Nauvoo Temple - WikiHQ

The Nauvoo Temple was the second temple constructed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The church's first temple was completed in Kirtland, Ohio, United States, in 1836. In the winter of 1846, when the main body of the church was forced out of Nauvoo, the church attempted to sell the building, finally succeeding in 1848. The building was damaged by arson and a tornado before being demolished.

In 1937, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) reacquired the lot on which the original temple had stood. In 2000, the church began to build a temple on the same site with an exterior that is a replica of the original, but whose interior is laid out like a modern Latter-day Saint temple. On June 27, 2002, a date that coincided with the 158th anniversary of the death of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, the temple was dedicated by the LDS Church as the Nauvoo Illinois Temple.

History

The Latter Day Saints made preparations to build a temple soon after establishing their headquarters at Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1839. The 4-acre land for the temple was purchased in late 1840, for $1,100. On April 6, 1841, the temple's cornerstone was laid under the direction of Joseph Smith, the church's founder and president; Sidney Rigdon gave the principal oration. At its base the building was long and wide with a clock tower and weathervane reaching to a total height of —a 60% increase over the dimensions of the Kirtland Temple. Like Kirtland, the Nauvoo Temple contained two assembly halls, one on the first floor and one on the second, called the lower and upper courts. Both had classrooms and offices in the attic. Unlike Kirtland, the Nauvoo Temple had a full basement which housed a baptismal font. Because church members had to abandon Nauvoo, the building was not entirely completed. The basement with its font was finished, as were the first-floor assembly hall and the attic. When these parts of the building were completed, they were used for performing ordinances (basement and attic) or for worship services (first floor assembly hall).

The Nauvoo Temple was designed in the Greek Revival style by architect William Weeks, under the direction of Joseph Smith. Weeks became disaffected from the church in 1847 and Truman O. Angell later took his place as the primary architect. His design made use of distinctively Latter Day Saint motifs, including sunstones, moonstones, and starstones. It is often mistakenly thought that these stones represent the three degrees of glory in the Latter Day Saint conception of the afterlife, but the stones appear in the wrong order. Instead, Wandle Mace, foreman for the framework of the Nauvoo Temple, has explained that the design of the temple was meant to be "a representation of the Church, the Bride, the Lamb's wife". In this regard, Mace references John's statement in Revelation 12:1 concerning the "woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." This explains why the starstones are at the top of the temple ("crown of twelve stars"), the sunstones in the middle ("clothed with the sun") and the moonstones at the bottom ("moon under her feet").

Construction was only half complete when Joseph Smith died in 1844. After a succession crisis, Brigham Young was sustained as the church's leader by the majority of Latter Day Saints in Nauvoo. As mob violence increased during the summer of 1845, he encouraged the Latter Day Saints to complete the temple even as they prepared to abandon the city, so portions of it could be used for ordinances, such as baptisms for the dead in the basement font. During the winter of 1845–46, the temple began to be used for additional ordinances, including the Nauvoo-era endowment, sealings, and adoptions. The Nauvoo Temple was in use for less than three months.

Most of the Latter Day Saints left Nauvoo, beginning in February 1846, but a small crew remained to finish the temple's first floor, so that it could be formally dedicated. Once the first floor was finished with pulpits and benches, the building was dedicated in private services on April 30, 1846, and in public services on 1 May. In September 1846, the remaining Latter Day Saints were driven from the city and vigilantes from the neighboring region, including Carthage, Illinois, entered the near-empty city and vandalized the temple.

thumb|200px|A Sunstone from the original Nauvoo Temple in a case in front of the LDS Church's visitors' center in Nauvoo

Initially the church's agents tried to lease the structure, first to the Catholic Church, and then to private individuals. When this failed, they attempted to sell the temple, asking up to $200,000, but this effort also met with no success. On March 11, 1848, the church's agents sold the building to David T. LeBaron, for $5,000. Finally, the New York Home Missionary Society expressed interest in leasing the building as a school, but around midnight on October 8–9, 1848, the temple was set on fire by an unknown arsonist. Nauvoo's residents attempted to put out the fire, but the temple was gutted. James J. Strang, leader of the Strangite faction of Latter Day Saints, accused Young's agents of setting fire to the temple. However, Strang's charges were never proven. On April 2, 1849, LeBaron sold the damaged temple to Étienne Cabet for $2,000. Cabet, whose followers were called Icarians, hoped to establish Nauvoo as a communistic utopia.

