Building Paradise in California's Mormon Valley

[Mazzarah]

Building Paradise in California's Mormon Valley

The Mormon flag (Nessee Aumoonath)​

I was once praying very earnestly to know the time of the coming of the Son of Man, when I heard a voice repeat the following: Joseph, my son, if thou livest until thou art eighty-five years old, thou shalt see the face of the Son of Man; therefore let this suffice, and trouble me no more on this matter. I was left thus, without being able to decide whether this coming referred to the beginning of the millennium or to some previous appearing, or whether I should die and thus see his face.

Revelation given to Joseph Smith at Ramus, Illinois, April 2, 1843​

---

I’ve long felt that Mormons are underutilized in ATLs. This does make sense: while many are aware of Mormons, many fewer know much about their uniquities and history. When they are portrayed in timelines, they are rarely more than peripheral, and their story generally progresses along a number of set points, little different from OTL. Inevitably it seems Joseph Smith will be assassinated in the summer of 1844, Brigham Young will assume the mantle of leadership to replace him, the Salt Lake Valley will be settled as the New Zion, and a clericocracy will be established there, sometimes independent and almost always under the name Deseret. This isn’t bad, of course; I’ve enjoyed plenty of stories where Mormons are portrayed this way. But it does leave something to be desired.

For the Mormons of the 1840s little was set in stone. The Living Prophet would overturn old beliefs and practices in an instant; even as Joseph died the Church was in the process of radically innovating its rites and ceremonies, its theology and cosmology, its systems of social and clerical organization. Indeed, given how varied and non-normative many of the Latter Day Saint movement’s smaller heirs have been, it seems almost an accident of history that the main bodies of the movement would come to fall under the auspices of such moderates and mainliners as Young, Heber Grant, the younger Smith, and Fred M., rather than the likes of James Strang, Otto Fetting, William Godbe, or even Joseph Smith himself.

 

[Mazzarah]

I'll post the first two chapters tomorrow, and then try to update weekly on Saturdays thereafter.

 

[Hrvatskiwi]

I'm intrigued! Will be following closely.

 

[Mazzarah]

THE BOOK OF THE LAW OF THE LORD
or, THE PLAT OF ZION
The Doctrine and Covenants of the People Israel in the Latter Days
(Authorized Edition, 1879)

SECTION 1​

1 O Israel, as witnesses unto yourselves and unto all nations, ye shall proclaim these several principles, that: We believe in God our Eternal Father, and the Creator of all things; and in His Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, and the Lord of all things; and in the Holy Ghost, who fills us, and by whose power we may know the truth of all things.

2 We believe in the glories of Heaven, and in the Spirit World, where the righteous shall rest from care and sorrow and work to prepare the Glories to Come; and we believe that the blessings of God shall be sealed upon all those who are honest, pure, virtuous, and truthful, and that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind shall have a place in salvation, and by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel will be resurrected in the flesh and thereby exalted.

3 We believe that the first principles of these ordinances are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance and reconciliation; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost; fifth, Ordination into the service of God; sixth, Endowment in the Temple of the Lord; and, seventh, Sealing and reception of all the blessings appertaining unto the new and everlasting covenant.

4 We believe that all are called to stand in righteousness, and to serve the Lord our God according to the gifts that He has bestowed upon them, and to pray and bear their faith and testimony in Him in private, and, yea, before the people of all nations, and to partake in the administration of His Kingdom, and to sustain by common consent all those who are set apart by Him to do His will.

5 We believe that one must be called of God, by prophecy or by some other means, and set apart by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority and Grace, and sustained by all the faithful, to receive the keys of the Gospel, and to administer the ordinances thereof.

6 We believe in the same offices and authorities that have existed where and whenever God has revealed Himself upon the Earth and raised up men to do His will, namely, in prophets, apostles, priests, pastors, and matrons, and in elders, teachers, evangelists, and workfellows, and in cantors, deacons, ministers, and all the other servants of righteousness.

7 We believe that the keys, powers, and duties of these offices were restored upon the face of the Earth in these latter days, and were transmitted unto us in their fullness by the prophets, saints, and angels who yet live in Heaven and on Earth.

