De Amerikanske Sekter: Unknown Joseph Smith Account?
Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2012 12:28 pm
Late last year, I was finally granted access to some whaling archives here in Norway. I have been looking forward to looking through so many of the primary documents I based my thesis research on and dug into the boxes with no real aim. The catalog was very roughly organized (as I have seen in every other special collection ever) and whole boxes were classified by the topic of the first few documents on top (it would take a dizzying amount of grad student hours to even begin to sort each document. Most of the collection was donated by a hundred or so bigwigs of the whaling trade. I bet much of the collection has never been looked at since they were donated decades ago.)
I found a stack of boxes labelled "Brev fra Utvandrere" (Emigrant Letters) and out of curiosity (I once found a similar stack in USU's collections) opened the third box down and opened up. There were many letters from people who had left Norway to the US and Canada. I read through several. Most had settled in the usual areas. (I digress from my own point. Is this common amongst other historians when talking about archive surfing?)
The letters were kinda jumbled up with other things. You know, newspapers and pamphlets from factories in Chicago trying to recruit workers, etc. One such non-letter was a thin book of about 80 pages filled with old family photos. The book was titled "De Amerikanske Sekter" (The Sects of America). I breezed through the pages to get an idea of its contents (no table of contents) and found a section on Mormonism.
The section described an incomplete history of the church up to the Evil Polygamous Kingdom of Brigham Young. It went on to caution fellow Norwegians, warning them about the polygamy and "heretical nonsense". Many Norwegians were being deceived into emigrating to Utah during the period. OK, boring so far but get this next part.
The section then cited an earlier work wherein a Danish businessman from Christiania (Oslo) had traveled extensively documenting potential areas for investment in the Upper Midwest. He visited the (then) largest city in Illinois of Nauvoo. I will now translate the relevant section of the book (all translation is my own and a little "loose").
The section is very critical of the Mormons in Utah and gets several things wrong. In general, I would term this source propaganda. However, the Dane, Jensen, if cited correctly, is more troubling. His visit to Nauvoo was much earlier than the eventual Scandinavian exodus (starting after the civil war), before anyone had heard anything of Mormons. Also, he would not have had a particular axe to grind, as the book that is citing him. His book, in fact, is apparently a half travelogue half investment guide about potential real estate in the US. Although I will have to track down this book, it doesn't seem like it would have had any reason to react or smear Joseph Smith.
I am in the process of finding the book and learning more about Jensen and will write more as it develops.
edited to change "letter" to "account" in title
I found a stack of boxes labelled "Brev fra Utvandrere" (Emigrant Letters) and out of curiosity (I once found a similar stack in USU's collections) opened the third box down and opened up. There were many letters from people who had left Norway to the US and Canada. I read through several. Most had settled in the usual areas. (I digress from my own point. Is this common amongst other historians when talking about archive surfing?)
The letters were kinda jumbled up with other things. You know, newspapers and pamphlets from factories in Chicago trying to recruit workers, etc. One such non-letter was a thin book of about 80 pages filled with old family photos. The book was titled "De Amerikanske Sekter" (The Sects of America). I breezed through the pages to get an idea of its contents (no table of contents) and found a section on Mormonism.
The section described an incomplete history of the church up to the Evil Polygamous Kingdom of Brigham Young. It went on to caution fellow Norwegians, warning them about the polygamy and "heretical nonsense". Many Norwegians were being deceived into emigrating to Utah during the period. OK, boring so far but get this next part.
The section then cited an earlier work wherein a Danish businessman from Christiania (Oslo) had traveled extensively documenting potential areas for investment in the Upper Midwest. He visited the (then) largest city in Illinois of Nauvoo. I will now translate the relevant section of the book (all translation is my own and a little "loose").
In his travels further north along the river, he landed in the town of Nauvoo, settled and built up to a large size by the sect. He was then invited to meet with the town's spiritual leader and founding prophet of Mormonism, Joseph Smith. After a tour and some refreshments, Jensen found himself alone with the Prophet in his living room. According to Jensen,
"Smith relaxed and spoke liberally about his life and his rise from poverty and how my countrymen only had to find a good idea and allow it to develop, to gain a life of its own, and it would support you.
'What do you mean?' I asked.
'I come from a humbler background, condemned to living a life where I could neither support my parents, nor support a family of my own. I wished to honor my father. Our Lord showed me how to do this. I thrived. Like corn exploding from the gravel. The seed he planted in me led to this kingdom.' Smith explained.
'You mean this city, this church?'
'They are merely projections, only the fruits of the original kernel. The Golden Bible is the key. I created it. I manufactured it. From that, I have gained this.'
"We concluded the evening as friends, yet I remained surprised that Smith would speak so openly about his fraud. To think Americans allow such vice in their midst. Wise men would do well to keep their distance from Smith's Mormonism."
The section is very critical of the Mormons in Utah and gets several things wrong. In general, I would term this source propaganda. However, the Dane, Jensen, if cited correctly, is more troubling. His visit to Nauvoo was much earlier than the eventual Scandinavian exodus (starting after the civil war), before anyone had heard anything of Mormons. Also, he would not have had a particular axe to grind, as the book that is citing him. His book, in fact, is apparently a half travelogue half investment guide about potential real estate in the US. Although I will have to track down this book, it doesn't seem like it would have had any reason to react or smear Joseph Smith.
I am in the process of finding the book and learning more about Jensen and will write more as it develops.
edited to change "letter" to "account" in title