Several curious tidbits that happened on this day in Mormon History
President Hinckley was among 26 religious leaders who met at the White House in Washington, D.C., with U.S. President George W. Bush regarding the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington D.C., on Sept. 11, 2001.
[Church News: Historical Chronology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, http://www.ldschurchnewsarchive.com/articles/58765/Historical-chronology-of-The-Church-of-Jesus-Christ-of-Latter-day-Saints.html]
In John D. Lee's second trial - he is convicted of murder for his part in the Mountain Meadows Massacre. The jury deliberates for 3 hours and 45 minutes. Unlike at his first trial where no faithful LDS testified for the prosecution, many now testified against Lee including Daniel H. Wells (second counselor to Brigham Young), and massacre participants Nephi Johnson (Lieutenant in Nauvoo Legion who lead killing of women and children), Jacob Hamblin (president of Southern Indian Mission). Johnson and Hamblin perjure themselves and put all blame on Lee. Judge Jacob S. Boremon allowed the all-Mormon jury to be informed that Wells's presence indicated that the LDS church supported the prosecution. Juror Andrew Correy quoted the Book of Mormon to justify his guilty vote: "Some one had to be sacrificed, so at last I gave in-.Better for one man to die than for a whole nation to dwindle in unbelief." But he says of his guilty vote that finally made it unanimous, "I felt miserable, just as though the devil had some power over me."
[Brigham Young]
When I see the suffering that this people are enduring from the conduct of professed Christians I feel more like fighting & swearing than preaching. ... if any man wants to go & join the mob I hope He will get marked so as to stay marked untill the resurrection.
[Wilford Woodruff's Journal: 1833-1898 Typescript, Volumes 1-9, Edited by Scott G. Kenney, Signature Books 1993, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
[Joseph F. Smith]
"I know that God is a being with body, parts, and passions and that his Son is in his own likeness, and that man is created in the image of God. The Son, Jesus Christ, grew and developed into manhood the same as you or I, as likewise did God, his father grow and develop to the Supreme Being that he now is. Man was born of woman; Christ the Savior, was born of woman; and God, the Father, was born of woman. Adam, our earthly parent, was also born of woman into this world, the same as Jesus and you and I."
[Deseret Evening News, December 27, 1919, Section 3, p. 7, Remarks by Pres. Joseph F. Smith, quoted in Quotations Dealing with the Relationship of Our First Earthly Parents to Our Heavenly Parents (1830-1978)]
[Marriner W. Merrill]
Terrific wind last night blew ... all the tin from the Temple roof, damage not less than $600.00 to the Temple. I went to Lewiston, back to Richmond, and on to Logan. Found 67 large trees blown down on Temple Block and the tin off the roof.
[Notes from the Miscellaneous Record Book, 1886-1906: Selected diary notes from the journal books of Marriner Wood Merrill, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
[Patriarchal Blessing of Margaret Rigby RosKelley by John L. Smith]
... thou shalt ... see Zion redeemed and peace established in all her borders, thy Joy shall be full, thousands shall be fed at thy table and many will hail thee mother, and bear thy name in honorable rememberence [remembrance] to the latest generation, thy sons and thy daughters mighty and numerous, thy words, words of wisdom to all thou dost associate with in the absence of thy companion thy Guardian Angel will shisper [whisper] to thee of his prosperity and tell thee which way to turn. ... Thou shalt behold thy Saviour decend [desend] in the clouds of heaven in great glory and rejoice with him in company with thy kindred ...
[Patriarchal Blessings]
Former BYU president Wilkinson gave the invocation before Benson spoke at this dedicatory service of the Freemen Institute on 18 September 1976. ... Skousen, Wilkinson, and Benson had been allied as advocates of the Birch Society for more than a decade. Now, for the first time, all three participated at an ultra-conservative political meeting also attended by the secretary to the LDS church president. The evident news black-out of this meeting in all the regular newspapers of Provo, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, Utah, apparently resulted from the fact that newspaper reporters were excluded from this dedicatory service of the Freemen Institute. Even the Mormon-Birch Utah Independent reported only Benson's attendance at the dedicatory service.
D. Arthur Haycock, President Kimball's secretary, specifically linked the Birch Society with this ceremony at the Freemen Institute in September 1976. After Wilkinson gave the prayer at the Freemen dedication, Haycock confided to him on this day that "nearly all of them believed in the concepts of the John Birch Society." That may have been an overstatement, but more importantly it showed that the Birch Society and Benson in particular had a partisan friend in the First Presidency's office. Haycock had been private secretary to Benson as Secretary of Agriculture and was a confidant and significant influence on President Kimball.
[Wilkinson diary, 18 Sept. 1976. From D. Michael Quinn, Ezra Taft Benson and Mormon Political Conflicts, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26:2 (Summer 1992), also in Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power Salt Lake City (Signature Books, 1994), Chapter 3.]
[David H. Cannon]
Pres[iden]t Brigham Young left St. George on 16 April 1877 for Salt Lake City and on the 17[th] [of ] April Pres[iden]t Young blessed me and set me apart to do sealings adoptions, 2nd Anointings[,] and all work in this holy Temple. This was done in Bellevieu [Bellevue, Nebraska] at the house of Brother Jacob Gates. I rejoice in this work and hope the time is not far distant when the temple will be filled with saints laboring for their dead. Be attentive and calm; see and hear what is done and said. Keep a record of what you do.