8 We believe the Bible, which is the Testament of the Hebrews and of the Gentiles, to be the word of God as far as it is translated and interpreted correctly; and we also believe the words of the latter-day prophets, being the Book of Mormon, which is the Testament of the Americas, and the Songs of Zion and the Words of Joseph, to be the word of God, and we cleave unto them dearly, and unto all the other good books that He may set apart for us in these latter days.

9 We believe all that God has revealed, and all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to His Kingdom; and we believe that He has revealed Himself in many times and many places, and by many means, and that in all such times and places He has bestowed upon men many gifts by which they may prove the truth of things, among them the gifts of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, and the interpretation of dreams.

10 We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes, and that Zion our Home, which is the New Jerusalem, will be built upon this American continent, and that Christ will reign personally upon the Earth, which shall be renewed and receive its paradisiacal Glory.

11 We believe that all are born equal and free, and that the governments and authorities that are instituted by men upon this Earth are worthy of all due respect; and we believe in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law of these same authorities as far as they are instituted in justice, righteousness, and good conscience.

12 We believe that there are wicked and there are righteous among the people of all nations; and we claim the privilege of worshiping our Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and we allow all men the same privilege: lo, let them worship how, where, or what they may.

13 We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul: We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

14 And these shall be the words by which ye shall profess your faith, and they shall be the foundation, and the cornerstone, and the keystone of your edification.

15 And they shall be the wellspring from whence My commandments flow, and they shall be the glass by which ye shall know them. For, behold, O Israel, I am the Lord your God, and I say these things, and they are My will, and they shall thus be for all time, yea, even unto eternity. Amen.

---

Footnotes
The substance of these thirteen Principles of Faith is largely the same as that found in the creeds provided IOTL by Joseph Smith to Chicago Democrat editor John Wentworth in March 1842 and ecclesiastical historian Israel Daniel Rupp in July 1843, now codified as scripture in the OTL Brighamite (and formerly the Hedrickite and Bickertonite) denominations as the Articles of Faith, and widely recognized as authoritative throughout the Latter Day Saint movement. The framing of the creed as a revelation and commandment from God is however wholly original.

IOTL the Book of the Law of the Lord is one of the scriptures used in the Strangite church, and the Plat of Zion is a literal cadastral map. I'll explain the history of this document in future narrative chapters, but suffice to say, it is TTL's descendant of the Doctrine and Covenants.

Key changes between these principles and the OTL Articles are as follows:

Theology and Soteriology
[1] An expansion of OTL Article 1, though one which still leaves the precise nature of the Godhead and the divine intentionally unclear.
[2] Combination and rewrite of OTL Articles 2 and 3. This version removes the reference to the Fall of Adam entirely, replacing it with a brief summary of Mormon soteriology as explained in "The Vision" given to Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon in February 1832, and clearly demarcating conditional exaltation as being distinct from universal salvation.
[3] Expansion of OTL Article 4, including ordination into the service of God (reflecting a similar shift from a limited priesthood to a quasi-universal lay priesthood as occurred OTL in the Brighamite church in the mid-19th century) and the two temple-related ordinances of endowment and sealing.

Church offices and authorities
[4] Wholly original, partly inspired by the OTL Josephite D&C 119:8, with additional admonitions to pray, do missionary work, "partake in the administration of His Kingdom," and to sustain community authorities "by common consent."
[5] Slight rewrite and expansion of OTL Article 5, clarifying the process of setting apart and sustaining those who are called into priesthood and para-priesthood offices.
[6] Rewrite of OTL Article 6 to include some women's offices (e.g., matrons, workfellows, cantors, deaconesses). I will explain the histories and duties of these offices and how they interact with the men's priesthood offices in later chapters.
[7] Wholly original, but uncontroversial in any Latter Day Saint denomination.

Scriptures and Theophany
[8] Expansion of OTL Article 8, including two new scriptural books that will be covered in future chapters, the Songs of Zion (a hymnal and poetry collection) and the Words of Joseph (an edited collection of Joseph Smith's teachings and prophecies). Most Mormons ITTL also believe in two additional scriptural books, the Book of Abraham (substantially the same as the OTL book of the same name) and the Book of Joseph (an account of the life of the Patriach Joseph ben Jacob during his time as in Egypt as prisoner and vizier). The Bible here is an expanded and annotated version roughly corresponding to the JST/IV of OTL.
[9] Combination of OTL Articles 9 and 7, with the additional (and intentionally vague) claim that God has revealed Himself in "many times and places."

