Hyrum And Joseph's Last Words

[auteur55]

My hypocrisy notwithstanding, I don't get your post. In my previous post, I suggested why it would matter if Joseph Smith's last words were a Masonic distress call. If you disagree and think it would not matter--please explain why it wouldn't

Hello Erik,

Until you are being pursued by a bloodthirsty mob with guns, watch your brother take a bullet to the face and fall dead, feel bullets sailing past you and through you ripping your flesh apart, and peer down from a second floor window at the faces of your murderers can you then judge anything Joseph might or might not have said.

I believe you may be surprised at what you might say.

I would also like to know how anyone could be sure of what Joseph did and said while a mob was yelling and screaming and gunshots were being fired. How could anyone even hear what he said clearly?

If, and I mean it's a big if, he was trying to throw out the masonic distress cry it was only to call for the brotherhood of the mob and a last ditch desperate attempt to save those in the jail.

He knew he was a dead man before he even went to the jail. He also was most likely in shock after watching his brother die in such a brutal way. Could this have been an attempt to plead for mercy from these men? I'm actually here in Nauvoo this weekend and i'm visiting Carthage tomorrow. I'll report on any impressions I have the experience.

[Helorum]

Presumably it would matter quite a lot. If [Joseph Smith] reveals, in his final moments, that his faith is in an idol (e.g., the Masonic "great architect of the universe")...

You're calling the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob an idol ??? (Yes, that would be an illustration from a BIBLE)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Architect_of_the_Universe

CFR. Show us precisely where Joseph Smith said that he considered the Masonic "Great Architect of the Universe" to be an idol.

[charity]

I'm a Mason. I've never seen the Grand Hailing Sign of Distress described accurately in print. It would seem quite familiar to anyone who had been through the LDS temple prior to 1990. Joseph Smith was in imminent mortal danger, so that would be an appropriate time to give it. He may have given the words along with the sign due to gunsmoke possibly obscuring the mob's view of him. I think he would've been aware of stories of other Masons being saved by giving the sign during the Revolutionary War, even by enemy soldiers who were Masons, etc. He must've thought it worth a shot to try to save himself and/or his friends there, even if he had forebodings to the contrary. I think the other Masons disregarded it because they believed he had violated his Masonic obligations by irregularly initiating too many fellow Mormons into the Craft, violating the chastity (as they saw it) of other Master Mason's wives, daughters, etc.

Wouldn't the time for a distress call been before the mob had already shot Hyrum and was screaming through the door? How about to the jailers and others around when there was time to actually do soemthing.

I think all the Masonic distress call thing is a load of hooey.

[kamenraider]

Wouldn't the time for a distress call been before the mob had already shot Hyrum and was screaming through the door? How about to the jailers and others around when there was time to actually do soemthing.

I think all the Masonic distress call thing is a load of hooey.

The best place to give the sign would've been at the window, where the mob outside could have the best view of him. If he were busy defending the door, he wouldn't have been able to do this. If he gave it at the door, only a few mobbers would've seen it. I don't think the idea to get out of there occurred to him until after Hyrum was shot and he decided to try to draw the fire away from John Taylor and Willard Richards. If Joseph wasn't giving a Masonic distress call, it's quite a coincidence that he said the exact words to match it right when he was in great mortal danger and could've used any assistance that might be given in response, and OTOH it would be strange for him to have started a regular prayer to God while in the midst of jumping out of the window.

[selek]

The best place to give the sign would've been at the window, where the mob outside could have the best view of him. If he were busy defending the door, he wouldn't have been able to do this. If he gave it at the door, only a few mobbers would've seen it. I don't think the idea to get out of there occurred to him until after Hyrum was shot and he decided to try to draw the fire away from John Taylor and Willard Richards. If Joseph wasn't giving a Masonic distress call, it's quite a coincidence that he said the exact words to match it right when he was in great mortal danger and could've used any assistance that might be given in response, and OTOH it would be strange for him to have started a regular prayer to God while in the midst of jumping out of the window.

