Today in Mormon History - Sep 21

[h...@mail2.bigplanet.com]

On this day in Mormon History
http://TodayInMormonHistory.com/

-- 200 years ago today - Sep 21, 1823 --

Joseph prays for forgiveness for his "foolish errors" and "weaknesses of youth," and is visited three times during the night by an angel named Moroni. Moroni tells him about a hidden book and quotes scriptures from the books of Acts, Joel, Isaiah, and Malachi. Moroni's quotation of Malachi is recorded as D&C 2. (According to Joseph's neighbors' later testimony, Joseph's "weaknesses of youth" consisted of fighting and drinking) (1)
----------------------

-- 200 years ago today - 21-Sep 22, 1823 --

During late night and early morning hours, Joseph Jr. has a vision of an "angel" or "spirit," who appears three times and tells him about the plates buried in a nearby hill. Lucy Mack Smith seems to separate Joseph's nocturnal angelic visitations from his discovery of the plates by about two months, dating the angelic visitations to harvest time in July 1823 and the visit to the hill on 22 September 1823. This gap conflicts with Joseph's own accounts which, when the 1832 account is corrected, consistently place the angel's visits on the evening of 21-22 September 1823 and the discovery of the plates on the day following. (2)
----------------------

-- 200 years ago today - Sep 21, 1823 --

Joseph Smith Senior tells Willard Chase (a neighbor and friend to the Smiths) that a spirit appeared to Joseph Smith on 21 September, 1823 and told him of gold plates to be retrieved on 22 September. The spirit instructed him to dress in black clothes, ride a black horse with a switch tail, demand the book in a certain name and, after getting it, take it away without laying it down. Joseph complied and found the box, opened the cover, removed the plates, but laid them down to put the cover back on the box. The plates disappeared and returned to the box. Smith tried to re-take the plates, but he saw something like a toad which soon assumed the appearance of a man and struck him [Smith] on the side of his head. It struck him again when he tried to take the plates again. The spirit told Smith he could not have them, as he had not obeyed the orders, and was instructed to return in one year with his oldest brother (Alvin) (3)
----------------------

-- 180 years ago today - Sep 21, 1843 --

William Clayton writes in his journal: "This A.M. he [Joseph Smith] came to talk with Lydia but she won't yet consent. She wants to tarry with her sisters." Lydia Moon, sister of two of Clayton's wives, had agreed to become a plural wife to Clayton but a week ago Joseph Smith informed Clayton that "the Lord had revealed to him that a man could only take 2 of a family except by express revelation . . . He finally asked if I would not give L[ydia] to him. I said I would so far as I had anything to do in it. He requested me to talk to her."
----------------------

-- 125 years ago today - Wednesday, Sep 21, 1898 --
[Apostle John Henry Smith]
The Republicans held their primarys tonight to elect candidates to the Precinct and county Conventions. I was elected to both.

Political matters are running high. (4)
----------------------

-- 50 years ago today - Sep 21, 1973-Friday --
[Leonard Arrington]
Brother Eldred G. Smith has had difficulty accepting his position. This goes back to the first talk he gave in conference in which he said "I deserved it, I grew up under it, and I should have had a position, and I am now glad that the brethren recognize this is the case." This is the way his mother brought him up-that he was to take over from his father-that he would take over his father's office and his father's position and so on, but when they eliminated the Quorum of Patriarchs and took that out from under his control and when they took him out of the office he became concerned and has been embittered ever since. Moreover he never says much about the patriarchs and their function. Brother Haycock thought that the talk he [Eldred G. Smith] gave in Munich [Germany] was the best talk he had ever given in a conference. Brother Haycock said that the person within his experience who had had the most difficulty to fitting into the pattern with the General Authorities was S. Dilworth Young. Many of the early talks that he gave in conference-very few of them got into the printed version in the Improvement Era because of the content and so on. ...

President Lee asked Brother Olson about the Wilford Wood materials. A sister or close relative of his had gone to President Lee and emphasized how important it was that the Church acquire this material because there were materials that could damage the Church if they got into the hands of enemies of the Church. President Lee had asked her to work out an arrangement to give them to the Church and she had tentatively assented but then she backed out after she had thought it over. Earl said that we had microfilmed what she had. President Lee seems to be interested in all of these acquisitions. He talked a little about the George Albert Smith papers and the unfortunate (to the family) manner in which one of the daughters [Emily Smith Stewert] of George Albert Smith had sold the papers to the University of Utah for something like $25,000. He said the same thing nearly occurred with the papers of President McKay. He thought it was important to get the Church's oar in before the papers were dispersed, and so he mentioned to the family the day after President McKay died the importance of turning the papers over to the Church. The family did turn over much. Some other papers were taken by the family to Huntsville [Utah] and they are there in the basement of the McKay home. They could very easily be stolen or tampered with or burned or flooded. President McKay's son [David Lawrence McKay] talked to Lauritz [Petersen] about them and Lauritz said, "Wait until he comes back from his mission," so we must take that up with him when he returns. President Lee thinks he will turn over the entire load to us. At one stage [President McKay's secretary] Clare Middlemiss thought that these scrapbooks and histories and diaries belonged to her because she compiled them. Earl said, "Is that proper that when a person does something on Church time, using Church facilities, Church money in the office as a part of her job, does she or he own them?" President Lee said he thought that Clare Middlemiss had a less intense interest in these things than she had once had. We have now got to find out how we can get access to these papers so that they can be used by the writers of our sesquicentennial and one-volume histories. (5)
----------------------

-- 40 years ago today - Sep 21, 1983 --

A U.S. postage stamp honors Philo T. Farnsworth for the "First Television Camera." His electronic television transmission occurred in San Francisco in 1927. (6)
----------------------

-- 25 years ago today - Sep 21, 1998 --

Donny and Marie Osmond make their return to television as hosts of a talk show called The Donny and Marie Show. They had starred in a one-hour variety show from 1976 to 1979.
----------------------


1 - Conkling, Christopher J., Joseph Smith Chronology
2 - Vogel, Dan, Early Mormon Documents, Appendix B: Chronology, 1771-1831, http://amzn.to/T5nY8w
3 - Willard Chase Testimony; Palmyra Magic Timeline, http://www.exploringmormonism.com/palmyra-magic-timeline/
4 - Jean Bickmore White (editor), Church, State, and Politics: The Diaries of John Henry Smith, Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, Salt Lake City, 1990, http://bit.ly/johnhenrysmith
5 - Confessions of a Mormon historian : the diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997, Gary James Bergera, editor, Signature Books, 2018
6 - The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database ( http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase )]