Getting "Bogged" Down By Alleged Prophecy Part 1

Intro Welcome to the Standard of Truth Podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Professor Richard LeDuc explore the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the life and teachings of Prophet Joseph Smith. They examine the original historical sources and provide context for events of the past. They approach the history of the Church with faith, expertise and humor.

Gerrit Hi, welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, and I'm joined by my friend, Professor Richard LeDuc.

Richard Hello, Gerrit. In this week's podcast, we're going to continue our discussion of apostles and apostates. But before we get to that, we have a couple of emails, Gerrit, here. This first comes to us from Emily, subject to line MTC Roommates. This message is for almost Dr. Richard LeDuc. My daughter-

Gerrit I see why we're reading this.

Richard That's correct. My daughter is leaving for the MTC in two days. Like with our sports picks, this likely happened about a month ago.

Gerrit She's been home for seven months and she didn't come home early.

Richard She's been married in the temple. They have two beautiful children.

Gerrit And we just got to your email.

Richard We just got to your email. My husband, Greg, was telling my daughter all about the MTC. He said that one of his roommates was Elder LeDuc. I was totally surprised by this because I listened to the podcast and knew you served in Riverside, California, the same as my husband. But it never crossed my mind that you might know each other after a little research. We discovered that you roomed with my husband in the MTC and served in the same zone for a little bit. He said you were famous for your concussions, small world. Yes. Well, first of all, Emily, Greg was the best, as you know, as you've been married to him now for likely almost 20 years.

Gerrit I mean, at this point, by the time we got to the email, 30.

Richard 30 years. Congratulations on your 30th anniversary to Greg.

Gerrit 35th wedding anniversary.

Richard So I'm a huge fan of your husband. We're in the MTC together. One of my, so he's from, and you guys, I believe, still live outside of St. Louis. There's a couple of things that were great about Greg.

Gerrit You're gonna like give their address and social security number two while you're at it?

Richard It's south of St. Louis, I believe, is where they reside.

Gerrit What ward do they go to?

Richard Well, so what was funny is that, you know, Riverside, California, a lot of that is in the desert, in the high desert. And so coming from humidity to the desert, I remember that Greg struggled mightily for the first couple of months. Just couldn't breathe. It was just so dry. But it was great getting to serve with your husband. He's an absolutely great guy. He was really into swing dancing, I do believe, and big band music was back with a vengeance toward the late nineties. And so he was quite the dancer, if I recall, and a great missionary.

Gerrit Did he dance for you?

Richard He did not dance for me, but I saw pictures in his full Zoot Suit regalia.

Gerrit So you just pretended that he was dancing.

Richard Well, no, I mean, he seemed to have the elegance and grace of someone that is a good dancer.

Gerrit Is that why you were telling him about your concussions? Was that you trying to say, I would get out there with you?

Richard I would dance, but I can't.

Gerrit Yeah, doesn't the White Handbook say something about how your companion can dance, but you can't dance with him?

Richard Yeah, not in the same bed. The same room, but not the same bed.

Gerrit You must sleep in the same room, but not in the same bed.

Richard Anyway, so Greg was a great mission. It was a very nice email. I hope your daughter is, I hope she travels home safely from her mission, as it's probably pretty soon that she'll be traveling home, wherever it is that she's serving. I do have a couple of funny concussion stories, but we don't have time today as we get into Apostles of the Apostles.

Gerrit Well, we're not doing a 4th of July extravaganza, so I mean.

Richard Well, it's true. Today is the 4th of July when we were recording.

Gerrit Should we, we should re-release the 4th of July extravaganza every 4th of July?

Richard The one where you just trash our country?

Gerrit I don't believe that is the way it should be.

Richard It's like, hey, the Mormons hate America.

Gerrit That is not what I said.

Richard The government kicked us out and we hate them. Happy 4th of July. Enjoy your stadium of fire, jerks.

Gerrit All it is a statement of the fact that the Latter-day Saints didn't celebrate the 4th of July in 1845 because they were being murdered.

Richard And they were chastised for not, oh, we always knew that they were against this country because they didn't celebrate the 4th of July.

Gerrit Even though the main reason why we were mad at them at first was because they celebrated the 4th of July too much. So we were worried about how strong they were because they were shooting cannons and guns off when they were celebrating the year before. So this year they didn't celebrate at all. And now we know why we hate them.

Richard Okay. You know what? Yeah. I will, I will re-release that. Now people listening to that, this will be coming out this Thursday. So people will be hearing.

Gerrit Well, this will answer their questions. Cause they'll be like, Oh, are these guys just re-releasing this because they're ready to cancel the podcast?

Richard Yes.

Gerrit First of all, yes. Yeah. I mean, the premiums have not been rolling in the way they need to. By the way, We've been unable to glut ourselves.

Richard By the way, Rex's elders quorum president. Just so you know, this is counted as part of the silliness. I'll let you know when we get into the meat of the...

Gerrit Oh yeah. Did he say that he doesn't like listening to us?

Richard No. When we read Rex's email, Rex was referred to this podcast and the elders quorum president said, it's pretty good if you can get past all the silliness. And we've received several emails that have said, Hey, I like the podcast, but if Richard could talk less and Gerrit could just jump straight into the history, that'd be great.

Gerrit I mean, we've also gotten some emails that say, it'd be best if both Richard and Gerrit could not talk, which seems like the podcast would be a lot of.

Richard Yeah, just an hour of the sound of leaves crinkling.

Gerrit That's all it would be. That's a whole nother thing. You'll have to sign up to be a premium subscriber to hear crinkling leaves, because apparently that's coming down the pipe.

