Several curious tidbits that happened on this day in Mormon History
A Deseret News Church Section photograph of an LDS youth conference in Germany with Apostle Joseph F. Merrill in front of the Swastika banner of the Nazi Party. This is an intentional association of visual symbols, since the 7 Aug. 1937 issue also prints a photograph of church president Heber J. Grant seated in front of a Swastika banner at an LDS meeting in Frankfurt.
[The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database (http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase)]]
Remarks, Pres. Lorenzo Snow. ... We were born in the other life, were born children to the Lord there. In the contemplation of what we shall be in the spirit world, we should be very happy. We should be careful to do right that our consciences may not trouble us. He felt to say "God bless you all."
[Stan Larson (editor), A Ministry of Meetings: The Apostolic diaries of Rudger Clawson, Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, Salt Lake City, 1993, http://bit.ly/rudgerclawson]
President Young said the captains [of the Mormon Battalion] must be fathers to their companies, and in their companies manage the whole affair by the power of the priesthood, and you will have power to preserve your lives and the lives of their companies and escape many difficulties. [He] would not be afraid to pledge his right hand that every man will return alive if they will go in the name of the Lord and pray every morning and evening in every tent. ... All the officers but three had been in the temple. Let no man be without his undergarment, and always wear a coat or vest. Keep neat and clean, teach them gentility, civility, no swearing. It must not be admitted. Insult no man. Have no conversation with the Missourians, Mexicans, or any class of people. Preach only where people want it, and then by wise men.
Impose not your principles on any people. Take your Bibles, Books of Mormon. Burn up cards. Let the officers regulate all the dances. If you come home and say the captains have managed all dancing and it will all be right to dance, etc. Card playing cannot be admitted. ... Don't lay out your money for bacon and provision on credit for your families. Elder Kimball ... God will lead you in paths and before the people, that you will get as great a name as any people since the days of Moses. Hold your tongues and mind your own business. If you are sick, you have the privilege of calling the elders and rebuking all manner of disease.
... President Young spoke ... You will have no fighting to do. Go about your business. We shall go in the Great Basin where [it] is the place to build temples. ...
[Apostle Willard Richards Journal]
The announcement that Relief Society dues would be discontinued and all assets turned over to the appropriate Priesthood officers. Relief Society assets were turned over to the Church (estimated value at over two million dollars, equal to more then seven million 2012 dollars).
[Correlation Timeline, Compiled by Lisle Brown]
[Hosea Stout]
There was a meeting at Taylors camp today at which there was a number of Bishops appointed to look to the families of the [Mormon Battalion] soldiers
[Diaries of Hosea Stout]
Revelation (west of Independence) for Oliver Cowdery, W. W. Phelps, Joseph Coe, and Ziba Peterson as they were about to commence a mission to Native Americans in Missouri, as recalled by W. W. Phelps in 1861: "For it is my will, that in time, ye should take unto you wives of the Lamanites and Nephites, that their posterity may become white, delightsome and Just, for even now their females are more virtuous than the gentiles." Since three of the four were already married, and the fourth--Ziba Peterson--would marry Rebecca Hooper within a month--this passage is sometimes used as an argument that plural marriage was envisioned as early as 1831.
Phelps recorded the revelation, apparently from memory,
Ezra Booth refers to this revelation in 1831. P Ezra Booth Letters (8-9)
[Kenney, Scott, Saints Without Halos, "Mormon History 1830-1844," http://web.archive.org/web/20120805163534/saintswithouthalos.com/dirs/d_c.phtml]
By O. Hyde, all present voted that E. T. Benson be ordained an apostle. At 5, the Quorum kneeled before the Lord in prayer, led by President Young, then arose and laid their hands on Ezra T. Benson, and ordained him an apostle in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with all the keys and power and blessings pertaining to the apostleship in the Church and kingdom of God in these last days, and take the crown of him who has fallen from the Quorum of the Twelve (J. E. Page)...
Before council adjourned, papers were received from Captain Allen and the chiefs and braves of the Pottawattamie [Pottawatamie] nation, giving permission for the Mormons to stop on Indian lands.
[Willard Richards Journal]
On 16 July 1846 some 543 men enlisted in the Mormon Battalion. From among these men Brigham Young selected the commissioned officers... Also accompanying the battalion were approximately thirty-three women, twenty of whom served as laundresses, and fifty-one children.
[Utah History Encyclopedia: Mormon Battalion, http://www.uen.org/utah_history_encyclopedia/]
[Brigham Young]
Mormon Battalion Speech: "Now, brethern you are going as soldiers at your country's call. You will travel in a foreign land, in an enemy's country; and if you will live your religion, [etc...] if you obey this counsel, attending to your prayers to the Lord, I promise you in the name of the Lord God of Israel that not one should of you shall fall by the hands of the enemy. You will pass over battlefields; battles will be fought in your front and in your rear, on your right hand and on your left, and your enemies shall flee before you. Your names shall be held in honorable remembrance to the latest generation."
[Discourses of Brigham Young]
[Brigham Young said] the remainder of the 12 to get the soldiers together and instruct them how to behave, etc., on their expedition, wear their temple garments, and prove themselves the best soldiers, and instruct the other brethren con [?] in carrying out the decisions of the council of yesterday. Lots were cast between O. Hyde, P. P. Pratt and J. Taylor, which two should go to England, and the lot fell on Brothers Hyde and Taylor to go. "Soldiers can tarry and go to work when they are disbanded, and the next temple should be built in the Rocky Mountains," and he wanted the Twelve and the old brethren to live in the mountains where the temple is to be, and where the brethren will have to come to get their endowments.
President Young said he would prophecy that the time would come when some one of the Twelve, or a high priest, would come up and say can't we have a temple at Vancouver Island, or at California, etc., etc., but it is wisdom to unite all our forces to build one house in the mountains.
[Willard Richards Journal]
TIMES and SEASONS prints a "Dialogue on Mormonism" which presents LDS doctrine and claims in dialogue form. Speaking of the Book of Mormon peoples: "Mr. M. You will observe by this account Mr. R. that this people who landed here were Jews, this you know agrees with the idea, which many learned men have had, that the Indians are descendants of the Jews. Mr. R. I am aware that this idea is generally entertained among the learned."
Joseph's party arrives in Independence, Mo. There is a glorious reunion with missionaries there. Jackson County population at this time is less than 3,000, and land costs $1.25 per acre. Joseph records that the people are nearly a century behind the times; Parley Pratt notes that they are still living in skins and very primitive conditions. Because of the primitive land, Joseph wonders how Zion can ever be built in her glory in such a place, and receives D&C 57. The first Sunday after their arrival, W. W. Phelps preaches at the western boundary of the United States to a congregation made up of all races and peoples. Two are baptized.
[Conkling, Christopher J., Joseph Smith Chronology; History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (7 volumes) 1:188-89.]
Sidney Rigdon dies; now believed to have had Bipolar Affective Disorder, or Manic-Depressive Illness.
[Mormon Chronology, N. R. Tidd, http://www.exmormon.org/mhistory.html]
[Brigham Young]
These [preexistent] intelligent beings that I now see, that I behold as we say with the natural eye, Br. Kimball would call it the natural eye, the eye of the spirit, very well, the eye that God has given me and the power of sight: How long is it since they were in chaos? all that pertains to man independent of the intelligence that dwells within his body, independent of that spirit of life, light and intelligence? I see the faces of these, my brethren and sisters. ...
Jesus Christ came here because his Father came here and he was begotten of the Father, and he was born of the virgin Mary as my mother bore me and as my father begot me and as you begot your children. What, is it possible that the Father of Heights, the Father of our spirits, could reduce himself and come forth like a man [Adam?]? Yes, he was once a man like you and I are and was once on an earth like this, passed through the ordeal you and I pass through. He had his father and his mother and he has been exalted through his faithfulness, and he is become Lord of all. He is the God pertaining to this earth. He is our father. He begot our spirits in the spirit world. ...
We will go and build up temples. We started a temple here. Shall we finish it? I don't know whether we shall or not before we go back to Jackson County, but it will be finished by and bye, and we will enter into this temple and receive the ordinances for the just.
[The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, Ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Smith-Pettit Foundation, Salt Lake City (2009), http://bit.ly/BY-discourses]
The second payment on the Smiths' Farmington (Manchester) farm come due . Lucy says there were three payments, that the first was broken up into several installments and that her family had "made nearly all of the first payment" in one year but that "the second payment was now coming due and no means as yet of meeting it." She further states that Alvin left home to find work and raise "the second payment and the remainder of the first" and returned with "the necessary amount of money for all except the last payment".
[Vogel, Dan, Early Mormon Documents, Appendix B: Chronology, 1771-1831, http://amzn.to/T5nY8w]
The formation of the Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a corporatiom sole, which was formed to have equal control of certain property owned by the Church. From 1890 until this date most Church property was held by the local leaders, which was subsequently transferred to the Presiding Bishop.
[Correlation Timeline, Compiled by Lisle Brown]
This evening Elder O. Hyde who had moved over the river to the main camp there, came here to his camp and called a meeting and spoke at length to them on the law of adoption. The first sermon I ever heard publickly. He desired all who felt willing to do so to give him a pledge to come into his kingdom when the ordinance could be attended to but wished all to select the man whom they chose &c
[Diaries of Hosea Stout]
[Brigham Young]
"The business to be laid before you today is, the call upon us from the War department to furnish five hundred volunteers for the army of the West to march to California [Mormon Battalion]."
[Manuscript History of Brigham Young, 1846- 1847. Elden J. Watson, ed. Salt Lake City: Smith Secretarial Service, 1971.:234-238, in The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, Ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Smith-Pettit Foundation, Salt Lake City (2009), http://bit.ly/BY-discourses]
Joseph Smith, Sr., is born at Topsfield, Mass.July 8, 1775Lucy Mack Smith is born at Gilsum, N. H.Jan. 24, 1796. Lucy Mack and Joseph Smith, Sr., are married.About 1797. The first son of Lucy and Joseph Smith, Sr., is born and dies shortly there after.
[Conkling, Christopher J., Joseph Smith Chronology]