"Has the Lord turned bankrupt?" The attempted sale of the Nauvoo Temple, 1846-1850

66 Brigham Young and the Council to the Trustees, Journal History, 13 April 1847. 67 Brigham Young to the Nauvoo Trustees, 4 November 1847. Journal History. See also Minutes of Trustees Meeting, 3 November 1847. Brigham Young Papers.

68 Almon W. Babbitt to Brigham Young, 23 March 1848. Brigham Young Papers. See also Minutes of a Meeting with the Twelve and the Trustees, 3 November 1847. Brigham Young Papers.

69 Journal History of the Church, 22 January 1848.

70 As more of a protective measure than a way to generate funds from sale, on 11 March 1848 the Trustees sold the Temple to David T. LeBaron, Babbitt's brother-inlaw, for $5,000. See Janath Cannon, Nauvoo Panorama (Nauvoo: Nauvoo

Restoration, Inc., 1991), 52, as quoted in Omer W. Whitman and James L. Varner, "Seeking Glory: The Life of Almon W. Babbitt," unpublished manuscript, 72. See also Hancock County Deed Book V, 93, 408. No doubt this sale constituted little more than a safe transfer of property from the departing trustees to dependable Latter-day Saints still in the Nauvoo area who could be trusted to continue the search to find suitable buyers.

71 Journal of Wilford Woodruff, 30 May 1848. Church Archives. Earlier in the year, however, visitors had noticed that "it [had] been much abused by the mob and on its walls you can frequently discover black guard or smutty language." Journal of Jonathan Calkins Wright, 13-17 January 1848. Church Archives. Apparently, from what Woodruff recorded, by the summer efforts were made to remove the graffiti and other blemishes from the building.

72 George A. Smith and Joseph Young to the First Presidency and the Twelve. A "General Report," dated 2 October 1848. Brigham Young Papers. The Oquawka Spectator reported that a contract had been entered into with a Mr. Brower of New York to convert it into a college for the American Home Mission Society. The contract was to have closed on 1 October 1848. See the Oquawka [Illinois] Spectator, 27 September 1848; also Gospel Herald, 3 (19 October 1848), 160.

73 The Nauvoo Patriot, 9 October 1848 as recorded in the Journal History.

74 Manuscript of Luvera Ellen Ensign Preece (1826-1898), Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University 9 October 1848. It should be noted that this was not the first time that fire had broken out in the temple. On 9 February 1846 fire was detected on the temple roof. That fire lasted for nearly half an hour but was put out by a very active bucket brigade. It was believed to have been started by an overheated stovepipe igniting some clothes that were hanging out to dry in an upper room in the attic. See Joseph Earl Arrington, "Destruction of the Mormon Temple at Nauvoo," Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 10 (December 1947): 414-25.

75 The Warsaw Signal, 19 October 1848. 76 The Iowa Sentinel, 20 October 1848.

77 The Home Missionary, 21 (January 1849): 207. For a detailed study of the burning, see Don E Colvin, "A Historical Study of the Mormon Temple," 177-80. See also Journal History 19 April 1919.