Richard It is, it is. All right, so we have another email from Jacob. Big subject, big reveal on a previous question. Hello, some context for the subject. I submitted a question on my mission a few months ago about an experience. First of all, this is great. Somebody that served a mission just a couple months ago, this really gets us in the demo. This is fantastic for the advertising that we don't do, although I recommend that you go to Jersey Mike's. I submitted a question on my mission a few months ago about an experience a friend we were teaching had with a member where he was told that the Illuminati, sorry, where he was told that the Illuminati, I read this before, but just reading the word Illuminati made me laugh.

Gerrit I think every time we see the word Illuminati, you have to be prepared for some kind of laughter.

Richard Where the Illuminati was attempting to infiltrate the church and steal the secrets of the endowment. The secrets of the endowment that all of the covenants are published on lds.org essentially.

Gerrit On lds.org, my goodness, you can just go to the conference center and someone's acting it out while you're watching.

Richard Well, I'm just saying, our son is going through the temple tomorrow for the first time, and we went through a temple prep, and you go to churchofjesuschrist.org, and it's like, hey, here's the five covenants that you make. It doesn't give the specific language, but it's very different from when I went through the temple in terms of helping people to understand what they're doing.

Gerrit I think we do a lot better job now.

Richard We do. I think it's great.

Gerrit So his question was, that was his previous question about the Illuminati.

Richard Yes, the Seeker Sitting Down Man. I appreciate your answer so much that I decided to submit another question. By the way, I think that guy stopped meeting with us before we even heard your response.

Gerrit Well, in fairness, we probably didn't respond to your email until seven months after your mission.

Richard Well, it's also possible, by the way, that the Illuminati got to him, and that's part of it.

Gerrit You know what? That's what happened.

Richard That's how deep the conspiracy goes.

Gerrit What happened is as soon as you emailed us, it triggered in the Illuminati censoring, they knew, they came to his house. Are you sure this guy's alive?

Richard No. I'd be concerned about your...

Gerrit When you say he stopped meeting with you, did he stop meeting with you with extreme prejudice?

Richard And when Gerrit says that, dead.

Gerrit You mean calculated.

Richard So this previous week, I returned from my mission in the California Santa Rosa mission. I served near a city called Napa, California, which is famous in the Latter-day Saint history since Governor Boggs is buried there. We were told by several members that Joseph Smith had prophesied that a church spire would overshadow the grave site of Governor Boggs. There is a chapel that was built very close to the burial site, but I must admit, I've never seen a shadow over his grave, even though I was only there for three minutes on a P-day. Well, so that's part of the problem, Jacob. I mean, you've got to go during the, obviously the winter solstice or-

Gerrit The prime viewing hours. If you build like a, yeah, some kind of a stone hinge around it, and then you know exactly where the shadows fall.

Richard They ended up selling that chapel. It's quite old, which caused an uproar, and lots of people saying that the church couldn't sell it because of this prophecy. Obviously the church could and did, and-

Gerrit I like your very practical thinking, Jacob. You started with Illuminati and then got to the quite practical nature of, yeah, I'm pretty sure the church can do whatever they want.

Richard But this got me curious about the truthfulness of this claim. I wanted to ask if Dr. Dirkmaat knew anything about it, about, or knew anything because I, like most people, don't have much time to pour through the Joseph Smith Papers to find the answer. Gerrit has nothing but time to do this.

Gerrit Yeah, that's what happens when you don't have a real job.

Richard Thanks again for all you do. You leave me laughing each episode and with my faith much stronger. Well, thank you, Jacob. And at nine minutes, actually just at 10 minutes, Rex's elders quorum president. You can start listening.

Gerrit Won't he have already have listened to this point to know when?

Richard I put it in the description. I put it in the description of what's happening just so that Rex's elders quorum president knows.

Gerrit Doesn't this conversation itself also constitute the silliness?

Richard Yeah, we've got an intro now. It's about 20, 25 seconds. So we're about 10 minutes, 30 seconds. And now Rex's elders quorum president.

Gerrit But I don't feel like getting into it. I'm just gonna keep talking. I want to make it more painful for him.

Richard Well, I am excited. The NFL came out with their schedule for games relatively recently. I'm pretty excited for football coming up. I've got a couple tickets to some BYU games. We could talk about those.

Gerrit Yeah, you've got all kinds of stuff.

Richard Well, you know what? It's the 4th of July. Let's talk about Governor Boggs.

Gerrit Okay, well, I mean, we were gonna do apostles and apostates. What better apostate to start with than Governor Boggs?

Richard I don't remember him being an apostle.

Gerrit Yeah, well, he wasn't an apostle. That's true. And although I'm sure that he's been baptized for the dead, probably 700 times. Whenever there's someone famous from Latter-day Saint history, especially if they're an antagonist, it's like people can't, they can't find ways to baptize them quick enough. Like it's their favorite thing to do. Like, oh really? Well, we actually baptized Governor Boggs, as if it like forces Governor Boggs on the other side that now he's a member, whether he likes it or not.

Richard He's like, your great grandparents haven't had time, but Governor Boggs, got him.

Gerrit No, seriously, like your own grandfather, we're going to get to him. But Governor Boggs, we've got him. Governor Boggs is in the bag. So, this is an interesting piece of folklore. You already noticed the fact that I say folklore that, you know, so I can tell you, there is no verified Joseph Smith prophecy that there was going to be a church spire that would cast a shadow on Boggs' grave. It's an interesting thing how things like that develop, right? I mean, because when exactly would Joseph Smith have said that, right? I mean, well, Joseph Smith actually has a really rough time with Boggs. Yeah, you don't say. And not just because- Boggs becomes a hiss and a byword among Latter-day Saints.

Gerrit It's almost as if he ordered the state militia to exterminate 15,000 people or drive them from the state if necessary for the public good. Their outrages are beyond all description. Really? They're beyond all description? Like the murdering of a 10-year-old child by the Missouri State Militia along with 25 other people? Yeah, they're beyond all description. How many Missourians were killed? Oh, yeah, there's two Missouri casualties in the Battle of Crooked River when the Caldwell County Militia, which is where the Latter-day Saints were from, in Caldwell County, attacked a mob that had kidnapped Latter-day Saints and burned down multiple farms that they had, thinking that that group was a mob. But in fact, it was actually the actual state militia.

Richard So this reminds me of a T-shirt idea we got from a friend of the show, Damien, and it's Missouri Loves Company, 1838 to 1976. Now why 1838 to 1976, Gerrit?

Gerrit Well, because that's when the Extermination Order was put in force in 1838, and it wasn't until 1976, notice I said 1976, not 1876, that it was finally rescinded. How about that? With a kind of a my bad from Missouri. Did they remunerate the millions of dollars that were stolen property or return it to their original owners? No, but they did say, I'm sorry.

Richard So millions of dollars, even potentially at the time.

Gerrit It was millions of dollars worth of property.

Richard At the time.

Gerrit Yeah.

Richard At the time.

Gerrit Yeah.

Richard And so now.

Gerrit Tens of thousands of acres, improved land, houses, and then all the goods, and then on top of that, people.

Richard So Joseph did have a hard time with Boggs.

Gerrit Kind of a hard time.

Richard Interesting.

Gerrit Kind of a hard time.

Richard Interesting.

Gerrit Well, and the funny part, and there's nothing funny about it, but when when Amanda Barnes Smith was asked in an affidavit to make out all of her losses that she suffered at the hands of the Missourians, Amanda Barnes Smith is the one who is not from Missouri, doesn't live in Missouri, is actually living in Ohio. Joseph Smith receives a revelation in January of 1838 that where the Lord says that all the faithful saints need to leave Kirtland and go to Far West. Well, Amanda Smith is one of the faithful saints. So her and her husband get their affairs in order and they head out to Far West. They are on their way through Missouri to Far West, and they stop for the night, essentially, in Hons Mill.

Richard Oh my gosh.

Gerrit The same night, the same day that the Livingston County militia... Again, we always say mob violence in Missouri. Nope. We say it as if, you know, because a lot of times it is mobs. It is literally the official state militia of Livingston County under orders from the state, officered by state militia troops who come into Hons Mill and they don't attempt to make any arrests. Okay, look, Latter-day Saints commit crimes. I get it. So, you know, you all have a friend who's more than happy to point out to you every single time a Latter-day Saint does something and gets arrested.

Richard Trouble on both sides? Oh, that's what people say.

Gerrit You always have people that will like, you know, everyone has a friend who, you know, whenever any Latter-day Saint's caught embezzling money, like, oh, this guy, one of the members of your church. Yeah, yeah, do you see me pointing out every single time something happens for the members of your church, which is atheism? No, I mean, but anyway, of course, there's the potential that Latter-day Saints are committing crimes. Well, when people commit crimes in America, what we do is we arrest them after there's a warrant for that individual person's arrest. That's not what the Livingston County militia did. They rode into Far West shooting as they rode in. The men in town throw their hands in the air and say, we surrender, we surrender, and they are all shot while they're trying to surrender. And Amanda Barnes Smith's children try to hide, and one of them gets shot and has his hip blown off because, you know, there's a huge threat from a six-year-old child, and her ten-year-old child is shot and wounded, and while he's laying on the ground, the leader of the Livingston County militia comes up to this wounded, writhing in agony child of ten years old and puts a gun to his head and pulls the trigger while saying, nits make lice, if I let him live, he'll just become another expletive Mormon.

Gerrit Well, that's a little dark to start with. So Amanda Smith has her husband murdered, her wounded son executed, and her six-year-old son's hip shot off. She, of course, loses all of her possessions and loses the temporary wagons, horses, everything they had was stolen from them. And in her affidavit that she makes out, she says that my losses are worth more than the entire state of Missouri's worth. It's pretty tough to argue with that. You'll be happy to know that no one was ever even charged for the murder of her son or her husband, let alone convicted. Don't worry, no one's ever convicted. So you don't ever have to worry about that. Is anyone ever convicted for murdering? No, no, no. But no one's ever even charged.

Richard I mean, part of that is because they're acting on official orders, right?

Gerrit Sure.

Richard I mean, and the people that would be charging them are also in the militia that are there with them?

Gerrit The people who would be charging them, like the judge that would be arraigning them is also like, I got the six-year-old! I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're the ones who would have pulled the trigger. So, look, we'll someday, we'll someday do a podcast on the Missouri violence. I was editing quite a bit just now. And it's, yeah, it's not good. I mean, the Latter-day Saints come out of Missouri incredibly. I mean, just, they were treated so violently that it permanently stains the whole psyche of the religion. I mean, everyone coming out of that experiences this horror. And it's part of the reason why when the citizens of Nauvoo, when Joseph flees before going to Carthage, and he goes to Iowa, and the citizens of Nauvoo find out that the governor is marching to Nauvoo with the state militia, it's part of the reason why the residents of Nauvoo freak out and send letters to Joseph telling him to come back.

Gerrit Because the last time the state militia marched on the capital of the Latter Day Saints, people were murdered and everything destroyed. And so to us, it seems like they're overreacting to beg Joseph to come back because they're so afraid of the violence that might happen. But to them, it's literally the last time the state militia marched on where they live. They experienced it. So they're afraid and some of them beg Joseph to come back and he comes back. Now all this goes back to why Boggs is such an issue. Now Boggs was the governor and of course, not only did he use the extermination order, he then conspires to have all Latter-day Saint property confiscated by the state in order to pay for the war that the Latter-day Saints caused. They caused the war by being murdered by the Missouri militia obviously.

Gerrit And so the Latter-day Saint properties are just confiscated without any remuneration. So Boggs is the most hated person in Latter-day Saint history at the time. There's a lot of hated people, I mean a lot of hated people, but Boggs is really, I mean he is the worst in part because he was the governor and because he issued that extermination order. As a side note, I mean I should say when you read Amanda Barnes-Smith's testimony, when you read the horrors that she went through, remember she was in Far West because she followed the prophet because the prophet told her to move, well told all the faithful Latter-day Saints to move to Far West and leave Kirtland and she did, and that's the reason why she was there when the militia came. We all experience difficulties in life.

Gerrit Everybody has unfair and unjust things happen to them. There are people listening to this podcast who have had their children, their spouse, their loved ones taken from them in unfair and unjust ways. Even if it was just disease that crept in unaware, even if it was a car accident or something like that, where they never got to say goodbye, where they didn't know that the end was then, and it's difficult in those moments to not shake your fist at heaven and say, why did you do this to me, God? So I'm well aware that people experience absolutely unfair trials in this world. And you all know as you're listening, you're thinking of the ones that you have experienced or the people that you know have experienced. And sometimes because of those difficulties, we lose our faith.

Gerrit Sometimes the pain is too much. The idea that there is a loving God becomes too, becomes too, you know, oblique an idea. If there really is a loving God, then why is my daughter gone? If there really is a loving God, then where is my son? That kind of a thing. And Amanda Smith experienced these horrors in part, I mean, because she was a Latter-day Saint, they were just murdering Latter-day Saints. But as she gives her affidavit, she also gives her testimony when she gives an autobiographical statement about this. She said, I felt the loss of my husband, but not as I should have he had apostatized. He died in the faith and in the hopes of a glorious resurrection. As for myself, I felt an unshaken confidence in God through it all. I had personally been acquainted with the Prophet Joseph for many years.

Gerrit I had seen his walks and knew him to be a Prophet of God, and that buoyed me up under every trial and privation. I have drank the dregs of the cup of sorrow and affliction, as well as been partakers of the blessings of an all-merciful God. I have drunk from the fountain of life freely. I have seen the Lord's power manifest to a great degree. I have seen the lame leap as a heart, the eyes of the blind open, and as it were the dead raised to life all in my own family. I do say that of all creatures, I have the greatest reason to rejoice and to thank my Heavenly Father, and do thank and praise His Holy Name for His blessings to me. And I do pray that I may ever be faithful unto the end, that I may with my posterity be crowned with eternal lives in the Kingdom of our God, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Now, that's a pretty powerful testimony coming from one of the great, powerful women in the early church, who she came to know that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and once she came to know that he was, external events, even horrific, unfair, terrible ones, were not going to change the fact that she knew by the Holy Spirit that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God.

Gerrit So, sorry for that little bit of a, little side track there, perhaps, Richard, maybe a little, going in another direction for a minute.

Richard Well, no, but I feel like it is one of those things, there are a couple of things that get you especially...

Gerrit You get worked up.

Richard You do get worked up. The violence in Missouri...

Gerrit I had to pause several times. We had to edit out several expletives.

Richard Part of the frustration that you have as you talk about Missouri is number one, the incredible faith that these people had and that they're there because they are following the prophet. The frustration also you have is that when people are saying, well, the Mormons aren't innocent here. They did some things as well. And you're trying to compare the different things.

Gerrit Yeah, the Mormons gave speeches saying, hey, we're not going to allow people to come and kill us anymore. We're going to fight back. Yeah, that's hugely insightful. They did other things like attempting to vote. They had the audacity to say that they wanted to let free black members of the church move to Missouri in contravention to Missouri culture and law. I mean, there was a lot of things they did do.

Richard Well, but when you put it like that, then...

Gerrit Yeah, it's almost like I'm denigrating the Missourians. Now, what sparks the Mormon war in Missouri? And when we do, we'll do a whole thing on this probably never. It'll be season 39.

Richard Well, part of the reason that this one's tough is just, like, it's really difficult to fully describe the horror that goes on here.

Gerrit Yeah, I mean, I'm scratching the surface. We are the tip of the iceberg. But anyway, we'll talk about the fact that what sparks the actual war in Missouri is the Latter Day Saints attempted to vote in an election. And as we all know, hated minority groups are not allowed to vote in elections, apparently, in the early 19th century in the United States. And it's literally a riot is caused by a Missouri politician who wants to prevent the Latter Day Saints from voting because they were going to vote for the other candidate. Now, it's hard to believe that there was a time in American history when people would feel so strongly about politics that they would hate somebody simply because they were going to vote for the other side. But imagine a world, imagine a world where politics matters so much to people that you would hate someone over who they voted for. Well, that's what it was like in 19th century Missouri.

Richard So this leads us to then the Boggs prophecy that you're about to crush the dreams of Jacob and all of those in the greater Napa Valley.

Gerrit Because they all want to believe that?

Richard They want to believe that a...

Gerrit Well, so let me give just a little bit more context. It's going to be most of this episode. We're not talking about apostles.

Richard Well, you know what? But at the end though, you're going to read Joseph's Charge potentially, and then it will lead into it?

Gerrit We're going to... Look, listen Rex's elders quorum president. We're not going to get there. You're just going to have to deal with this for now.

Richard Well, so I will say in defense of Rex's elders quorum president, you are going to talk about things relating to history. You're just not going to talk about the topic that you said that you're going to say.

Gerrit Yeah, well, which is why I don't think we should really start off the episode saying, hey, we're going to talk about this. It really is setting us up.

Richard It's actually my favorite thing that we do, saying that we're going to do something and then never get to it.

Gerrit You know what? We're going to do this, and then we just don't do it at all. I feel like we're liars. I feel like we are going to have some repenting to do. Anyway, so why does this become a bigger issue, aside from just the extermination order, the Boggs thing? It's because in 1842, so look, to put it in context, the Mormon War in Missouri and the extermination order is in 1838. Four years later, the Latter-day Saints are living in Nauvoo, and someone attempts to assassinate former Governor Lilburn Boggs. He's sitting in his office, and someone shoots a... Essentially, it's a pistol, but it's one that is a... It's essentially like a... It's loaded with buckshot. Through the window of his office, it hits him, wounds him pretty severely in his neck and in his head.

Gerrit And in fact, some of the early reports were that he was killed, that he was dead. Well, the assailant runs off, and now look, Boggs was then running for office, not for governorship, but for a state assembly office, and was a very highly contested election. And this is frontier Missouri. And you also have to remember that apparently in Missouri, murdering people is not that big a crime. Right? Well, so Boggs will almost immediately say, you know who did this, it must have been Orrin Porter Rockwell. Right. Porter Rockwell must have done it. And if he did it, then that means that Joseph ordered him to do it. So they're up there in Nauvoo, Joseph's sitting around like, hey, we got to get this temple up. I'm going to try to get the endowment out. You know what we really need to do is we need to murder, we need to try to murder Lilburn Boggs.

Gerrit And so why that matters is that at the same time, John C. Bennett, speaking of apostates, he's not quite an apostle, though, but he is one of, because we're going to do major apostates too, right? Not just apostles.

Richard Oh my gosh. Yeah. The people cry out. They want all the apostates. They want everyone.

Gerrit We've done a little bit. We've done Hurlbut a little bit.

Richard Yeah.

Gerrit Yeah. We'll do them again, though.

Richard Okay.

Gerrit Yeah, because we hate.

Richard Okay.

Gerrit Yeah, because we hate.

Richard More detail.

Gerrit Well, we hate Hurlbut so much.

Richard I visited his grave. You have as well.

Gerrit Yes.

Richard Is that outside of Toledo? Is that where it is?

Gerrit Yes.

Richard Is that outside of Toledo? Is that where it is?

Gerrit Gibsonburg, Ohio.

Richard Oh, this time of year? Beautiful.

Gerrit Oh, yeah. There's a pizza place there.

Richard There is, actually.

Gerrit Which is literally the only place to eat.

Richard It's the first place I've seen fireflies, actually, on the way to his grave. It was a magical event.

Gerrit So it was a magical time going to the grave of this twice excommunicated fornicator who then lied about Joseph Smith.

Richard And threatened to murder him.

Gerrit Well, not just threatened, was actually convicted of it.

Richard Convicted of threatening him?

Gerrit Of threatening to- Wash his hands in the blood of Joseph Smith? To wash his hands and to wound, beat or kill Joseph Smith.

Richard This court case did not take place in Missouri, did it?

Gerrit No, it took place in Ohio. Because no court cases take place in Missouri. Because for them to take place in Missouri, someone would have to be charged for something against the Mormons. Look, prior to the extermination order, prior to the extermination order, there is a Latter-day Saint settlement in Carroll County, Missouri called DeWitt. There, the surrounding residents decided that they wanted the Mormons out before the extermination order.

Richard That seemed to bring people together, didn't it?

Gerrit You know what? There's nothing that brings people together like hot apple pie, a good Super Bowl.

Richard Driving the Mormons out of your city, county or state.

Gerrit Driving the Mormons out of your state will bring people together. It's a unifying thing. I mean, frankly, even today, in mixed political company, you're there with a raging liberal or some kind of QAnon conservative, and you say, you know who I hate? Mormons. And everyone is like, oh, I'm there with you. Yeah.

Richard It turns into like a Coke commercial in the 80s. I want to teach the world to sing.

Gerrit In perfect harmony. What do you all agree on? We agree we hate Mormons. What's funny is when that study just came out showing how despised Latter-day Saints are, how many people got online, especially critics of the church, and said, see, see how much people hate you? And it's like, we've been saying for 200 years how much people hate us. We know people hate us. You know what the weird part about that was though? Do you know the religion that had the least contempt for every other religion?

Richard Mormons. Latter-day Saints.

Gerrit Yeah. So, yeah, we're horrible, horrible, horrible people taught to hate everyone else, except when we're surveyed and we say, oh no, we like those people. When those same people are surveyed. So we're essentially like the guy that everyone hates in the friend group, but that guy doesn't seem to know that everyone hates him. And so everyone's always talking bad about him.

Richard Oh yeah, Methodists are great.

Gerrit Yeah, Baptists, oh man, I think Baptists have such a great testimony of Jesus. Talk to a Baptist like Mormons, they don't even believe in Jesus. They believe in Satan and Jesus are brothers and that all kinds of, they're still practicing polygamy. I don't care what they say. It is kind of a funny thing. Anyway, I think I digress.

Richard So we got to get back to DeWitt to get back to Boggs.

Gerrit This is going to be a four-parter. I need to know the name of Rex's elders quorum president, just so we can apologize directly to him.

Richard Well, it's like Rachel's mom. There's a certain almost level of, I don't know, it's almost better to not know.

