Since we have received several inquiries about the town of
Zarahemla, Iowa, and the statements in D&C 125, the following two-part post
has been written.
When the Saints flooded into Illinois in 1839, following the
infamous “extermination order” of October 27 1838, by Missouri Governor Lilburn
W. Boggs, land was purchased on both sides of the Mississippi River, acquiring
Illinois land and the city then called Commerce (originally Venus), and on the
Iowa side, the area then called Nashville (today called Galland). Commerce was
renamed Nauvoo a year later, from a Hebrew word meaning “beautiful place” or
“city beautiful.” Along the Iowa side, the refugees from Missouri settled in
Nashville, Montrose Keokuk and Augusta. Nashville, first settled in 1839 by the
Saints, was not renamed Zarahemla until the revelation in D&C 125, which
was given in March 1841, two years later.
In 1839, the eastern part of Iowa, especially eastern Lee
County, was considered part of greater Nauvoo, according to Stanley B. Kimball
(Nauvoo West: the Mormons of the Iowa
Shore) and Donald Q. Cannon (Mormon Satellite Settlements in Hancock County
Illinois and Lee County Iowa). Land was purchased on both sides of the
Mississippi River at the same time from the same person, with stakes established
in both places and Mormons living on both sides of the river, though most lived
on the Illinois side.
Early photo of (red arrow) Nauvoo, across (blue
arrow) the Mississippi, seen from the area of (yellow arrow) Nashville, Iowa
A ferry crossed the Mississippi and connected the Iowa side
with Nauvoo, and Joseph Smith preached and visited in Lee County. The Sugar Creek
camp and staging ground for the 1846 trek across Iowa lay seven miles west of
the Mississippi River, and the September 1846 miracle of the quails took place
on the Iowa shore, as did Joseph Smith's well-known healing of Brigham Young
and Elijah Fordham in July 1839.
On October
9 with food in dangerously short supply, quail flocks flew near the camp and
flopped onto the ground in the morning and afternoon. The Saints picked up
quail in their hands and soon had as much cooked quail as they wanted to eat
After a time these Saints in Iowa wanted to know if they should
remain there or move to Nauvoo—perhaps brought about by Dr. Isaac Galland, the
man who sold the land on which both Nauvoo and Nashville was built. It was
Galland who also purchased nineteen thousand acres
in the Half-Breed Tract in Iowa and established the settlement of Nashville on
the west bank in unorganized U.S. territory and practiced medicine, established
a trading post, and founded the first school in what would become the Iowa
Territory.
Galland wrote to David W. Rogers, suggesting the Saints located
in Iowa would most likely be better protected by the U.S. government in
Illinois (a state) than in Iowa (a territory), for he thought the Saints “would be more likely to receive protection
from mobs under the jurisdiction of the United States, than they would be in a
state of the Union, where murder, rapine and robbery are admirable (!) traits
in the character of a demagogue; and where the greatest villains often reach
the highest offices.”
Isaac
Galland (left), his first school house in Iowa (center) and Governor Robert
Lucas of Iowa (right)
In Essentials in
Church History, p 220, we find that Galland also wrote to Governor Robert
Lucas of Iowa, who had known the Mormons in Ohio, and “who spoke very highly of them as good citizens.”
In addition, by the summer of 1839, Saints had settled in
Ambrosia, which was three miles west of Montrose and extended another four
miles westward. At first it was called Hawley’s Settlement, and ultimately had
about 100 members living there. When the first wave of Saints left Nauvoo in
1846, their massive Sugar Creek encampment was located with the Ambrosia
settlement area.
The revelation in D&C 125, received in 1841, was
directed to the many Saints who were already settled in Iowa. Before the Saints
arrived in Lee County, Iowa, there were 2,839 residents, but about 7 years
later in 1846, the population had swelled to 12,860—many of whom were LDS.
In March, 1841, Joseph Smith inquired of the Lord regarding
this question of the Iowa Saints relocating to Nauvoo, or elsewhere in
Illinois. In response, the Lord spoke of the Saints gathering together “unto
the places which I shall appoint” in preparation “for that which is in store in
a time to come” (D&C 125:2). This revelation obviously looked ahead to the
exodus of the Latter-day Saints to the Rocky Mountains in 1846–47, in which
Iowa became a temporary gathering place for those who were driven from their
homes in Illinois—a short distance of only seven miles across the Mississippi,
the staging area called Sugar Creek Camp, and just south of Nashville, Keokuk
in Iowa became staging areas for many Saints readying to move west as well as
those later coming from the East and Europe as late as 1853.