Destruction

thumb|Nauvoo Temple burning

thumb|Artist Frederick Piercy passed through Nauvoo in 1853 and produced this artwork of the temple ruins.

After the fire of October 9, 1848, only the four exterior walls remained standing. Cabet and his followers began clearing rubble and trying to reconstruct the interior of the temple; however, on May 27, 1850, Nauvoo was struck by a major tornado which toppled one of the walls onto eight stonemasons. One source claimed the storm seemed to "single out the Temple", felling "the walls with a roar that was heard miles away". Cabet ordered the demolition of two more walls in the interests of public safety, leaving only the façade standing. The Icarians used much of the temple's stone to build a new school building on the southwest corner of the temple lot. By 1857, however, most of Cabet's followers had left Nauvoo and over time many of the original stones for the temple were used in the construction of other buildings throughout Hancock County. In February 1865, Nauvoo's City Council ordered the final demolition of the last standing portion of the temple—one lone corner of the façade. Soon afterwards, all evidence of the temple disappeared, except for a hand pump over a well that supplied water to the baptismal font. Four additional years of excavations, from 1966 through 1969, were headed by J. C. Harrington and his wife, Virginia. Their work, which completed the archaeological study of the site, uncovered the entire layout of the basement and resulted in the 1971 publication of the investigation's report, entitled Rediscovery of the Nauvoo Temple.

As the archaeological work wrapped up, plans were announced to build a large visitors' center and partial reconstruction of the temple on the site. However, these plans were never implemented and instead it was decided to landscape the lot with grass, trees, and flower beds, and to use stones to outline the footprint of the temple and features such as the baptismal font. The landscaping got underway in 1973, and following the addition of a plaza containing a large bronze scale model of the temple, three stone monoliths with engraved quotations, and full-size replicas of a moonstone and sunstone, the project was completed in summer 1977.

Nauvoo Illinois Temple

thumb|The reconstructed temple

In 1999, LDS Church president Gordon B. Hinckley announced the rebuilding of the temple on its original footprint. After two years of construction, on June 27, 2002, the church dedicated the Nauvoo Illinois Temple, whose exterior is a replica of the first temple, but whose interior is laid out like the church's modern temples.

Architecture

thumb|Daguerreotype ca 1846 with Temple in background.

At its base the Nauvoo Temple was long and wide with a tower and weather vane reaching to . The second temple of the Latter Day Saint movement was built 60 percent larger in dimensions than its predecessor, the Kirtland Temple. Like Kirtland, the temple contained two assembly halls, one on the first floor and one on the second, called the lower and upper courts. Both had classrooms and offices in the attic. Unlike Kirtland, it had a full basement which housed a baptismal font.

Exterior

The limestone used for the original temple was quarried from a site just west of the temple. Much of that quarry, however, was submerged by rising water behind the Keokuk Dam in 1912. Therefore, Russellville, Alabama, subsidiary of Minnesota's Vetter Stone Company, was chosen by the LDS Church to provide stone for the new temple. Church officials say the quarry was selected because it provided stone that is a close match to the limestone originally used.

Basement

thumb|right|200px|Floorplan of the Nauvoo Temple basement

The basement of the Nauvoo Temple was used as the baptistry, containing a large baptismal font in the center of the main room.

The basement was accessed by spiral staircases at the northwest and southwest corners of the temple. The staircase landing was made of wood and opened to a short hallway heading east, leading to the basement proper. Between the two hallways was an unfinished room sealed off from the rest of the temple, containing an old well that had been dug but never used. The room was discovered by an anti-Mormon mob who broke through the floor of the vestibule above.

The stairwells

The two stairwells were constructed of dressed limestone walls. One rose from Northwest corner and the other at the Southwest corner of the temple. They were not true circles but were flatted on four sides. Nor were they symmetrical, being sixteen feet in diameter from East to West and seventeen feet in diameter from North to South. This was done to support landings and other support structures.