[David H. Cannon, Temple Minute Book, St. George, Sept. 18, 1901, in Anderson, Devery; The Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846-2000: A Documentary History, http://amzn.to/TempleWorship]
Dr. James E. Talmage waited on the First Presidency today, and spoke of the series of theological lectures which he had delivered some time ago in the Assembly Hall, and stated that they were discontinued for fear that his position as President of the State University might be considered by non-mormons incompatible with active duties as an Elder in the Church. Many persons had recently expressed a desire that he should reopen his theological class, and he was perfectly willing to do so irrespective of what might be said on the subject by outside parties. The matter was discussed, and the subject postponed for the present until Conference with the Stake Presidency could be had. Pres[iden]t. Geo[rge]. Q. Cannon expressed the fear that advantage might be taken of Brother Talmage's position if he recommended this work, and efforts would be made looking at his removal from the University. The matter was laid over for the present.
[Journal History, as quoted in Minutes of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1835-1951, Electronic Edition, 2015]
[Wilford Woodruff]
17 Sunday I met with my [Prayer] Circle at Noon & attended [meeting] in the Tabernacle. G Q Cannon spoke 65 Minuts followed By President Brigham Young who spoke in power 40 Minuts. Said there was but two roads one to Exhaltation & glory and the other to Condemnation & final destruction untill the wicked would finally be desolved back into their Native Element & they be known no more forever. The Twelve met for Prayer.
[Wilford Woodruff's Journal: 1833-1898 Typescript, Volumes 1-9, Edited by Scott G. Kenney, Signature Books 1993, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
The anti-Mormon mobs occupied Nauvoo and began the forcible removal of the remaining Mormons from the city. The Trustees gave the keys to the Temple to Henry I. Young, chairman of the Quincy Committee; he promptly opened the building to the mob, who began desecrating the Temple. The Trustees' actions were clearly done under duress.
[Brown, Lisle (compiler), Chronology of the Construction, Destruction and Reconstruction of the Nauvoo Temple]
Mobs drive remaining Mormons from Illinois, despite a treaty after a week of artillery bombardment in the so-called Battle of Nauvoo.
President [Joseph Fielding] Smith faints during a First Presidency meeting, and goes to a temple council meeting "over the protests of the Brethren." During a Thursday meeting on 21 Oct. he becomes ill and has "to be helped from the council room."
[The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database (http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase)]]
[Heber J. Grant]
At 9:00 A.M. Brother C. N. Jenson, State Superintendent of Schools, called and referred to the efforts that are being made by Dr. Beattie and others to place Gentile nurses in our schools all over the state and thought something should be done to head this off, as eighty to ninety percent of the rural population is Mormons and it is all wrong that the public health department should be trying to get non-Mormon nurses into our school system. The question of whether the officials of the Church should take any interest in the matter was worthy of consideration, but we came to no decision as to what would be wise in the premises.
[The Diaries of Heber J. Grant, 1880-1945, Abridged, Digital Edition Salt Lake City, Utah, 2015]
A public report concerning a man who attempt to extort $100,000 from the church president to prevent the publication of covertly obtained interior photographs of the Salt Lake temple. Two days later the First Presidency commissions James E. Talmage to write 'The House of the Lord.' Published a year later its photographs omit the tobacco spittoons from the Council Room of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve, but include the Holy of Holies (photograph deleted from later editions). The ordinance of second anointing is performed for couples in the Holy of Holies.
[The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database (http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase)]]
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir performs in a nationally broadcast church service on the National Day of Prayer and Remembrance for September 11 victims.
[Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Newsroom, http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=036eb2987ff92110VgnVCM100000176f620aRCRDvgnextchannel=9ae411154963d010VgnVCM1000004e94610aRCRD]
[George F. Richards]
Attended regular weekly council meeting in temple. At this meeting J Leo Fairbanks, the artist showed to the Presidency, the Twelve & Patriarch present, sketches of new designs of painting for the newly plastered walls of the World room of the Salt Lake Temple but the brethren decided to vote to have the former painting of walls reproduced as nearly as possible from photographs and sketches taken before the plaster was removed.
[George F. Richards Diary, as quoted in Minutes of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1910-1951, Privately Published, Salt Lake City, Utah 2010]
[Hyrum Smith]
Administers to William McLellin, who is instantly healed.
[Jeffrey S. O'Driscoll, Hyrum Smith: A Life of Integrity, A Brief Chronology of the Life of Hyrum Smith: 1800-1844]
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that David Knowlton, a social anthropologist at BYU, was called in by his stake president "less than a week" after his presentation in Sunstone in Salt Lake City about why leftist terrorists in Latin America target the church. He protests the "intimidation" in writing to his academic officers with copies to President Ezra Taft Benson. Rex Lee, president of BYU, comments, "This is just not a BYU matter."
Ca. 22 September 1991. The long-awaited Encyclopedia of Mormonism appears. Such periodicals as Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Sunstone, and Exponent II, though separately indexed, are discussed only in an article entitled "Societies and Organizations" (3:1387-90).
[Anderson, Lavina Fielding, "The LDS Intellectual Community and Church Leadership: A Contemporary Chronology," Dialogue, Vol.26, No.1]
Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Hyrum Smith, and Oliver Cowdery begin to purchase large amounts of property in Geauga County, Ohio, to sell to immigrants settling in the area.
[Mark Lyman Staker, Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith's Ohio Revelations: A Selective Chronology of Significant Events in Ohio's LDS History]
[The Freedom Censor, Fredonia NY]
"He has all necessary implements for finding and securing the fleeting treasure; the mineral rod, hazel sticks, crow-bars and bibles." ... "He has no doubt of it, provided he can vanquish the spirits that continually guard it, and break the charm that constantly surrounds it."
["Money Digging," The Freedom Censor, (Fredonia, NY), 14 September 1831, as quoted in A Topical Guide of Treasure-Seeking Rituals From the American Northeast during the 18th and 19th Centuries, Compiled by Joseph T. Antley (2010)]