Unless of course, your spin is wholly fictitious.

It is every bit as possible he was shot from within and without the room and fell from the window with a final cry to his Lord and Master.

The masonic call nonsense is a bit of ignorant folklore spread by fools, apostates, and the gullible.

[kamenraider]

Unless of course, your spin is wholly fictitious.

It is every bit as possible he was shot from within and without the room and fell from the window with a final cry to his Lord and Master.

The masonic call nonsense is a bit of ignorant folklore spread by fools, apostates, and the gullible.

Several accounts say he wasn't fatally shot until he was outside and propped against the well.

[LifeOnaPlate]

I don't know, Selek, it's hard to say whom he was addressing.

[selek]

Several accounts say he wasn't fatally shot until he was outside and propped against the well.

And those have generally been discounted by reputable historians along with the bunk about the three men Joseph "murdered" with that pepper box pistol.

I stand by what I said. The masonic distress call nonsense is merely a convenient twisting of the facts which allow fiends, fools, and conspiracy theorists to carry on smug in their presumptions and bigotry.

There is no evidence to support it beyond innuendo, revisionist guesswork, and folklore.

[jerryp48]

There is no evidence to support it beyond innuendo, revisionist guesswork, and folklore.

Glen Leonard, Richard Bushman, The Times and Seasons, and Church History would disagree with you but ok.

[kamenraider]

Several accounts say he wasn't fatally shot until he was outside and propped against the well.

And those have generally been discounted by reputable historians along with the bunk about the three men Joseph "murdered" with that pepper box pistol.

Although History of the Church, 6:618, states that Smith received all his bullet wounds within the jail as he stood ready to jump, several of the participating vigilantes wrote that he escaped injury until landing at the feet of the mobbers who propped him against the water-well of Carthage Jail and shot him, execution-style. For example, on the day Nauvoo learned of the martyrdom, Nathan Cheney wrote another Mormon: 'he fell to the ground [and] the mob run him throug[h] with their baynet [bayonets] a number of times and fired him through a number of time after they had stuck their baynets through him' (Cheney to Charles Beebe, 28 June 1844 at Nauvoo, LDS Archives). A member of the Carthage militia at the scene also wrote that Smith 'was shot several times and a bayonet run through him after he fell' (S.O. Williams to John Prickett, 10 July 1844, quoted in Jessee, 'Return to Carthage,' 17n30, and in Annette P. Hampshire, Mormonism in Conflict: The Nauvoo Years [New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1985], 207. A week earlier, William M. Daniels (then a non-Mormon) had made a legal affidavit at Warsaw, Illinois in which he likewise testified that the murderers shot Smith execution-style by the well (which account lacked a sensational description of divine intervention later published in a Mormon version of Daniels's statement). See Jessee, 'Return to Carthage' 4-5. Almira Covey wrote a similar description a week later. See Covey to Harriet Whitemore, 18 July 1844, RLDS Archives; also John C. Elliott (accused murdered of Smith), statement, ca. July 1844, related by John C. Burns, in Nauvoo Neighbor, 19 Feb. 1845, 3. Jessee, 'Return to Carthage,' 6, 15n26 also discusses statements about Smith's execution-style death by participants Edward A Bedell and William Web.

These are the most accurate descriptions of Smith's death, since eyewitness accounts by different vigilantes and non-Mormon witnesses began appearing within days of the martyrdom. Willard Richards provided the official description of Smith's death in History of the Church, but he was not in a position to see the bullets strike the prophet. According to a statement of Richards to the physician who tended the wounded John Taylor immediately afterward, Richards was unable to see whether the wounds in Joseph Smith's corpse came before or after his fall from the window: 'He stood next to the hinges of the door...so when they [the mob] crowded the door open it shut him up against the wall and he stood there and did not move till the affair was all over.' See Dr. Thomas Barnes to his daughter Miranda Barnes Haskett, 6 Nov. 1897, in Mulder and Mortensen, Among the Mormons, 151, and in Keith Huntress, ed., Murder of an American Prophet... (San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Co., 1960), 152-53.