Gerrit We had our 4th of July firework extravaganza last night. For those of you who don't think I celebrate the 4th of July. I do, my dad loved the 4th of July. We love it. I did say in the prayer, and I thought I was getting away with it, and I did not. In the prayer I said, we're thankful for the freedoms that we are able to enjoy in this country now. That's good.

Richard It's subtle, yeah.

Gerrit Is it not true? Well, my neighbor, Brady, came up to me after the prayer and he said, the ones we enjoy now, huh? I know what you mean. So, look, I'm not going to say that in 1844, when they're murdering Joseph and Hyrum and then driving us out of the country, that things were going great in America. I don't know how to say that. I still love America. I still love the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. I just don't love it when people murder me. You have this kind of a... There's a wall you run into.

Richard That's true. But we learned from you, though, that we need to give people the opportunity to turn the other cheek.

Gerrit You gotta punch them in the face.

Richard If you don't punch them in the face, they'll never have the opportunity to turn the other cheek.

Gerrit We were given many opportunities.

Richard Do it.

Gerrit Well, so the residents of Carroll County, they are so angry that the Latter-day Saints are living in their county that they begin shooting into the town and setting things on fire and just randomly, so you're walking around town and do it and a bullet just flies past you. Yeah, because they're trying to use terror tactics to drive the Latter-day Saints out. And then eventually they get a cannon and roll a cannon onto the hill outside of the town and say, we're gonna start bombarding the town. Well, the governor, this is before the extermination order, sends the state militia there. The state militia.

Richard To get rid of the cannon, to put down the rebellion.

Gerrit Well, to try to stop the violence that's going on. Of course. The general who goes, he's actually a good guy. He goes and he tries to order his men to disperse the mob surrounding DeWitt. His men refuse the order, take their arms, and go join the mob surrounding DeWitt. So the general tries to talk to the mobbers in Carroll County. He's like, what did the Mormons do? What can we do to solve this? He writes back to Governor Boggs and he's like, the Carroll County mob say the Mormons haven't done anything. They just don't want them living here. So essentially, I mean, what are the Mormons supposed to do with that? I mean, frankly, it places the Mormons in the position that many of the Native Americans were in. Well, what's the real problem here between the United States and the Native Americans living here? The main problem is you're living there.

Gerrit We have to live somewhere, I know, but not there, because there's gold there now. And so you're going to have to move. Trail of Tears, essentially. Anyway, so the Latter-day Saints are expelled from that. So, I mean, how do you justify that? How do you justify the expulsion from DeWitt, all these other things? So there's a lot of things we could talk about even prior to the extermination order. But this attempted assassination of Boggs, Boggs will immediately claim that Porter Rock was the one who tried to kill him. And at the same time, John C. Bennett, this just, I mean, the only person I hate more than Philastus Hurlbut, he was in the First Presidency and he began a system of using his religious position to fornicate with people and all the while claiming that it wasn't really a sin because they were actually spiritually connected in what he called spiritual life system.

Gerrit And when it comes to light, he's immediately excommunicated. He publicly says, yeah, Joseph never taught me this. I was using my position in order to gratify my lust, that kind of stuff. But then he leaves town and decides, well, I'm going to make a living out of this. And he goes on the speaking circuit talking about how he knew all the insides of Mormonism. And one of the things he's going to claim is that there's a huge conversation between him and Joseph about how Joseph sent Porter Rockwell to go kill, to go kill Lilburn Boggs. So you have Boggs alleging this without any evidence. And then you have Bennett seemingly cooperating the evidence from a position of power. Now he's been excommunicated, but now he's saying like, oh yeah, yeah, when I was there, yeah, he like totally said that he was going to have Boggs killed.

Gerrit And so on the strength of that, actually, Porter Rockwell is eventually going to be arrested. And they attempt to arrest Joseph Smith. They attempt to extradite him. And Joseph actually goes into hiding. In fact, Doctrine and Coven section 128 is written while Joseph is in hiding because there are Missourians who are coming across the border into Illinois trying to kidnap him essentially to take him down to Missouri to be tried as an accessory to the attempted murder of Lilburn Boggs. And so Boggs is going to come up a lot for the remainder of Joseph's life by these attempts from Missouri to extradite him. Now eventually, the state of Illinois will refuse the extradition. At one point, there will be some Missourians that will come into Illinois who try to kidnap, well, they try to quote unquote arrest Joseph and then ignore any of the local officers saying that they have a writ of habeas corpus.

Gerrit They try to take him out of the state, but they're stopped by Latter-day Saints, essentially, who stop them. And Joseph is going to live under this threat of Missourians coming to get him. What I think part of the problem with Missouri is it's not just the attempted shooting of Boggs with Porter Rockwell. The other problem is the Saints have started to become very, very, very public about all the horrors that took place in Missouri. So how do you think that makes Missouri look? I mean, there are newspapers that are not pro-Mormon newspapers that are hearing some of the affidavits that the Latter Day Saints are sending to Congress and going, gee, like, come on, guys. You know what I mean? In fact, Eber Howe, Eber Howe of Mormonism unveiled, I wrote the first anti-Mormon book, we did everything we could to drive the Latter Day Saints out of Ohio fame.

Gerrit Eber Howe of that guy, Eber Howe. Even he, when he hears about the violence in Missouri, is like, okay, I mean, kill people, you know. Sure, terrorize them and whip up mob violence against them, but don't just like exterminate them.

Richard What was Porter Rockwell's comment to this claim that he attempted?

