The Work and the Glory (433 page)

In each of the preceding volumes, acknowledgments of all of those who have made important contributions to this work have been given. They are not repeated here in print, but the feelings of gratitude and appreciation have only deepened all the more.

Gerald N. Lund

Bountiful, Utah

September 1996

Characters of Note in This Book

The Steed Family

•Benjamin, father and grandfather; fifty-nine as the book begins.

•Mary Ann Morgan, wife of Benjamin, and mother and grandmother; almost fifty-eight as the story opens.

•Joshua, the oldest son (thirty-seven), and his wife, Caroline Mendenhall (almost thirty-eight).

William (“Will”), from Caroline’s first marriage; twenty.

Savannah; seven.

Charles Benjamin; four.

Livvy Caroline; two weeks old as the book opens.

•Jessica Roundy Garrett (forty), Joshua’s first wife, widow of John Griffith, and her husband, Solomon Garrett (thirty-nine).

Rachel, from marriage to Joshua; twelve.

Luke and Mark, sons from John Griffith’s first marriage; almost twelve and ten, respectively.

John Benjamin, from marriage to John; six.

Miriam Jessica, from marriage to Solomon; almost one.

•Nathan, the second son (thirty-five), and his wife, Lydia McBride (not quite thirty-five).

Joshua Benjamin (“Young Joshua”); thirteen.

Emily; not quite twelve.

Elizabeth Mary; six.

Josiah Nathan; three.

Nathan Joseph; one.

•Melissa, the older daughter (thirty-three), and her husband, Carlton (“Carl”) Rogers (almost thirty-five).

Carlton Hezekiah; twelve.

David Benjamin; not quite ten.

Caleb John; almost eight.

Sarah; almost six.

•Rebecca, the younger daughter (twenty-six), and her husband, Derek Ingalls (almost twenty-seven).

Christopher Joseph; five.

Benjamin Derek; two.

•Matthew, the youngest son (not quite twenty-four), and his wife, Jennifer Jo McIntire (twenty-two).

Betsy Jo; two.

•Peter Ingalls, Derek’s younger brother; twenty.

•Kathryn Marie McIntire, Jennifer Jo’s sister; four years younger than Jennifer.

Note: Deceased children are not included in the above listing.

The Smiths

* Lucy Mack, the mother.

* Hyrum, Joseph’s elder brother (almost six years older than Joseph), martyred at age forty-four.

* Mary Fielding, Hyrum’s wife.

* Joseph, the Prophet, martyred at age thirty-eight and a half.

* Emma Hale, Joseph’s wife; a year and a half older than Joseph.

* Joseph and Emma’s children: Julia Murdock, Joseph III, Frederick Granger Williams, and Alexander Hale.

* Samuel, Joseph’s younger brother; age thirty-six.

* William, Joseph’s youngest living brother; age thirty-three.

Note: There are sisters to Joseph, but they do not play major roles in the novel.

*Designates actual people from Church history.

Others

* John C. Bennett, converted to the Church in 1840; elected mayor of Nauvoo in 1841; turned against the Church in 1842.

Jean Claude Dubuque (“Frenchie”), Joshua’s lumber foreman in Wisconsin.

* Thomas Ford, governor of the state of Illinois.

* Heber C. Kimball, friend of Brigham Young’s and a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

* Jane Manning, a free black who has joined the Church and lives in Nauvoo.

* Orson Pratt, member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

* Parley P. Pratt, member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

* Willard Richards, member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

* Sidney Rigdon, member of the First Presidency; age fifty-one.

* Orrin Porter Rockwell, close friend and bodyguard of the martyred prophet Joseph Smith.

Alice Samuelson, daughter of Walter; age seventeen and a half as the story begins.

Walter Samuelson and his wife, Judith, from St. Louis; Joshua’s business partner.

* George A. Smith, member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

* Mercy Fielding Thompson Smith, sister to Mary, widowed plural wife of Hyrum Smith.

* John Taylor, member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

* Wilford Woodruff, member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

* Brigham Young, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles; age forty-three as the novel opens.

*Designates actual people from Church history.

Though too numerous to list here, there are many other actual people from the pages of history who are mentioned by name in the novel. Thomas Sharp, Frank Worrell, Isaac Morley, Edmund Durfee, and many others mentioned in the book were real people who lived and participated in the events described in this work.

Key to Abbreviations Used in Chapter Notes

Throughout the chapter notes, abbreviated references are given. The following key gives the full bibliographic data for those references.

American Moses   Leonard J. Arrington, Brigham Young: American Moses (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985.)

CHFT  Church History in the Fulness of Times (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1989.)

Edmund Durfee William G. Hartley, The Murder of Edmund Durfee (Provo, Utah: Albert and Tamma Durfee Miner Family Organization, 1995.)

HC  Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ed. B. H. Roberts, 7 vols. (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1932–51.)

“Journal of  Gregory R. Knight, ed., “Journal of Thomas Bullock,” BYU Studies 31 (Winter 1991): 15–75.

Mack Hist.  Lucy Mack Smith, History of Joseph Smith by His Mother, ed. Preston Nibley (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1954.)

Women of Nauvoo Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and Jeni Broberg Holzapfel, Women of Nauvoo (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1992.)

The Standard of Truth has been erected; no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done.

—Joseph Smith, 1842

Chapter 1

To Nathan’s surprise, the temple block was deserted.

He looked around carefully. The Nauvoo Cemetery was east of the city a short distance, set amid a grove of scattered trees, but sometime before his death Joseph had designated a site near the temple as his place of burial. It was still early, but it was the Sabbath. He had assumed that people might come out early, before the worship services. When he came yesterday afternoon, to no great wonder he found more than a hundred people milling around the two freshly dug graves. He had turned on his heel and walked back to town. He didn’t begrudge the people’s being there, he just didn’t want to be there with them. But now there was no one. Grateful, he walked through the opening in the rail fence, moving slowly now.

The grass was heavy with dew and he could feel its wetness quickly soaking through his pant legs as he walked toward the spot where the rich color of green was cut into two freshly spaded plots of black earth. His step slowed and he reached up and took off his hat. A sudden forlornness swept over him, as sharp as if it were actual physical pain. There were no grave markers on either end of the burial plots. Nothing said who was buried here beneath the Illinois sod. It was a bitter and ironic final footnote to the lives of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. Even with the brothers’ deaths their enemies were not satisfied. Word had reached Nauvoo that some might try to get the head of the Mormon prophet for the reward promised for it in Missouri. Hoping that it was rumor, not daring to believe that it was only that, the Saints had not marked the graves.

He bent down at the one end of the nearest plot. It had rained last night and the soil was smooth and damp. He reached out with a finger and began to write.

Joseph Smith  December 23, 1805—June 27, 1844

Hyrum Smith  February 9, 1800—June 27, 1844

He looked at what he had written, absently rubbing the mud from his finger, then leaned forward again and wrote one additional line.

Prophets, Servants, Friends

He straightened slowly. That was it. Prophets, yes. Servants of the Lord, without question. But for Nathan Steed, it was all of that and so much more. They had been his friends.

Most of the twenty-some thousand people now in the Church knew Joseph only as their prophet. They knew only the public Joseph, the man who preached the powerful sermons in the East or West Grove, the man who was responsible for the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. Their grief was a public grief and was shared jointly by all the Saints. During the last two days, Nathan had joined in the public mourning during the viewing of the bodies and the subsequent funerals. Now he wished to spend some moments with his own private loss.

Nathan’s relationship with Joseph and Hyrum Smith spanned seventeen years. In the spring of 1827, on the recommendation of their neighbor Martin Harris, Benjamin Steed hired the two Smith boys as day labor to help him clear his land. That was before there was a Book of Mormon, before the priesthood had been restored, before the Church had been organized. Nathan had wrestled stumps from the earth, plowed virgin fields, and pulled sticks together with Joseph and Hyrum. They had eaten together at the Steed table. They had become friends.

He looked away now. In his mind was the vivid image of a meadow, just off the road a mile or two south of the Steed farm. Nathan had been walking Joseph and Hyrum partway home. They stopped to rest. And then Joseph had begun, with Hyrum nodding solemn witness. He told of that morning seven years earlier when he had gone into a grove of trees to ask a simple question: Which of the churches is right? Nathan could remember, as clearly as though it had happened this very morning, his utter astonishment, his mind wanting to reject the enormity of what he was hearing but his heart telling him it was true.