Editor’s Note: You might have noticed I took September and almost all of October off. This was, in part, because Mormons have frequently been in the national news these past months, and almost entirely for bad reasons.
My thoughts are with the community in Grand Blanc, Michigan. To quote Alyssa Grenfell: “nothing can ever justify violence against people for what they believe,” and no one should be murdered at church.
Last time we checked in with Joseph Smith and his Saints, they were once again refugees. Joseph Smith was allowed to escape while in custody of the Missouri government and avoided justice for charges related to the 1838 Mormon War. Sidney Rigdon brought the flock to Quincy, Illinois, and a well-connected Mormon heard word of significant chunks of land for sale north of the city, along the Mississippi River in a relatively unpopulated community called Commerce. They got a good deal and the Mormons once again had a home.
Commerce, Illinois, where they settled, was a swamp. It was a floodplain on a bend of the Mississippi River. Disease ran rampant among the refugees arriving by the thousands.
In spring 1839, the Prophet arrived and declared that the city would be known as “Nauvoo,” which to his credit, is an actual word in Hebrew roughly meaning “they are beautiful.” I actually really admire Mormon place names, and Utah has more than anywhere else. Places like Provo, Orem, and Brigham City make me chuckle as uniquely Mormon places, and Nauvoo fits the bill all the same.
Nauvoo became the Mormons’ first fifth attempt at establishing “Zion.” Joseph Smith’s thirst for power and willingness to antagonize neighbors was largely responsible for the many moves his sect made from their humble beginnings in 1832. A lot had happened, since then, and one would hope Joseph learned his lesson and toned it down.
Well, he did not.
Welcome back to Putting the Moron in Moroni: Martyrs, Mormons and Misery in Missouri. This week, we’re done with Missouri! Welcome to God’s (one-time) promised land, Nauvoo, Illinois. Joseph Smith claims power to Illinois’ largest city, introduces scandal via a different politically-connected sex pest, and reveals a curious new “Principle,” polygamy. Oh yeah, and we visit Nauvoo, the Colonial Williamsburg of Mormonism.
Thanks for reading. (And listening!)
The only art project I’ve ever spent real money to make happen was this stupid road trip. At the very least you can give me your personal information (you can then tell me how funny I am)
Nauvoo was the largest and most politically influential city in Illinois during the 1840s.
The US census doesn’t capture this, though. Mormons arrived after the 1840 census, and with Smith’s death in 1844, they would leave before the 1850 one, but for a time, the Mormon church was centrally located in Nauvoo, with converts arriving in record numbers. By 1842, the town had a whopping estimated 14,000 residents, which eclipsed Chicago’s paltry 2,000 or so. Eat your heart out Cook County.
The history of Nauvoo makes one thing clear: everyone from rank-and-file Mormons, Church leaders, and Illinois political leaders largely looked past Smith and his followers’ indiscretions, fearing they’d suffer the same evisceration in the court of public opinion that Governor Boggs and the Missouri government had suffered after the 1838 Mormon War.
By overlooking the danger the Mormons’ posed to democracy in Illinois and the United States, the Illinois government allowed (and supported) important political power moves that would solidify Joseph Smith’s institutional power and effectively create a city-state theocracy in Nauvoo. This was thanks to the political capital and expertise of an LDS-convert named John C. Bennett, whose significance to Mormonism was as important as his tenure was short—he was a member for less than two years.
Bennett’s whirlwind time with the Mormons was Joseph Smith’s ticket to greater power…and his grave. Bennett was a confidant who was politically well-connected, had legitimacy as a military leader (he was quartermaster of the entire state militia), and was largely willing to be Joseph Smith’s fixer—and Mormonism’s chief lobbyist.
Bennett and Smith successfully lobbied the Illinois legislature for a Nauvoo City Charter in late-1840. It’s unclear to what degree the legacy of their political maneuvering is flattered by Mormon apologists, but supposedly an early-career Abe Lincoln, alongside his political rival Stephen Douglas, were both impressed with Bennett’s politicking.
The charter was undoubtedly a win for Joseph Smith and the Mormons. It was based on the charter for the capital, Springfield, and provided a number of unusual provisions, including chartering a University of Nauvoo, creating a municipal court system, and most consequentially, granting an official charter for a division of the Illinois state militia to be run by the Nauvoo government.