Eschatology
[10] Same as OTL Article 10, though with Zion referred to as not just "the New Jerusalem" but "Our Home."

Codes of conduct
[11] Rewrite of OTL Article 12 with a stronger focus on JS's classical liberalism and some conspicuous qualifications to OTL's "obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law."
[12] Slight rewrite of OTL Article 11, further cementing the universalist tenor of Mormonism ITTL (though also not especially controversial IOTL); the statement that "all men" have "the [...] privilege" to "worship how, where, and what they may" is the same as OTL.
[13] Same as OTL Article 13.

 

[Hrvatskiwi]

Are these principles any different from OTL? If so can you put something at the end explaining the differences?

 

[Mazzarah]

Are these principles any different from OTL? If so can you put something at the end explaining the differences?

Thank you for the suggestion; I will add footnotes!

These are substantially the same as the OTL Articles of Faith (and JS's 1842 Wentworth letter), but there are some key differences. The biggest difference is the presentation: rather than just a simple creed appended to the end of the Pearl of Great Price, this has been codified in the form of a revelation from God and published in a version of the Doctrine and Covenants that doesn't exist OTL (I'll explain the history of the TTL Book of the Law of the Lord/the Plat of Zion in later narrative chapters).

 

[Mazzarah]

"Thou art not yet as Job": Leaving Illinois, 1844–1846​

The Mormons had begun to look west long before the dissolution of Nauvoo. In hindsight, settlement in Illinois had been untenable from the start, reliant as it was on the presumption that the people of Hancock County would be, for whatever reason, more accommodating to the rapid settlement of some ten thousand Mormons than their counterparts across the Mississippi River. It had been sustained for as long as it had only by the goodwill of the state legislature, secured by promises of future political favor and mass clientelage that it was becoming increasingly clear to Springfield were simply not in the cards.

In March of 1844, Joseph Smith had charged his Council of Fifty, the body that had been intended to form the core of his future presidency, to send out apostles and evangelists across the continent to begin the process of negotiating passage and support for the Mormons’ inevitable flight; drumming up support for his candidacy in that fall’s election was only a minor concern. Whither exactly the Mormons would flee was also of minor concern, it seemed: anywhere may well have been better than Illinois.

Thus, the fallout from the arrest and trial of the editors of the Nauvoo Expositor in the summer of 1844[1] only laid bare whatever tensions were already brewing, and the rapid souring of the opinions of even neutral Gentiles[2] on the so-called “Mormon question” only increased the desperation with which Mormons sought a way out. In August, Joseph Smith charged a delegation under Counselor Amasa Lyman to appeal directly to the Mexican president for a sufficient land grant somewhere in Alta California or Nuevo México; a month later, he sent Apostle John Taylor to attempt to treat with Lord Metcalfe in Canada. Even “His Accidency” John Tyler, whose presidential administration had been long maligned across the political spectrum and was now nearing its final months, was sought out. Perhaps the Mormons, it was pleaded, could accede to federal trusteeship and receive a small reserve in the West in return for their holdings east of the Mississippi, or perhaps they could serve as a vanguard for the brewing continental war and march an army one-hundred-thousand-strong all the way to Oregon. Even simply appointing Joseph a federal Indian agent would suffice; so long as they could travel without legal encumbrance, the Mormons were willing to accept whatever offers they could get.

Yet all of these pleas, however desperate, fell on deaf ears. President Tyler, embroiled in a war with Congress over the annexation of Texas and long having lost the support of even his own party, was in little place to support the Mormons, even if he hadn’t found the movement somewhat opprobrious to begin with. Lord Metcalfe simply refused to meet with John Taylor’s delegation; the recently-suppressed rebellions of 1837 had hardened the hearts of even liberal Tories to the plights of American rabble rousers, even if they might couch their Anglophone liberalism in theocratic and royalist terms. And Mexican politics had reached even more of a standstill than that of the United States over the problem of Texas: even if the president had wanted to help, wanting for labor or support in the now-functionally autonomous far north of the country (or, for that matter, had he been fundamentally opposed to further American settlement, the very thing that had caused the Texas crisis to begin with), it wasn’t entirely clear who exactly the president through much of 1844 and 1845 was. And so, the Nauvoo Mormons simply stewed in place.

