1813 – Orrin Porter Rockwell, close friend of the Prophet Joseph Smith from his youth and a bodyguard of the Prophet, born in Belcher, Massachusetts.
1830 – Emma Smith, Joseph and Polly Knight, and twelve others are baptized in Colesville, New York.
1834 – Zion’s Camp was still feeling the ravages of the Cholera. Sixty-eight of the Saints suffered from the disease, with fifteen dying from it.
1837 – The several brethren called to serve a mission in England, including Elder Heber C. Kimball, spent the day preparing to board their ship in New York harbor. They mailed a copy of Elder Orson Hyde’s Timely Warnings to every sectarian priest in the city of New York. (History of the Church, 2:495).
1838 – The Prophet Joseph met in conference in the new city of Adam-ondi-Ahman, Missouri, and organized a stake of Zion. Located about twenty-five miles north of Far West, Adam-ondi-Ahman was built on an elevated spot of ground on the north side of the Grand River.
1844 – The City of Carthage was nearly empty as the citizens fled over fears the “Mormons’ would come and burn the town in retaliation for the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. Even Governor Ford fled the city for Quincy, after making a statement to the citizens of Carthage and assuring the Saints that “the matter should be investigated’ (History of the Church, 6:625). Early in the morning, about 8:00 a.m., the bodies of the martyrs were taken by wagon to Nauvoo accompanied by Elder Willard Richards, Samuel Smith, Mr. Hamilton, and a guard of eight soldiers. Thousands lined Mulholland Street in mourning, “the most solemn lamentations and wailings that ever ascended into the ears of the Lord of Hosts’ (History of the Church, 6:626), as the wagon arrived in Nauvoo. The bodies were taken to Joseph’s Mansion home where the crowd who had gathered were addressed and encouraged to be peaceful and to go quietly home by Elder Richards, William W. Phelps, and others. The wives and children of the martyrs were brought in to view the bodies. Emma, who was pregnant, had a very difficult, emotional time, fainting several times. Mary, Hyrum’s wife, was more composed, but obviously in a state of shock. Other family and some friends were allowed to pay their respects during the evening. Also, George Cannon makes death masks of Joseph and Hyrum that later provide historians and artists with a valuable source of information about their facial features.
1847 – The pioneer company left the Oregon Trail and went south on the Hastings Cutoff which lead to California via Fort Bridger. Shortly after 5:00 p.m., they met Jim Bridger and two of his men who shared with them information on the area of the Great Basin. Apparently Bridger was drunk and did not give a good report about the Salt Lake Valley saying he didn’t think crops could grow there because of the early frosts. His report did not change the minds of the leaders of the pioneer company.
1953 – The first stake in Montana is organized at Butte.
1978 – The Relief Society’s Monument to Women, located just south of the Visitors’ Center in Nauvoo, Illinois, is dedicated by President Spencer W. Kimball.
2002 – The Mormon Tabernacle Choir presented a benefit concert in Quincy, Illinois, in remembrance of the kind reception and refuge Latter-day Saints received in 1839 from the citizens of Quincy, as they were driven from their homes in Missouri and threatened with extermination. The concert, held at the Morrison Theater, raised $75,000 which was donated to the Quincy Area Community Foundation.
2008 – Latter-day Saint Lindsey Brinton was named America’s Junior Miss 2008 at the 51st Annual America’s Junior Miss National Finals held at the Civic Center Theater in Mobile, Alabama. She is the daughter of Gregory and Sally Brinton of Salt Lake City, Utah.
2011 – The President of the Navajo Nation, Ben Shelley, visited with member of the First Presidency and other leaders of the Church in Salt Lake City.
2017 – “Religion in Early America,’ a new exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington D. C., opens with several artifacts from the early history of The Church.
2021 – His Eminence Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York since 2009, delivered the keynote at the University of Notre Dame’s first Religious Liberty Summit. Three others then spoke: Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles; Dr. Jacqueline Rivers, a Pentecostal and the director of the Seymour Institute for Black Church and Policy Studies; and Rabbi Meir Soloveichik of Congregation Shearith Israel in New York.
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