His written account shows that Richards depended on later examination of Hyrum Smith's corpse to reconstruct how the patriarch was shot, and similar reconstruction undoubtedly occurred after Richards examined the bullet wounds in Joseph Smith's corpse. Smith's secretary William Clayton accepted the non-Mormon accounts rather than the reconstruction by Richards, who was his employer. Clayton's 1839-45 journal stated: 'Joseph jumped through the window and was immediately surrounded by the mob. They raised him up and set him against the well-curb; but as yet it appears he had not been hit with a ball. However, four of the mob immediately drew up their guns and shot him dead.' See 'An Interesting Journal,' in Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 542.

--D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, SLC: Signature Books 1994, pgs. 375-376.

[selek]

Thank you for conceding my point about reputable historians.

Note that Quinn rejects evidence from examination and instead relies on third-hand testimonies from the journals of people not on the scene or recounted by those attempting to reconcile contradictory third hand reports.

Quinn is still arguing heresay rather than first hand evidence. Not a primary source in sight.

It's not the first time Quinn's methodology and conclusions have been called into question.

[Alf O'Mega]

The masonic call nonsense is a bit of ignorant folklore spread by fools, apostates, and the gullible.

Which of those three labels would you apply to Richard Bushman? Which label would you apply to John Taylor, editor of the Times and Seasons, which printed an early report of the masonic distress call in the 15 July 1844 issue? Which label would you apply to the compilers of History of the Church, who incorporated that same report into their history?

[CMZ]

Quinn is still arguing heresay rather than first hand evidence.

I guess you mean "hearsay."

Back on topic, I read through this whole thread wondering when anybody would ever suggest that Joseph's utterance had more than one purpose but to the best of my memory nobody brought up the possibility. Could it be primarily a cry to God and secondarily a Masonic sign of distress? Or possibly the other way around? Interesting that he's quoting both Thomas and a Masonic prayer/plea. Somehow I could see Joseph Smith doing something like that. And if there was any Masonic element to it in any degree it still doesn't diminish in any way his true prophetic calling.

[kamenraider]

I think Baurak Ale implied that there might have been more to it than just a Masonic distress call by mentioning that Joseph restored the true version of the Grand Hailing Sign of Distress. This quote would seem to lend support to that idea:

Brother Richards was very much troubled, and exclaimed, "Oh! Brother Taylor, is it possible that they have killed both Brother Hyrum and Joseph? It cannot surely be, and yet I saw them shoot them;" and elevating his hands two or three times, he exclaimed, "Oh Lord, my God, spare Thy servants!" He then said, "Brother Taylor, this is a terrible event;" and he dragged me farther into the cell, saying, "I am sorry I can not do better for you;" and, taking an old, filthy mattress, he covered me with it, and said, "That may hide you, and you may yet live to tell the tale, but I expect they will kill me in a few moments!

--John Taylor, The Gospel Kingdom, p.362.

[CMZ]

Yeah, it could have easily been a commingling of the two. Just like with the whole grace/works issue. No need to pit them against each other.

I think John Taylor said some pretty funny stuff about things that happened in the cell after that point. I can't remember exactly what it was but I remember laughing pretty hard. And, no, I'm not making light of the serious nature of the overall situation.

[Calm]

Back on topic, I read through this whole thread wondering when anybody would ever suggest that Joseph's utterance had more than one purpose but to the best of my memory nobody brought up the possibility. Could it be primarily a cry to God and secondarily a Masonic sign of distress? Or possibly the other way around? Interesting that he's quoting both Thomas and a Masonic prayer/plea. Somehow I could see Joseph Smith doing something like that. And if there was any Masonic element to it in any degree it still doesn't diminish in any way his true prophetic calling.