Map of Hancock County, Illinois, ca. 1850​

The people of Illinois, however, were not content to let the Mormons stay. In September and October 1844, so-called “wolf and Indian hunts” were organized in Carthage and Warsaw, and squatters occupied several outlying Mormon settlements, forcing the Carthage Greys, the Gentile detachment of the state militia in the county, to intervene before the Nauvoo Legion could take matters into its own hands. In November, Hancock County justice of the peace Thomas Morrison moved to issue a warrant for the arrest of most of the members of the Nauvoo city government and dispatched county sheriff David Bettisworth for the job, but the county’s circuit court stayed the order on the grounds the charges were vague and unsubstantiated, and were nevertheless liable to foment even more unrest than was already occurring, opting instead to await the decisions made in the coming legislative session.

Thus, when the state legislature convened in December, debate immediately began on how to speedily resolve the Mormon question. Some delegates proposed simply copying Missouri’s infamous Extermination Order from a few years prior; this received a fair amount of bipartisan support. Illinois governor Thomas Ford, no Jack Mormon[3] but certainly unwilling to see his administration tarnished by the descent of his state into bloodshed, was more willing to compromise; while Joseph refused to leave Nauvoo for fear of his safety, the two had been in active correspondence since summer.

The coming of January 1845 would see the official framework for this resolution materialize.[5] Firstly, and against the recommendations of Governor Ford (who wished only to see it significantly amended), the Nauvoo city charter would be repealed in its entirety, the city disincorporated, and all of its public property, including several residential plots and pieces of de facto Church and commons property, would be placed into receivership. So too would the Nauvoo Legion be dissolved: all protection of Mormons from then on would be the purview of the Gentile state militia. This state support would not be permanent, however, as while Joseph and the other Church authorities could be guaranteed gubernatorial amnesty for actions that had taken place before January 15, 1845, any crimes that occurred after that date would be swiftly and ruthlessly prosecuted.[4] The Mormons would be permitted to retain their personal property and winter in place, under state guard if they so wished, but there was an understanding, tacit in the text of the resolution but loud and clear in the minutes of the debates, that they would be required to remove themselves from the state by the start of the next legislative term in December 1846, after which point the outgoing administration could no longer guarantee any special protections for those who remained.

A muddy winter dulled popular enthusiasm for violence, but the coming of spring set loose another threat upon Nauvoo: that of the speculators. More than two thousand acres of prime riverine farmland, much of it already drained and irrigated, were soon to be forcibly opened to the public; speculators who could establish themselves early enough could strike it rich by buying undervalued land from desperate Mormons and then selling it for a hefty profit during the coming Gentile land rush.

But the spring of 1845 also saw a shift in the political winds: though the Mormons had only a negligible hand in his victory, the inauguration of the fiercely expansionist “Young America” Democrat James K. Polk in March seemed a miracle. With their westward focus and salt-of-the-earth politics, perhaps these young men, among them Illinois’s own rising star congressman Stephen Douglas, would be sympathetic to the Mormons’ plight, and, God willing, they might be inclined to use their newfound influence and mandate to finally grant the Mormons the aid they desired.

Stephen A. Douglas, Joseph Smith, and James K. Polk, ca. 1845​

Indeed, Douglas, like Ford, was sympathetic to the Mormons’ plight, though he was in little position to secure any meaningful assurances in only his second term in federal office. Illinois Senator James Semple was likewise interested in the Mormons’ potential as a vanguard in the securing of Oregon Country for the United States, but was unwilling to give the idea any more than a mere entertaining (and was nevertheless quickly falling out of favor with the Polk administration over his handling of the Oregon situation). President Polk, for his part, and despite whatever rumors abounded among the Mormons across the United States,[6] was ultimately unconcerned with the Mormon question, though his matter-of-course removal of the Whig territorial governor of Iowa John Chambers did a great deal to calm the tensions between the Mormons and the soon-to-be state.

