The Nauvoo Temple By Beck Cardon Smith
Magnificently set on the hilltop at a bend in the Mississippi River, the original Nauvoo Temple once stood as the largest structure north of St. Louis and west of Cincinnati. Today the rebuilt Nauvoo Temple stands on the same site, a tangible memorial to our early pioneers. On January 19th 1841, revelation recorded in D&C 124 commanded the Saints to build a house “that I may reveal mine ordinances therein unto my people." (D&C 124:40) Preliminary work on the Nauvoo Temple began soon after, and on April 6th the cornerstones were ceremoniously set. Though William Weeks was the architect of the temple, the Prophet had received divine instruction on how it should be built. Constructed from locally quarried gray limestone, the temple had 30 pilasters on the outside walls (nine on each side and 6 on each end). At the bottom of each pilaster was a moonstone and at the top, a sunstone. In addition, a star was placed above each of the pilasters. Atop the temple was a belfry with an angel weathervane. The interior of the temple consisted of about 60 rooms with a total area of about 50,000 square feet. This included a basement and three additional floors. (Notice that the outside dimensions are about the same as those indicated by the four cornerstones placed for the never-constructed temple in Far West.) Church members gladly volunteered their time, energy, and possessions to construct this sacred building. Men gave one workday out of ten; women prepared meals and sewed clothing for the workers and donated one penny per week to buy nails and glass. In addition, each member donated one-tenth of their possessions including china, jewelry, and even family heirlooms to help finance the building of the temple. For the next five years, Church members worked and sacrificed in this manner to complete the temple. Although many of the Saints were forced to leave Nauvoo before the temple was completed, portions of the temple were dedicated and used as soon as they were finished. The baptismal font was dedicated and baptisms first performed in November 1841. Located in the basement, the font was constructed out of limestone and rested upon the backs of 12 oxen made first out of wood and later of stone. After the Prophet was martyred on June 27, 1844, Brigham Young and the other members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles stressed the importance of completing the temple. On October 5, 1845, the general conference of the Church was held in the assembly room. Endowments were given in the Nauvoo Temple from December 10, 1845 through February 7, 1846. Anxious to help the Saints receive their endowments and praying that the Lord would sustain his servants until they accomplished his will in the temple, President Young sometimes took less than four hours sleep each day and went home “but once a week.” He had planned to stop the ordinance work on February 3 and begin the trek west on the following day. But seeing a large crowd gathered to receive their endowments, he returned to the temple and delayed his departure for two weeks. “According to temple records, 5,615 Saints were endowed before going west, thus fulfilling one of Joseph Smith’s fondest desires” (Church History In The Fullness Of Times, p. 304). The temple was informally dedicated by Brigham Young on February 8, 1846 and more formally (but privately) dedicated on April 30, 1846, with Joseph Young offering the dedicatory prayer. The official dedication was held the next day on May 1, 1846, with the dedicatory prayer read by Orson Hyde. In October 1848, an arsonist started a fire that burned much of the temple and in May 1850, a tornado knocked down one of the walls and left the others so weakened that they were taken down. During general conference in April 1999, President Gordon B. Hinckley announced that the Church would begin construction of a new temple on the same site. He commented, “The new building will stand as a memorial to those who built the first such structure” (Ensign, May 1999, p 89). On October 24, 1999, the groundbreaking took place and on November 5, 2000, the cornerstone was set. The limestone used in the rebuilding, though not from the original quarry, is almost identical. The exterior design is also a near duplicate of the original. Unique to the original Nauvoo Temple and never repeated until now, is the bronze-alloy bell located in the tower atop the west side of the temple. (The original Nauvoo Temple bell is now located on Temple Square in Salt Lake City.) On each of the four sides of the tower is a clock, also patterned after the original design. To accommodate the expanded work of a modern temple, the rebuilt Nauvoo Temple now contains six floors. A statue of the Angel Moroni, trumpet in hand, stands on the top. This temple was dedicated by President Gordon B. Hinckley on June 27, 2002. The complete text of the dedicatory prayer which contained tributes to the original temple and its builders can be found by going to the Church web site at www.lds.org. SITES TO SEE RELATING TO THE NAUVOO TEMPLE
Next week: The incredible story of how William Weeks’ original architectural drawings of the Nauvoo Temple were discovered in California in the 1940’s and how they contributed to the recent rebuilding of the Nauvoo Temple. © 2003 LDS Family Travels. All Rights Reserved. |