History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

144
THE STORY OF MOEMONISM.
country are hundreds of tributary farms and plantations.
The population is from seven to fifteen thousand,
varying with the ebb and flow of new converts
and new colonizations. 3
Conspicuous among the buildings, and chief archi-
tectural feature of the holy city, is the temple, glistening
in white limestone upon the hill-top, a shrine in
the western wilderness whereat all the nations of the
earth may worship, whereat all the people may inquire
of God and receive his holy oracles. 4 Next in
3 The blocks contain ' four lots of eleven by twelve rods each, making all
corner lots . . . For three or four miles upon the river, and about the same dis-
tance back in the country, Nauvoo presents a city of gardens, ornamented
.It will
with the dwellings of those who have made a covenant by sacrifice. .
be no more than probably correct, if we allow the city to contain between
700 and 800 houses, with a population of 14,000 or 15,000.' Times and Seasons,
iii. 936. A correspondent of the New York Herald is a little wild when
he writes about this time: 'The Mormons number in Europe and America
about 150,000, and are constantly pouring into Nauvoo and the neighboring
country. There are probably in and about this city and adjacent territories
not far from 30,000.' Fifteen thousand in 1S40 is the number given in
Mackay's The Mormons, 115, as I mentioned in the last chapter. A correspondent's
estimate in the Times and Seasons, in 1842, was for the city 7,000,
and for the immediate surroundings 3,000. Phelps, in The Prophet, estimates
the population during the height of the city's prosperity in 1844 at 14,000, of
whom nine tenths were Mormons. Some 2000 houses were built the first year.
Joseph Smith in Times and Seasons, March 1842, says: 'We number from six
to eight thousand here, besides vast numbers in the county around, and in
almost every county in the state.'
4 The structure was 83 by 128 feet, and 60 feet high. The stone was quarried
within city limits. There was an upper story and basement; and in the
latter a baptismal font wrought after the manner of King Solomon's brazen
sea. A huge tank, upon whose panels were painted various scenes, and ascent
to which was made by stairs, was upborne by twelve oxen, beautifully carved,
' and overlaid with gold. The two great stories,' says a Mormon eyewitness,
'each have two pulpits, one at each end, to accommodate the Melchizedek
and Aaronic priesthoods, graded into four rising seats, the first
for the president of the elders and his two counsellors, the second for the
president of the high priesthood and his two counsellors, and the third for
the Melchizcdek president and his two counsellors, and the fourth for the president
of the whole church and his two counsellors. There are thirty hewn
stone pilasters which cost about §3,000 apiece. The base is a crescent new
moon; the capitals, near 50 feet high; the sun, with a human face in bold relief,
about two and a half feet broad, ornamented with rays of light and
waves, surmounted by two hands holding two trumpets.' All was crowned
by a high steeple surmounted with angel and trumpet. The cost was nearly
$1,000,000, and was met by tithes contributed by some in money or produce,
and by others in labor. The four corner-stones of the temple were laid with
much ceremony on the 6th of April, 1841, on the celebration of the anniversary
of the church. Sidney Rigdon delivered the address, and upon the
placing of the first stone, said: ' May the persons employed in the erection of
this house be preserved from all harm while engaged in its construction, till tho
whole is completed—in the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy