June 2

1834 – Zion’s Camp ferried across the Illinois River.  They had been threatened by their enemies, but there were no problems.  They encamped on the bank of the river.  They visited several of the ancient burial mounds built by the ancestors of the Native Americans in the area.  On top of one mound, the brethren dug the “depth of about one foot, discovered the skeleton of a man, almost entire, and between his ribs the stone point of a Lamanitish arrow, which evidently produced his death. . . . subsequently the visions of the past being opened to my understanding by the Spirit of the Almighty, I discovered that the person whose skeleton was before us was a white Lamanite, a large, thick-set man, and a man of God.  His name was Zelph. He was a warrior and chieftain under the great prophet Onandagus, who was known from the Hill Cumorah, or eastern sea, to the Rocky mountains. . . . He was killed in battle by the arrow found among his ribs, during the last great struggle of the Lamanites and Nephites’ (History of the Church, 2:79-80).

1838 – Joseph and Emma Smith had a son, Alexander Hale Smith, born on this date in Far West, Missouri.

1843 – Joseph Smith paid Dan Jones $1,375 to become half owner of the river steamboat, Maid of Iowa. (History of the Church, 5:417-418)

1846 – United States President James K. Polk’s cabinet authorizes him to ask the Latter-day Saints to provide several hundred men in the war against Mexico.  The result was the establishment of the Mormon Battalion.

1874 – In one of the largest baptismal services among Native Americans in North America, Elder William Lee and three other elders baptize one hundred Goshute Indians in Utah.

2019 – The Fortaleza Brazil Temple was dedicated by Elder Ulisses Soares of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.