The same could not, however, be said for tensions within Illinois, which were determined only to grow again once summer arrived. In July, anti-Mormon representatives from each of the counties surrounding Hancock met in the city of Quincy in neighboring Adams County and drafted a list of demands that included, firstly, that the Mormons remove themselves from the state no later than the spring of the next year, or else they should be extirpated; secondly, that the amnesty granted to Mormon authorities be rescinded without any reprieve, and that conversely the charges against any anti-Mormons issued in the past several months be dropped; and, thirdly, that no “good Christian man” ought to engage in any trade or land purchase agreements with the Mormons, or otherwise act as an agent on their behalf.[7]

These county notables had little means of enforcing these demands besides mob violence, and thus their issuance greatly concerned Mormons and state peacekeepers alike. Further complicating the matter, friend of the Mormons and Hancock County sheriff Jacob Backenstos, who had repeatedly advocated for the reestablishment of a Mormon militia, was accosted by a posse of anti-Mormons on September 16, and anti-Mormon activist Franklin Worrell was killed in the fight (Backenstos would be acquitted for self-defense, though only after a motion to change the venue to a state court in Peoria was granted).[8]

At the end of the month, contemporaneous with the arrival of several important personages to Carthage, including Stephen Douglas and state militia general John J. Hardin, the anti-Mormon notables met in Quincy yet again, and then in Carthage, and issued a similar set of demands, though softening them by requiring the Mormons to appoint non-Mormon agents to manage land deals and by leaving the issue of pardons and charges conspicuously absent, so long as Backenstos were released from his position and the municipal and county courts in Hancock County agreed to delay their winter sessions to avoid any further excitation.[9]

To these Joseph Smith, countersigned by each of the counselors and apostles then in Illinois, agreed, and on February 4, 1846, the Mormons began to ford the Mississippi into Iowa.

---

Footnotes
[1] The POD for this timeline; everything before June 1, 1844, is the same as OTL. The specifics here don't matter so much, but ITTL Joseph and his counselors slightly more prudently manage William Law's exposé, with John Taylor filing suit against Law and his associates for slander in early June at the Hancock County Circuit Court and getting the county to grant an injunction against the publishers of the Nauvoo Expositor rather than having a posse destroy the imprimery. Tensions are still very high, but JS isn't charged with treason and doesn't give himself up to the state in response, and so is spared assassination at the end of June.
[2] "Gentiles" here means non-Mormons. While less common today, this was historically the primary way Mormons referred to outsiders.
[3] In the 19th century, "Jack Mormon" referred to a Gentile who was sympathetic to the Latter Day Saint movement. The term first appeared in print a couple months after the POD, but its description there implies the term was already in common use.
[4] This refers to the May 1844 indictment against Joseph Smith for adultery and fornication that had been stalling in the courts as the violence escalated. IOTL this was abated after JS was killed; ITTL it is dropped on the condition that JS drop his libel suit against Law and agree to the other demands issued by the state.
[5] The following is largely the same resolution as was put in place IOTL.
[6] A reference to an run of fearmongering newspaper articles and pamphlets run IOTL by Mormon newspaperman Sam Brannan.
[7] Whether or not this set of demands actually existed IOTL is a matter of debate, but many Mormons and state officials alike certainly feared genocidal violence in the summer of 1845.
[8] This occured IOTL; the death of Worrell would be a rallying cry for anti-Mormons in Illinois for several years.
[9] These demands did exist IOTL, and were agreed to by Brigham Young and the other apostles who had returned to Illinois after JS was killed.

 

[Rickdukulous Rex]

Very interesting. I wonder where in California they will settle.

 

[Gabingston]

 

[Aluma]

Its fascinating the parallels between mormon history and jewish history, specially with the former taking inspiration from the later, and it shows with things such as "gentiles"
Very interesting concept

 

[Hrvatskiwi]

@Mazzarah planning to come back to this TL anytime soon?

 

[Mazzarah]

@Mazzarah planning to come back to this TL anytime soon?

Yeah, I just got hit with an unexpectedly busy couple of months! I'll be free again in the next week or two, and will hopefully have two or three new chapters up by the beginning of June, since I've drafted them but not yet had the chance to write out some sections and clean them up.