The first mistake Illinois made was to downplay the grievances the Mormons had incurred on their redneck neighbors in Missura’ and give Joseph and his crooks another chance. The second mistake was getting the Mormons an incredible deal on greenfield property along the Mississippi. The third and most consequential mistake they made was giving him guns and the legal authority to use them.
Ah. We’re back to talking about Joseph Smith’s obsession with playing army, and this time I don’t think it’s nearly as silly. Joseph took this official charter and f*****g ran with it. More than a militia, he called his troops “The Nauvoo Legion,” after the historical Roman Legions, a volunteer-ish based army that was officially affiliated with the Mormon church and the state government.
Joseph Smith appointed himself and Bennett as leaders, but gave himself, who had no actual military experience, the title of Lieutenant General. The only other member of the US military to ever hold that title before or since, was George Washington.
He had done it: Joseph Smith was judge, jury, and executioner in Nauvoo, Illinois. Far more than a mayor, Smith commanded actual troops which was extraordinary for many reasons, not the least of which because chartered militias are not typically a) associated with churches or b) confined to a single city. The Nauvoo Legion peaked at 2,500 members under Joseph’s command, which was 1/3rd of the size of the entire United States Army.
Joseph Smith was de facto mayor (he’d take over formally in 1842), served as a judge/justice of the peace, and led a military that rivaled any on the American continent on manpower alone.
His crooked government regularly prevented Missouri agents from extraditing Smith and his accomplices for crimes related to the 1838 Mormon War. Smith was charged with assault in Carthage, IL on at least one occasion, which was dismissed through the Nauvoo courts. Smith was fundamentally immune to political, religious, and legal consequences for his actions, something really good for a sex pervert scam artist.
So I don’t think it’s a coincidence that in April 1841, Joseph Smith f*****g ramped up his acquisitions of women for his celestial harem as he went from 4 wives and began his 3-year campaign to acquire 54 additional ones. Alyssa Grenfell has an incredible video covering the history from a variety of sources and does far more justice to the survivors and victims of Joseph Smith than I ever could. I also will add that calling these women and girls “wives” erroneously gives them agency over their situation.
When we acknowledge that these women and girls did not likely have the agency or understanding to decline or refuse sex and relationships withe the prophet, we may find it valuable to point out that Joseph used a few different stories to coerce and coax an estimated 59 total women and girls into courting, wedding, and consummating the taboo “plural marriage.”
* Often he claimed that God came to him in a vision declaring that he was to wed the victim.
* Sometimes he claimed it was a favor he was doing to guarantee the woman and her family go to the Celestial Kingdom
* Sometimes he claimed the women would go to hell if they didn’t, and they had to seal themselves to him to save their eternal self.
* Most alarmingly, if any of these didn’t work, he would claim an angel visited him in his sleep with a flaming sword and told him that the angel would murder him if he didn’t marry X or Y woman/girl. Man had no rizz in his Latter Days.
Joseph used “the Principle” to effectively make the inner ring of church leaders a kind of a wife-trading sex cult, where patriarchs took up multiple women, gave up daughters to other predators, and in general, create a further in-group bound by a shared expression of taboo, criminal, evil sexual exploitation. This, of course, included the newest member of church leadership, John C. Bennett.
This is total speculation, but I think Joseph and John had a…special relationship. He might have been a Friend of Nephi, if you will.
Just one excerpt from a July 1840 letter from Bennett to Smith helps paint the nature of their correspondence:
“My anxiety to be with you is daily increasing, and I shall wind up my professional business immediately, and proceed to your blissful abode, if you think it best. Look at all my letters and papers and write me forth with. You are aware that at the time of your most bitter persecution, I was with you in feeling & proffered you my military knowledge & prowess.”
I think this man was in love with Joseph Smith.