This is the way I read it. I see JS sitting in the jail, thinking about his future actions and the distress call coming to his mind as a possibility whether to help himself or his friends. This could have started off other thoughts including ones of prayer as the phrase "O Lord, my God" is hardly an uncommon one and considering the comment referenced above ("Oh Lord, my God, spare Thy servants!") they as a group might even have been using the phrase among themselves in prayer, which is why both men spoke it.

Thus when Joseph spoke it at the end, he had in his mind both the distress call and an likely continuing prayer.

It seems like this would be the sense of the distress call in the first place from what little I know about the spiritual aspects of the Masons, to call on both the Divine and their fellows as the same time.

[CMZ]

This is the way I read it. I see JS sitting in the jail, thinking about his future actions and the distress call coming to his mind as a possibility whether to help himself or his friends. This could have started off other thoughts including ones of prayer as the phrase "O Lord, my God" is hardly an uncommon one and considering the comment referenced above ("Oh Lord, my God, spare Thy servants!") they as a group might even have been using the phrase among themselves in prayer, which is why both men spoke it.

Thus when Joseph spoke it at the end, he had in his mind both the distress call and an likely continuing prayer.

It seems like this would be the sense of the distress call in the first place from what little I know about the spiritual aspects of the Masons, to call on both the Divine and their fellows as the same time.

Now we're getting somewhere.

[Calm]

Now we're getting somewhere.

Not really if you are referring to my speculation though it does make sense to me having read the descriptions of what they were doing in their last days and hours that this is a possible scenario...but I generally try to avoid mindreading, even of people long dead.

But perhaps someone familiar about the subject can speak to the derivation of the Masonic distress call. That would be something.

[CMZ]

Not really if you are referring to my speculation though it does make sense to me having read the descriptions of what they were doing in their last days and hours that this is a possible scenario...but I generally try to avoid mindreading, even of people long dead.

Yeah, you can't mindread a dead person but there's nothing wrong with taking all the facts you have at a given moment and coming up with a plausible explanation that stitches everything together. Funder's First Law states that two out of three times some information is better than nothing. Silly to talk about stuff then throw up our arms and go, "Well, we'll never really know for sure so we won't even make tentative statements."

[auteur55]

I can't remember where I heard this but I've heard several times that Joseph flashed a masonic sign to the guard when they were first put in the prison in the hopes he would help protect them.

I think it would make sense.

[Nevo]

Another source on this is Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Smith Young:

I am the widow of a Master Mason, who, when leaping from the window of Carthage Jail pierced with bullets, made the Masonic sign of distress; but, gentlemen, (addressing the representatives of the press that were present) those signs were not heeded except by the God of heaven. That man, the Prophet of the Almighty, was massacred without mercy!

-- "Woman's Mass Meeting," Woman's Exponent 7 (1 Dec 1878): 98; quoted in Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), 108.

According to William Morgan's Illustrations of Masonry (1827), candidates for the degree of Master Mason pledged "that I will not give the grand hailing sign of distress, except I am in real distress, or for the benefit of the Craft when at work; and should I ever see that sign given, or the words accompanying it, and the person who gave it appearing to be in distress, I will fly to his relief at the risk of my life, should there be a greater probability of saving his life, than losing my own."

Morgan also noted that "King Solomon is said to have made this exclamation ["O Lord, my God! Is there no help for the widow's son?"] on the receipt of the information of the death of Hiram Abiff. . . . Some contend that Solomon gave this sign, and made this exclamation when informed of Hiramâ??s death, and work accordingly in their Lodges. Others say, the sign was given and the exclamation made at the grave, when Solomon went there to raise Hiram . . ."

