John Johnson: Died 30 July 1843, in Kirtland, Lake County, Ohio. (1)
[Joseph SMith] Nauvoo, Illinois. Joseph Smith felt very ill and so he called for his brother Hyrum Smith, William Law, and Willard Richards to lay on hands to bless him. (2)
[Joseph Smith Diary] Sunday, July 30th Joseph sick. Lungs oppressed &c., over heated preaching one week before. J[ohn] Taylor preached A.M. After preaching President Marks called a special Conference to appoint Recorders for the baptism of the dead, Elder Sloan having started for Ireland. Willard Richards was appointed gen[eral] Church Recorder and Joseph M. Cole of the 4th ward and Geo[rge] Walker and Johnathan H. Hale and J. A. W. Andrews recorders for the baptisms of the dead.
P.M. the clerks met to organize and prepare for recording baptisms. Joseph called Hyrum Smith, W[illia]m Law, and W[illard] Richards to lay on hands and pray for him. (3)
Willard Richards: Appointed General Church Recorder 30 July 1843. (1)
-- Jul 31, 1843
[Apostle Wilford Woodruff Journal] 31st Our Quorum assembled together & walked over Pittsburgh. We first visited Mr Curlings Glass works & saw them to work through each branch of it. We saw them make pressed stamped & ground or cut & plain tumblers & large jars &c.
We next went onto the bluff above the city & had a view of the New Basin that is to contain the water to be forced into it from the Alleghaney River to water the city. From this place we had a fair view of the City below & it truly sends forth its Colums of smoke & blackness that arises from the Cole fires that propels the numerous engines as the main spring of all the founderies manufacturies & works of the valey of the City of Pittsburgh.
We then desended the hill & visited the city water works or resurvoy. The building is 150 feet long 110 feet wide containing two engines of 200 Horse power each to drive a force pump to force the water from the Alleganey River into the bason on the bluff to water the city as above spoken of. The whole cost of this building resurvoy & Bason was $200,000. The building is after the Roman order. The whole Archatecture design, & making & finishing the building was executed by Elder Charles Beck a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
We visited Miltonbergers Iron works through each branch of it. We saw the keel laid for an Iron steem Ship of war 140 feet keel for Lake Erie. Br G. A. Smith & myself spent the night with Elder Beck. (4)
[Joseph Smith] Joseph's health improves, and he sells 100 acres of prairie land. (5)
[Joseph Smith Diary] Monday, July 31 st Wilson Law and E[benezer] Robinson started for Chicago with W[illia]m Marks. Went on the Prairie. Newell Nurse called to get Joel Bullard confined. He is threatening, drinking, and probably delirious at first. (3)
-- Jul 31, 1843, Monday
[William Clayton Writings] It was unusual for Clayton actually to receive cash /for the sale of lots/, and this probably accounts for the satisfaction he seemed to feel when he wrote in his journal on July 31, 1843, that he sold a hundred acres to Benjamin Meginess for $1,000 and that the purchaser had agreed to pay $800 cash and give a $200 note. (6)
-- During 1843, July to November
[Wilford Woodruff] Serves a mission in the eastern United States, seeking funds to help complete the construction of the Nauvoo Temple. (7)
-- During Jul 1843
[Polygamy] Amasa M. Lyman polygamous marriage to Diontha Walker (8)
[Polygamy] Marriage - Joseph to Desdemona Fullmer, age 32 ,. SOURCE: Affidavit, Joseph F. Smith Affidavit Books, 1:32, 4:32; Bachman, "A Study of the Mormon Practice of Plural Marriage," #58; Historical Record 6:225. (9)
[Polygamy] Joseph Smith marries Desdemona Fullmer (Age 32): As a thirteen-year-old girl, Desdemona Fullmer remembers studying various churches and praying to know which one to join. On one occasion as she prayed she fell to the ground unconscious. For several hours she laid there, as if dead. She wrote, Their was a voice said to me stop yet a little longer. their is something better for you yet...so I stopt till I heard the laterday santes preach the gosple I joined them soon after.
Some ten years later, in 1835, the Fullmer family obtained a Book of Mormon. They spent time reading it aloud together. Desdemonas brother, Almon remembers, it provoked mirth [amusement] since it so often came to pass. It riveted, however, a conviction of its truth upon our minds. Desdemona was baptized a year later and soon gathered with the church in Kirtland and later in Missouri.
In Missouri, Desdemona witnessed many of the persecutions suffered by church members. In spring of 1839 a mob came to the Fullmer home and demanded that they leave. Desdemona bravely replied, we have no teem or waggon. we may as well dye in the house as a few roods from it. so they said hell let us go. Soon, however, the Fullmers were forced to leave for Illinois.
According to the Nauvoo 4th Ward records, in the spring of 1842, Desdemona was living in Joseph Smiths home. She probably knew Emily and Eliza Partridge and Elvira Cowles who were also living there at the time. Some time before the spring of 1843, Desdemona moved out of the Smith home.
Desdemona married Joseph Smith in July of 1843. As Joseph continued to secretly accumulate wives, his first wife, Emma, struggled with polygamy. Perhaps Desdemona experienced, or maybe only feared, the anguish of Emma discovering her and Josephs relationship. She recalls the resultant anxiety, In the rise of poligamy i was warned in a dream Amy [Emma] Smith was going to poisen me. Desdemona was not poisoned and remained Josephs wife until he was killed in June of 1844. In 1846, before leaving for Utah, Desdemona had her sealing to Joseph re-performed in the Nauvoo temple.
Desdemona would marry twice more in her life, but neither marriage endured. When Desdemona was in her late fifties, she wrote a short autobiography and delivered it to the Church Historians office where it could be preserved. In it, she wrote, I want to write a short history of my life the more particuler part that I think will do the youth som godde [good] and those that come into this church not having the same experience that I have had. Desdemona died in 1886 when she was seventy-six and was laid to rest in Salt Lake City as Desdemona Fullmer Smith. (10)
Footnotes:
1 - Cook, Lyndon W., The Revelations of the Prophet Joseph Smith: A Historical and Biographical Commentary of the Doctrine and Covenants, Seventy's Mission Bookstore, Provo UT, 1985
2 - Joseph Smith Resource Center: Daily Events in the Life of Joseph Smith, http://josephsmith.net/josephsmith/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=e581001cfb340010VgnVCM1000001f5e340aRCRDlocale=0
3 - Faulring, Scott (ed.), An American Prophet's Record: The Diaries and Journals of Joseph Smith: Joseph Smith Diary, 1843-44
4 - Wilford Woodruff's Journal: 1833-1898 Typescript, Volumes 1-9, Edited by Scott G. Kenney, Signature Books 1993
5 - Conklin, Christopher J., Joseph Smith Chronology
6 - Fillerup, Robert C., compiler; William Clayton Nauvoo Diaries and Personal Writings, A chronological compilation of the personal writings of William Clayton while he was a resident of Nauvoo, Illinois. http://www.boap.org/LDS/Early-Saints/clayton-diaries
7 - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Wilford Woodruff, Salt Lake City, Utah
8 - Smith, George D (Spring 1994), "Nauvoo Roots of Mormon Polygamy, 1841-46: A Preliminary Demographic Report", Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 27
9 - Joseph Smith Polygamy Timeline, http://www.i4m.com/think/polygamy/JS_Polygamy_Timeline.htm
10 - Remembering the Wives of Joseph Smith, http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/
LDS History Timeline
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