-42.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Prophet of the Jubilee, December
1848, p. 170-71.
- Ibid.
- Jones,
Daniel. Y drych cywir, lle y gellir
canfod yn eglur twill y Mormoniaid, neu “Seintiau y Dyddiau Diweddaf;”
mewn dull o holiadau ac atebion, rhwng Daniel a’i gyfaill. Carmarthen: Printed by J. T. Jones, Heol Las, 1847.
Josiah Thomas Jones was the editor of Y
Drysorfa Gynnulleidfaol (The Congregational Treasury) published in Carmarthen.
- Ibid,
p. [2].
- Jones,
Y drych cywir, p. [3].
- Jones,
Dan. “Haman” yn hongian ar ei
grogbren ei hun! neu Daniel Jones (ddall) a’i lyfr yn profi gwirionedd
Mormoniaeth!! Merthyr Tydfil:
Published and for sale by D. Jones. Printed by John Jones, Rhydybont,
[1847].
- The Times (Yr amserau) is a Welsh-language weekly newspaper published in
Liverpool from 1843 to 1859. The
“profession of the Saints” is a list of ten supposed beliefs of the Latter-day
Saints first published in the June 1846 Congregational Treasury and then reprinted in the January 1847
Baptist. Dan Jones’s rebuttal
letter was refused publication in the Congregational
Treasury by Josiah Thomas Jones. And when the “profession” reappeared
in the Baptist Jones printed the
letter in the February 1847 issue of Prophet
of the Jubilee (p. 28-30) along with some unkind observations. The
quote from “Haman” is from page
[1].
- Millennial Star 9:219.
- Prophet of the Jubilee, November
1848, p. 171.
- 24
July 1846 letter from Dan Jones to Reuben Hedlock in the Millennial Star 8:42.
- Even
allowing for possible hyperbole it was still a very large gathering.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Millennial Star 8:103. Reuben
Hedlock was disfellowshipped on 16 July 1846.
- Y golygydd; neu, ysgubell Cymru: yn cynnwys athrawiaethau, traethodau,
adolygiadau, hanesion, amrywiaethau, etc. (The editor; or, the broom
of Wales:
containing teachings, treatises, reviews, accounts, miscellaneous, etc.)
Rhdybont: Printed by John Jones.
- Yr haul (The sun) was published in
Llanymddyfri, Carmarthenshire, at that time.
- The
house is actually in the town of Rhosllanerchrugog.
See Jones, John. Brad y droch
(The treachery of immersion). Llanelli: Printed by Rees and Thomas, 1841,
p. 2. The entire pamphlet is an expression of John Jones’s outrage that
after the great debate about the mode of baptism the Reverend David Owen
ended up favoring baptism by immersion.
- Adroddiad o’r ddadl ar fedydd, a fu yn
Rumney, Swydd Fynwy, Tachwedd 1af a’r 2il, 1841, rhwng y Parch. T. G.
Jones, o Beula, (Athraw Ieithyddol yn ngholeg y Bedyddwyr, Hwlffordd,) a
Mr. John Jones, o Langollen. (Report of the debate on baptism, held in
Rhymni, Monmouthshire, November 1st and 2nd, 1841,
between the Rev. T. G. Jones, from Beula, (Professor of Linguistics at the
Baptist College, Haverfordwest,) and Mr. John Jones, from Llangollen.
Llanelli: Printed by Rees and Thomas, at the Office of The reformer, 1841, p. [3] – iv. In
this 32-page pamphlet John Jones relates how The Baptist came into being. To counter Jones’s teachings the
Baptists began a periodical to which they gave the title Y Gwir Fedyddiwr (The true
Baptist), “true” being added to imply Jones’s periodical was otherwise. In
1844 the Baptists dropped the word “true” from the title. It is ironic
that this periodical was founded by a Congregationalist.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Rees,
T. and Thomas, J. Hanes Eglwysi
Annibynol Cymru (History of the Independent Churches of Wales),
volume 3. Liverpool: Printed in the
Office of the Tyst Cymreig (Welsh
Witness), p. 548.
- Seren Gomer (The star of Gomer),
December 1847, p. 375. This periodical was also published by the Baptists.
The press was located in Swansea.
- Y golygydd (The editor), January
1846, p. 2 of the wrapper.
- In his
19 September 1854 letter to Brigham Young, Dan Jones introduces his two
brothers: “I am happy to be able to introduce two of my Brotheren [sic] to
Zion, hopeing [sic] that, if they can feel as they ought and as others do,
they will be of service in the upbuilding of Zion. The Elder is called a
scientific character and classed amongst the ‘literati’ of Wales, of
many years experience as Coal Master & Iron Manufacturer and is said
to be something of a mineralogist, etc. But you will be able to analyse
him soon no doubt and make him usefull I hope. The other is a Botanist and
has had several years experience in some of the principal gardens of
England, one reason why he did not like to reside at Manti in preference
to G.S.L. City, but I presume he will be subject to your counsels should
you deem him worthy of them.” The second has reference to Dan’s brother
Edward who emigrated with his wife and three children on the Golconda in
February 1854 and settled in Ephraim,
Utah. The first has
reference to Dan’s brother John, but the introduction was in vain, for
John went to Cincinnati
where he died in 1856. Ironically, John’s wife Jane and their two
daughters Sarah and Elizabeth did convert to Mormonism and were baptized
in April 1854. In the 15 April 1854 issue of Udgorn Seion (Zion’s
Trumpet) Dan Jones refutes the allegation of his brother John’s baptism:
We read in the Swansea Herald dated March 29 [1854] –
“That the people of Aberdare are wondering about an occasion that took place
lately—the Rev. Mr. Jones, better known by the name ‘Jones, Llangollen,’ was
baptized by one of the Apostles of the Latter-day Saints. What next?” says the
writer. We answer that it is a complete lie—completely unfounded, without even
an excuse for it, rather evil malice which no one is ready to believe or publish
such a thing. . . If he had followed our advice he would have been baptized
years ago.
According to the Swansea LDS branch
records John’s twenty-two-year old daughter Sarah was baptized 12 April 1854,
just three days before the date of the Zion’s
Trumpet that refuted the notion that John himself had received baptism. His
twenty-year-old daughter Elizabeth and his wife Jane were baptized 16 April
1854. Jane, Sarah, and Elizabeth traveled to America
on board the Chimborazo in 1855. They
eventually settled in Ironton, Lawrence
County, Ohio. See
Chapter ___ for more information about John Jones and his reasons for leaving Wales.
- 7
February 1846 letter of Dan Jones to Reuben Hedlock. Millennial Star 7:62.
- Prophet of the Jubilee, July 1848,
wrapper p. [2].
- Ibid.,
p. 24.
- Ibid.,
p. 28.
- Davies, W. R. Y Seintiau Diweddaf. Sylwedd pregeth a draddodwyd ar y gwyrthiau,
er mwyn goleuo y cyffredin, a dangos twyll y creaduriaid a alwant eu
hunain yn “Seintiau y Dyddiau Diweddaf”. (The Latter Saints. Substance of a Sermon on the
Miracles, in order to enlighten the public, and show the deceit of the
creatures who call themselves Latter-day Saints.) Merthyr
Tydfil: Printed by David Jones, Heol-Fawr, 1846.
- Prophet of the Jubilee, October
1846, p. 106.
- Millennial Star 8:103.
- Millennial Star 8:155.
- Prophet of the Jubilee, December
1846, p. 154.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.,
p. 148. In a January 1847 article in The
Baptist W. R. Davies states: “[The] Star of the Saints [Prophet
of the Jubilee] says that God showed the Book of Mormon to Joseph
Smith in ‘a cave’”. Dan Jones responds: “This assertion, like the others,
is easily refuted, since the book called Star of the Saints is all over Wales by the hundreds; and even
though there is not a word in it that these hands did not write, yet we
know of no mention anywhere in it of a ‘a cave’. (Defense of the Saints against the false accusations of those who
call themselves ‘Cuckoo of Ton’, in Star of Gomer, January 1847. Published and for
sale by D. Jones. Printed by John Jones, Rhydybont, [1847], p. 5.) If we
take literally Jones’s statement that he had written every word in Prophet of the Jubilee this would
include also the letters above the names of Phillips, Henshaw and Pugh. Or
in the preparation of the letter to be printed in the periodical perhaps
Jones had a hand in editing it somewhat.
- 24
July 1846 letter of Dan Jones to Reuben Hedlock, Millennial Star 8:41
- Prophet of the Jubilee, December
1846, p. 163. John Parry would be the first conductor of the choir in Salt Lake City that
became the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. His son John was the master mason in
the construction of the Logan
Temple. The story of
their miraculous conversion is in John
Parry: Pioneer, Missionary, Builder. From John Parry’s Journal (1866 –
1868) with notes and additional commentary by Orvid R. Cutler, Jr., 1997.
Private publication. This publication is on the website welshmormonhistory.org
.
- Prophet of the Jubilee, wrappers
for the November and December 1846 issues, p. [2].
- Jones,
Dan. Hymns, composed and collected
most particularly for the use of the Latter-day Saints. [Rhydybont:
Printed by John Jones, 1846.] Only a twenty-two-page fragment of this
little hymnal is extant; fortunately, however, we know the contents of the
entire book because of the second edition that was printed in 1851 by John
Davis. See my Welsh Mormon Writings,
p. 35-39 for additional details.
- Dennis,
Ronald D. Welsh Mormon Writings from
1844 to 1862: a historical bibliography. Provo,
Utah: Brigham Young
University Religious
Studies Center,
1988, p. 35-39, 87-89, 132-34, 159-62.
- 2
December 1846 letter of Dan Jones to Orson Hyde, Millennial Star 8:176.
- Ibid.
- 24
July 1846 letter of Dan Jones to Reuben Hedlock, Millennial Star 8:41.
- 2
December 1846 letter of Dan Jones to Orson Hyde, Millennial Star 8:176.
- Ibid.,
p. 176-77.
- 9
January 1847 letter of Dan Jones to Orson Hyde, Millennial Star 9:107-108. The phrase “little boys of Zion” was used to
indicate leaders within the Church who were a level beneath those of
general authority status. A more detailed report of this conference is in Prophet of the Jubilee, January
1847, p. 16-19.
- Prophet of the Jubilee, January
1847, p. 17.
- Ibid.,
p. 19. Dan Jones was no doubt pleased to have the assistance of William
Davies and Edward Edwards as scribes. To this point Jones had recorded the
minutes of conferences.
- Ibid.