There’s not a lot of evidence to the contrary, aside from that I’ve heard Bennett referred to as “super weird” and “kind of a freak” from contemporary Mormon critics, and all signs point to the idea that, sometime before ‘43, when Smith made his formal declaration to church leaders about “the Principle,” Bennett was lured to Nauvoo in part to participate in the sort of underground sex trafficking cult that existed below the surface of the Mormon’s chipper, pious facade. His Wikipedia does a better job than I could summing it up:
Bennett left the church for adultery on May 11, 1842. Rumors of adultery, homosexuality, and unauthorized polygamy emerged. Contemporary sources indicate that Bennett used his trusted position as a doctor to allay fears of women he attempted to seduce by telling them that he could cause abortions by administering medicine if they became pregnant. While Bennett was mayor, he was caught in private sexual relations with women in the city. He told the women that the practice, which he termed “spiritual wifery,” was sanctioned by God and Smith and that Smith did the same. When discovered, he privately confessed his crimes, produced an affidavit that Smith had no part in his adultery, and was disciplined accordingly.
Bennett’s 1842 dismissal was a clear attempt at preventing a national sex scandal while making it clear to those in his inner circle who had learned “the Principle” that they were expendable, and that their sex trafficking ring needs to be kept a secret. The power vacuum left by Bennett was quickly filled by the far more influential (and more discrete polygamist) Brigham Young, and further allowed Smith to insulate himself with those willing to affirm and support his most outlandish and illegal schemes.
Today, Nauvoo, IL is a small town on the river surrounded by farmland and bluffs. It’s a shell of its former self: just 950 residents call Nauvoo home today.
Naurvoo is a hub of Mormon culture and attracts Mormon pilgrims from across the world. Nauvoo is one of many sights to see in Tornado Alley for faithful Mormons to enjoy, and you will no doubt find fleets of Utah and Idaho-licensed Jeep Grand Wagoneers, Range Rovers, and GMC Yukons full of delightsome Mormon families dragging their kids on a tour de farce of religious sites in the middle of nowhere.
Meanwhile, in the blue Honda Civic of righteousness, we apostates bemoaned the remoteness of Nauvoo. It’s literally in the middle of nowhere. The town’s roads along the river bluffs are lined with McMansions and fancy cabins, but soon enough you find yourself in town…which feels totally barren.
When we first rolled up, it was hard to believe this small town was once the largest city in Illinois. A spattering of buildings are located throughout the town, and it really appears only the historically significant (or tangentially related) buildings remain today.
The first stop we made was the “Red Brick Store,” where we had the GPS set to. The stately building is honestly the one I was most interested in. It’s a rebuilt structure from 1980s; the original was destroyed after being left in disrepair after Smith’s timely death in 1844 when most Mormons bailed on Nauvoo and followed Brigham Young west towards Mexico (present-day Utah).
The Red Brick Store was used a store, much like the “bishop’s storehouses” found in most Mormon communities at this time. It was a general store and office, where Mormons paid their tithing, held small meetings, and met in a a private quarters on the second floor.
Arguably most consequentially (at least materially), the Red Brick Store is best-known as where the Women’s Relief Society (or just “Relief Society”) was organized and headquartered. The Relief Society, which still exists today, is a somewhat generic mutual aid organization that has a history of Actually Being an Effective Charity, at least if you’re Mormon. It has historically been run by women of the church, who were barred from other official positions, and long used as an outlet for women to become leaders in the church, without getting real power, like the men. Its organization was also modeled after Freemasonry.
The store was also the location where Joseph Smith was made a Freemason, going from initiate to master in just 2 days, despite decrying and detesting the secret society at nearly every chance throughout his career as a religious leader. Stay tuned: we’ll have a lot more about Freemasonry next week.
Anyway, there were probably 4 or 5 sister missionaries dressed in pioneer garb sitting on a bench outside the Red Brick store, standing around, or sweeping. They were one of the few examples we saw of the Colonial Williamsburg-esque vibe the Mormons are trying to cheaply emulate with the volunteer labor of college-aged disciples of the Restored Gospel.
Before they could even ask if we wanted a tour, as if she was a suspicious guard NPC in Hitman, a sister missionary clocked Emily’s coconut coffee drink.
“What are you drinking?” she asked.
“Uh…a coconut drink!” Emily had concealed the coffee-naited nature of the bevvie. We went from being obviously curious non-Mormons to actively hostile apostates. Thankfully we were totally unbothered, and they left us alone in favor of other Mormon families visiting. Turns out humans are really good at blocking out what they deem to be antisocial behavior.