Gerrit Well, so we have all kinds of things that, you know, after the fact, both, you know, Joseph's going to say, it couldn't have been Porter Rockwell because it wouldn't have been just wounded. But so there's these attempts. Now, the other thing that Bennett does is Bennett will go to Carthage and get several, have several people swear out affidavits that yeah, oh yeah, he did tell me that he was going to, Rockwell was going to go kill Joseph Smith. So let me read to you. I know that you all wanted this. So I'm going to read to you from John C. Bennett's book, History of the Saints. Is that, do the people cry out?

Richard Yeah, that's what everyone wants.

Gerrit Okay. Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet in a public congregation in the city of Nauvoo in the year 1841 prophesied. So we're talking about prophecy, right? That Lilburn W Boggs, ex-governor of Missouri, should die by violent hands within a year. Okay. Well, as someone who is, someone who's read every thing that Joseph wrote and said that we have a record of, I don't have a record of that. It's interesting, though, that Bennett would say something like that. Now, of course, Bennett would have been in Nauvoo in 1841 and was still a member of the church then. So why didn't you leave in 1841 when you heard him say he was going to have Boggs killed?

Richard Because he hated Boggs then.

Gerrit I see, I see. Yeah, so what an honorable man. Anyway, Mr. CS. Hamilton of Carthage, Illinois, stated in my presence and in the presence of several other gentlemen at the Tavern House of Mr. Robertson in Warsaw, Illinois on Sunday the 10th of July, 1842, that he was present and heard Smith make that prophecy. I, likewise, was present and heard it. Smith was speaking of the Missouri difficulties at the time and said that the exterminator should be exterminated and that the destroying angel should do it by the right hand of his power. I say it, he said, in the name of the Lord God. Again, we don't have record of that, but hey, how about that? In the spring of the year 1842, Smith offered a reward of $500 to any man who would secretly assassinate Governor Boggs. Now, one of the problems with secretly assassinating someone is that when you publicly offer a reward, it becomes hard to have a secret assassination since you're publicly offering a reward. But, you know, Bennett was never very long on having logical arguments.

Gerrit I heard the offer made at a meeting of the daughter of Zion. So now he's invented an organization in Nauvoo called the Daughter of Zion. You've heard a lot about the Daughter of Zion, correct?

Richard Oh, absolutely.

Gerrit Yeah, they're everywhere. I mean, I personally am one of the vice presidents of the Daughter of Zion clubs. Yeah, it's weird that I'd be called the Daughter of Zion, but in the Nauvoo Lodge, at which meeting several members of the destroying angel, the Destructives. Kind of sounds like it's a Marvel universe here, right? Oh yeah, he's one of the Destructives. As a member of the First Presidency, I had a right to be present at all the meetings of the various departments of the church and witness their operations, although I wasn't moral enough to leave the church. Oh, that wasn't in there. What you should read into that is, yeah, I was present for all of these things, but still didn't leave until I was excommunicated a year and a half later for committing adultery. In this matter, I advised the Prophet to desist and abandon his purposes in relation to Governor Boggs. His reply was, The destroying angel will do the work when God speaks, his voice must be obeyed.

Gerrit He goes on to say, him and a couple other people, that Mr. Taylor, John Taylor, an English immigrant told him that he heard Smith make the same offer, $500 for any man who would kill Governor Boggs. Oh, this isn't John Taylor. This is a Mr. Taylor. Again, no name. Why would you have a name? And that he, Taylor, had in consequence, thereof, apostatized from the Mormon faith and written home to his friends in Europe, detailing the horrible facts. That was in the early part of the spring of 1842. Of course, Bennett still hasn't apostatized yet because, you know.

Richard Do we have the record of Taylor's?

Gerrit No, we don't. Why would he have record of any of these things? Because he's making them up, just like the destructives. Mr. Orrin Porter Rockwell left Nauvoo one to two months prior to the attempted assassination of Governor Boggs and returned the day before the report reached there. Colonel Francis Higbee told me in Carthage, in the presence of General George Robinson, all of these are people who have apostatized, by the way. So Higbee apostatized, George Robinson apostatized, that Professor Orson Pratt and his wife Sarah M.

Richard Pratt told him... Did Professor Orson Pratt teach at the University of Utah?

Gerrit No, but he was teaching at the University of Nauvoo.

Richard There you go. How about that? What did he teach?

Gerrit Well, he taught all kinds of things. He was a jack of all trades. Astronomy.

Richard Business development, sales?

Gerrit Well, he did not teach the master's program for entrepreneurship, no. That was later, though.

Richard You know, tip of the cap to Professor Pratt.

Gerrit This is the same Apostle Orson Pratt, because he's going to actually apostatize over the John C. Bennett stuff, which is another story. Again, we're talking about apostles and apostates. We're going to spend more time on that in the future.

Richard We haven't mentioned that before.

Gerrit We're just never going to mention it again. Anyway, Sarah Pratt told him that Orrin Porter Rockwell, in a conversation with them at Mr. Pratt's residence in Nauvoo, stated that he, Rockwell, had been in Governor Boggs' neighborhood in Missouri and had the honor of standing in the corner of the Temple Lot in Independence. Mrs. Pratt told me the same before I left Nauvoo, and that he, Rockwell, stated that he came down the Missouri River in the Mississippi, thence down to St. Louis, Missouri, thence to Nauvoo, Illinois. Some weeks after Rockwell left Nauvoo, I asked Smith where he was gone. Gone, said he. Gone to fulfill the prophecy, he said with a significant nod. Bennett's very, he really should write books.

Richard Yeah, this is really well, this is exciting.

Gerrit Yeah, like, I can't wait to find out what the destructives do next. To fulfill his prediction in relation to the violent death of Governor Boggs, soon after Rockwell's return, Smith said to me, speaking of Governor Boggs, the destroying angel has done the work as I predicted, but Rockwell was not the man who shot the angel. The angel did it. Rockwell is one of the daughter of Zion, Danite, but I do not think he belongs to the destroying angel, which is another group. There's a group called the daughter of Zion. There's another group called the destroying angel and another called the destructives.

