The Problem With Zarahemla – Part II—Significance in a Name?

When people use the 125th section of the Doctrine and Covenants to try and prove the city of Zarahemla, Iowa, was inspired as to have a physical (location) connection to the original site of Zarahemla, one needs to learn a little about the origination of that city in Iowa.
The first LDS members to settle in Montrose and Nashville, Iowa, along the western bank of the Mississippi (across from where Nauvoo would be built), did so in May 1839. The Saints had been expelled from Missouri and many of them took refuge in Quincy, Illinois (on the east bank of the Mississippi just south of the Iowa line), for the remainder of the winter. Among the first to move north to Montrose from Quincy was Brigham Young and his family. They moved into one of the barracks' rooms in the deserted Fort Des Moines and were shortly followed by the families of John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, Orson Pratt, and others. They each lived in the abandoned fort until later moving to Nauvoo

In January 1839, Montrose had only a handful of residents but an abundance of ready-to-occupy housing. The barracks of the abandoned Ft. Des Moines had once quartered 180 soldiers but now provided shelter for several Mormon refugee families from Missouri. Israel Barlow provided Church leaders wintering in Quincy, information about land available in Lee County, as well as the site that became Nauvoo. When Joseph Smith approved the purchase, most of the refugees then in Quincy moved north. Brigham Young, John Taylor, and Wilford Woodruff, all future presidents of the Church, were among those taking rooms in the barracks.

Since land in Montrose itself could not be bought because of prolonged litigation over Tesson’s grant, trustees for the Church had bought from Isaac Galland some twenty thousand acres stretching westward from the village. Joseph Smith crossed the river to look over the land in 1839. He said that a town for Mormons should be developed just west of Montrose and given the name Zarahemla, though no action was taken for two years. The 1840 census did not delineate the village of Montrose and the township, but the population of the area was about a thousand. In October 1839, an “Iowa Stake” of the Church had been organized with Joseph Smith’s uncle, John Smith, as president. As a stake, the Iowa dwellers were on an ecclesiastical par with Nauvoo.

In March 1841, Joseph Smith received the 125th Section of the Doctrine and Covenants, wherein the Lord acknowledged the name of Zarahemla, already given to the town, and declared that it was now time to build up Zarahemla. The Iowa Stake changed its name in August 1841 to the Zarahemla Stake, which included branches at the Ambrosia community west of Montrose, the Nashville community to the south, a handful of people at Keokuk (which then had a population of possibly 150), and the main branch called Zarahemla, consisting mostly of Montrose residents. Thirty houses may have been built at Zarahemla, but only one lot was recorded as sold, and no trace of the community remains.

In August 1842, Joseph Smith declared that the Mormons would become a mighty people in the Rocky Mountains. A few days later, the prophet crossed again to Montrose, this time to avoid Missourians trying to implicate him in the assassination of Lilburn Boggs, who as governor had expelled the Mormons from Missouri.

Two years later, tension was growing in Hancock County, and rumors flew about the state militia marching on Nauvoo. Joseph and Hyrum Smith again crossed the river to hide at the home of William Jordan, up the creek valley from Nashville. Emma Smith sent a message urging them to return, as the Nauvoo Saints felt threatened by persecution. Doing so led to the untimely deaths at Carthage.

It seems obvious, that such statements (last post) by Meldrum are meant to mislead when it is realized that Joseph Smith named the area in Iowa Zarahemla two years before receiving the revelation Meldrum claims was so significant. More likely, the Lord was telling Joseph to tell the Saints in Zarahemla, Iowa, and all those who would move there, that they should build up the stakes of Zion wherever they lived.

(Some of the foregoing is from Professor Fred C. Woods’ work. In 2001, Woods, a professor of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University, took a five-month leave of absence from BYU to accept a research-teaching fellowship at the University of Missouri-St. Louis where he taught an honors course in nineteenth-century Mormon emigration history)