I want to point out that both Emily and I chose to dress far more conservatively than we had for the other holy sites; I wore a tucked-in polo with slacks and Emily wore a dress, but it didn’t matter. The Mormons could still tell we weren’t the faithful rubes they normally see, and that we were there to gawk without reverence or respect.
One other notable place is the home of John Browning of Gun Fame. Our ex-Mormon friend approached the LARP-ers hanging out outside and asked questions, specifically about a series of major purchases made by the Mormon church acquiring property in Nauvoo. They said the various purchases in 2024 amounted to “a lot of money,” but they weren’t sure how much, but they did reassure us that, thank GOD, they got the original door from Liberty Jail (recall from a few newsletters ago). I’m not even kidding.
Which brings me back to my favorite group of people when talking about Mormons and their culture, the Community of Christ, the OG splinter group that refused to follow Brigham Young to Utah.
But Nauvoo was their longtime homebase until non-Utah Mormons could comfortably return to Jackson County, and they owned nearly all of the property in Nauvoo up until 2024. Community of Christ rebuilt the Red Brick Store and restored most of the buildings, like the Smith family homestead, the Nauvoo House hotel, the Nauvoo Mansion (where Joe actually lived). The LDS church owned very little in town, but did finance and rebuild the Nauvoo Temple after it had been destroyed twice.
In 2012, Community of Christ sold off some important sites, like Hawn’s Mill, home to the deadliest attack on innocent Mormons during the 1838 Mormon War. But in 2024, to the publicly available tune of $192 million, the LDS Church in Utah made significant acquisitions from the Community of Christ, who had been stewards of the sites for well over 150 years, which included almost the entirety of the platted area of historic Nauvoo.
There were some things left out; while the Utah Mormons were able to buy the Smith Family Homestead and the Red Brick Store, they were unsuccessful in acquiring the plot between the two: the Smith family cemetery, where Joey and the gang are still buried to this day. It’s clearly not owned by the church, is notably fenced in and lacks any presence of Mormon missionaries. Frankly, it’s the only part of the core holy site where we were totally alone at for a little while.
I will say, that there is a creative solution where the headstones of Joseph, Hyrum, and Emma are incorporated as part of the fence, so Mormon missionaries can point it out when you tour the Smith Family Homestead and Red Brick Store, but they are not permitted in the actual cemetery. Just absolutely delicious stuff from Mormonism’s #1 haters. And yes, we did drink coffee on Joseph Smith’s grave.
I’d be remiss not to mention the highlight of Nauvoo for faithful believers: The Nauvoo and British pageants.
These performative presentations of paltry piousness purport to preserve and protect their prophetic predecessors, but in practice, paint peachy pictures of perky pioneers, preachy prophets, and petty perditious pessimists persecuting the pleasant and pious populace. Pageant portrayals are predictably pedantic and purge the problems of the past, particularly the “Principle,” (parenthetically: polygamy) pedophilia, and the plate- and papyrus-peddling perverted Prophet, who is packaged as a pacified perfect person whose premiere patriarchy was peaceful and predominantly platonic. Pish-posh; pure propaganda.
The pageants are only for the most hardcore of Mormons, both actors and audience. While Mormons are famously huge Broadway fans, Mormonism lacks the cultural penetration to have financially successful religious works take off outside of the faith. Many Mormons are also predictably skeptical of places like New York, but famously have embraced the musical that bears the name of their foundational holy text. The pageants are effectively missionary callings you have to try out for, and just like church itself, they’re demanding, matter only to a small amount of people, and provide little to no cultural value to society. Yay!
Nauvoo, Illinois was where Joseph Smith finally became too intoxicated with power. Next time, we round out our time in Illinois with Joseph’s timely death and a visit to his death site, where we have our cultiest experiences yet. It’s also an election year in Minneapolis, so this edition will be an Election Day Special as we talk about Joseph Smith’s short-lived campaign for President of the United States in 1844.
I have secrets to share with you…God has revealed a…let’s say…”Principle” for us to follow. Give me 10% of your income and I’ll teach you how to sleep with your friends’ wives.