Richard My goodness.

Gerrit There's a lot.

Richard Again, it's like a bunch of street tufts, gangs in Nauvoo everywhere with really menacing names like daughter of Zion.

Gerrit Yeah, daughter of Zion will strike the fear into everybody. Anyway, he then has a whole bunch of affidavits that are filled out in front of Samuel Marshall, Justice of the Peace of Carthage. Those of you who are well aware of Carthage know that it doesn't have a positive history with the Latter-day Saints. Surprisingly, people in Carthage hate Nauvoo, almost as if they were the largest town in the county before the Saints moved to Nauvoo, and that people were talking about moving the county seat from Carthage to the actual place that people lived, which is Nauvoo. Here's the affidavit that John C. Bennett swore out in relation to this. This is probably terribly boring.

Richard No, no. Are you kidding me?

Gerrit Because of the destructives?

Richard The destructives, the daughter of Zion.

Gerrit Oh, the daughter of Zion. Why don't we rename this podcast the daughter of Zion?

Richard Yeah, and we just go on and troll antis.

Gerrit You know what? Yeah, well, that would be great, because Willard Richards clearly was one of the daughters of Zion. We had about a thousand shots at our firework display last night, our neighborhood firework display, and I said we should probably rename the firework display to the Willard Richards, because there were a thousand shots, because, you know, he's got 90 guns in Carthage, and he's shooting the walls, and he's shooting people, and what other reason could there be for him not having his coat off? Obviously, because from now on, so the thing is, every time I see someone wearing a suit coat at church, even when it's hot outside, I'm like, how many guns has that guy got? 30, 40 guns? He's obviously here to kill the prophet, because that's why he would have the guns on him. Anyway, I leave one horrible, terrible attempt at history that no one accepts in that fake documentary to go to another horrible attempt at trying to relate something from the past, John C.

Gerrit Bennett's affidavit that he gives in Carthage. But you know, it is pretty lengthy affidavit, and we have quite a few other things we want to do there. So I think in true, true crime fashion, you know, that we want to leave people hanging. I'm especially thinking of Rex's elders quorum president right now. But he's thinking, no, no, I waited through all of this so that I could get the answers right now when I wanted them.

Richard Well, but so we had an emailer several months ago talk about, you answer the questions I never knew I had. This podcast is a perfect, this episode is a perfect example.

Gerrit We're actually on a topic that no one even asked.

Richard Well, right. So, hey, so answer a question I didn't know I had and then not just that, but tease it into two episodes.

Gerrit Well, the problem is there's more than just one John C. Bennett affidavit. I mean, he has multiple affidavit or something. I'm not sure what we want to call them, but the plural of that. And I want to be able to share them. I am going to answer the question about Governor Boggs. We're going to do that, maybe. You know what? Are we even going to do it?

Richard We're not. Join us next week for Apostles and Apostates, part two.

Gerrit Should we even call this one Apostles and Apostates?

Richard We should not.

Gerrit So we're going to go back and change the title of this, even though we said in the beginning we were going to talk about it.

Richard Yeah. Well, we're going to leave that in, but then just never get to it.

Gerrit Right. So I, I honestly feel like we should rename or at least tagline the podcast, the Standard of Truth. We're never going to get to it. I think that that would be both a pre, it would be appreciated by both our friends and our enemies. Of which they're our legion. You don't get to read all of the hate mail that, that I get to read. Richard censors some of it for me. And sometimes when I read it, it's just, you know, it's, hey, Gerniff, you know, expletive, expletive, expletive. You know, you're both fat. I really do think Lord Richard's had that many guns in Carthage. I mean, so anyway, we are going to finish this topic, talking about this supposed prophecy and its supposed fulfillment or lack thereof in the fact that the church sold this next week. And we're also going to get into some other apostasy and apostolic things since we didn't do as good a job this time. But look, John C.

Gerrit Bennett is, he is clearly a major apostate. And a lot of the negative things that you hear about Joseph Smith and the church from that time period all come from that scoundrel. So thank you so much for joining us.

Intro Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth Podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat. If you know anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. And for more resources, visit standardoftruth.com. Until next time.

Getting "Bogged" Down By Alleged Prophecy Part 1

Chapters

Transcript

Quote board

Source shelf

Lilburn W. Boggs, extermination order, 1838

Missouri's rescission of the extermination order, 1976

Revelation of January 1838 directing the faithful Saints to leave Kirtland for Far West

Amanda Barnes Smith, affidavit of losses suffered in Missouri

Amanda Barnes Smith, autobiographical statement

Recent study on how other religious groups view Latter-day Saints (not named on air)

Doctrine and Covenants 128

Eber D. Howe, Mormonism Unvailed

John C. Bennett, History of the Saints

John C. Bennett, History of the Saints, on C. S. Hamilton of Carthage

John C. Bennett, History of the Saints, on the Daughter of Zion and the destroying angel

John C. Bennett, History of the Saints, on Porter Rockwell's travels

John C. Bennett, History of the Saints, Sarah Pratt's account

John C. Bennett's affidavits sworn before Samuel Marshall, Justice of the Peace of Carthage

A recent documentary claiming Willard Richards was armed at Carthage (title not named on air)

Episode quiz

Where did Jacob serve his mission?

Fun with Numbers

From 1838 to 1976

Money said on air

Putting numbers to words

What this episode talks about more than usual

Names said most

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Claim check

Take it to class

Banter bin

The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

In General Conference

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