[Baurak Ale]

I think Baurak Ale implied that there might have been more to it than just a Masonic distress call by mentioning that Joseph restored the true version of the Grand Hailing Sign of Distress. This quote would seem to lend support to that idea:

I remember as a young man reading 'Temple and the Cosmos', by that great mormon scholar luminary and one who is considered by many lds a intellectual master of the universe, Hugh Winder Nibley. However after reading his chapter on Freemasonry, I was quite surprised how terribly thin and unremarkable his knowledge of Freemasonry was, however I think his comments on the subject were intended to placate lds, you know sort of give us the feeling our scholars know something about Freemasonry in order to make us feel safe on that account. This concerned me, however it was not I suppose surprising as it is very difficult to study freemasonry as an outsider no matter the erudition of the scholar. This fact is attested to in my research lodge where nonsense unreliable newly published rubbish books are presented on Freemasonry on regular basis, they receive a brief critique and are then catalogued accordingly ie, under Rubbish.

Above is fascimilie 1 from the book of Abraham and shows Abraham fastened to the Lion Couch Altar about to be sacrificed to the idolatrous priest of Elkenah. Abraham prays to Jehova and receives devine intervention, the bird represents an Angel of deliverance you will notice that in the fascimilie both of Abrahams arms are raised to 90'degrees, both raised to the square.

Abraham 1:15 And as they lifted up their hands upon me, that they might offer me up and take away my life, behold, I lifted up my voice unto the Lord my God, and the Lord hearkened and heard, and he filled me with the vision of the Almighty, and the angel of his presence stood by me, and immediately unloosed my bands;

In Freemasonry much of the arcana has been adopted and purposed to be used on the pragmatic mundane level, ie grips, tokens or hand clasps are used to discern a brother from a brother whether in light or dark in the physical world. Likewise the Grand Hailing Sign is also used not to call upon devine angelic assistance from the heavens persee but upon a fellow brother Mason he by recognition can aid and assist the brother in distress if it is within his power.

However it seems to me as opposed to the Masonic convention, Joseph Smiths order of temple rites and rituals are to communicate to the upper worlds and unlike freemasonry the application of temple passwords, signs and tokens are not to be used by Mormons for application in the mundane physical world but as opposed to Freemasonry they are used for rites of passage to communicate with the upper spiritual worlds.

ie, Joseph Smith's model was to use tokens not to communicate or to discern a lds temple initiate from a non-initiate in mortality but rather they are given as keys to discern and test angels as opposed to mortals see. D&C handshakes. Likewise the grand hailing sign is not applied to gain mortal intervention in lds temple context but to gain divine heavenly angelic intervention as Abraham. IMO

Kamenraider: I'm a Mason. I've never seen the Grand Hailing Sign of Distress described accurately in print.

Me either I was quite caught off guard by the main differences.

[auteur55]

I just returned from Carthage Jail. Joseph took two bullets to the back before falling out the window. Would you really think you had a chance to save yourself after being hit twice and knocked forward. I don't see how Joseph could not have known his number was up, what goes through your head as your being shot to death is "I am a dead man" (just like Hyrum). It would then make sense that he would call out to God as this realization came upon him.

I think Joseph was smart enough to know that everyone in the mob wasn't going to suddenly stop shooting because he flashed a distress call. They were there to kill him.

[OMWO2]

Hyrum's last words were, "I am a dead man."

Joseph's last words were "Oh Lord, my God."

Why wouldn't a man who had been the Lord's prophet for most of his life call out to Him in his final moments?

I think the issue is not what he said or who he said it to. Rather, I wonder what is told to the thousands of tourists who file through Carthage each year. If I recall, and I admit it has been a few years, it is either stated or implied that he was calling out to God. If we don't know who he was speaking to then we shouldn't imply one way or the other.

[Deborah]

If we don't know who he was speaking to then we shouldn't imply one way or the other.

Except it's much more reasonable in a time of dire stress to assume that when he cries "Oh, Lord my God" that he is calling out to God than to make all the other assumptions that are being made by people who weren't even there. I know when I see horrible scenes it is a reflex to say "Oh, God" or "Oh, my God."