The Keokuk
staging area camp was in operation from 1846 to 1853 on property owned by
church members who settled on the Iowa side of the Mississippi a few miles
downriver from Nauvoo
As for the name “Zarahemla,” we do not know its meaning,
only that it came from the Book of Mormon, and existed among the Mulekites prior
to the Nephites encountering them (Omni 1:12-19). It was common in Book of
Mormon times to name cities “after the name of him who first possessed them”
(Alma 8:7). Perhaps someone among the original group who came with Mulek was
named Zarahemla and founded a city near their settlement, for they had always
lived where Mosiah found them (Mosiah 1:16). In any event, we know that the
Nephites named Bountiful in the Land of Promise evidently after the Bountiful
in Arabia where Nephi built his ship. They also named some cities after people
of Israel, or old city names in Israel, i.e., Jerusalem, Judea, David, Jordan, Shem,
Midian, Angola, Noah, etc. Also, when the Saints moved into Utah, they named
cities Nephi, Moroni, Manti, and Bountiful, etc.
One of the first settlements named in this way by the Saints
in America, was Zarahemla, at Nashville, Lee County, Iowa. From a commentary by
George Reynolds and Janne M. Sjodahl, p 796, we find regarding Zarahemla, Iowa:
“This settlement was founded by the
Saints in 1839, on the uplands about a mile west of the Mississippi River, near
Montrose and opposite Nauvoo, Ill. The Church had bought an extensive tract of
land here. At a conference held at Zarahemla, August 7th, 1841, seven hundred
and fifty Church members were represented, of whom three hundred and twenty-six
lived in Zarahemla. But when the Saints left for the Rocky Mountains, that city
was lost sight of.”
This 1841 Conference occurred five months after the
revelation that brought about the change in name from Nashville to Zarahemla.
At the time of the name change, there were nine branches in the Iowa area, all
belonging to what was then the “Iowa Stake,” and as such, the Iowa members
were on an ecclesiastical par with Nauvoo, having a stake presidency (Joseph’s
uncle, John Smith as President), high council, bishop, and nine branches or
congregations that by 1841 included some 750 members, when the stake’s name was
changed to the “Zarahemla Stake.”
So the question arises, “was there any importance attached to this area
originally called Nashville and became Zarahemla?” President Joseph Fielding Smith
wrote in Essentials in Church History,
p 222: “Across the river on the Iowa
side, extensive holdings also were obtained. The village of Nashville, in Lee
County, with twenty thousand acres adjoining, was purchased; also other lands
opposite Nauvoo. Here the Prophet instructed the Saints that a city should be
built, to be called Zarahemla. A number of members of the Church had located
here when the Saints were driven from Missouri, and it appeared to be a
suitable location for a permanent settlement of the people. … The idea seemed
to be that the Latter-day Saints should spread out over considerable territory
and form organizations in various parts of the country.”
The Iowa Half-Breed Tract of land between Keokuk (south) and Fort Madison (north), and the Des Moines River (west) and the Mississippi (right), designated as 120 on the map. Red Arrow: Nauvoo, across the Mississippi in Illinois. Montrose and Zarahemla are across the river from Nauvoo in Iowa, within the tract of land
Specifically, in June 1839 the church bought two extensive
tracts of land in the triangular Half-breed Tract, which extended from Fort
Madison west to the Des Moines River and south to Keokuk. The purchase included
a town site three miles south of Montrose called Nashville (now Galland) and
20,000 acres around it and along the Mississippi River. The church also bought
another 30,000 acres in and around Montrose, including part of the Montrose
town site. In fact, individual Saints also bought land in nearby Keokuk and
settled in neighboring Des Moines and Van Buren Counties. In addition, by early
1839, some forty LDS families occupied the deserted U.S. Army barracks of Old
Fort Des Moines—built in 1834 facing the Mississippi River and abandoned in
1837—located just across the river from where Nauvoo soon sprang up, including
Brigham Young, John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff.
(See the next post, “Nashville, Montrose and Zarahemla –
Part II,” for more on the naming of Zarahemla, Iowa)
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