Review
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Title: Visions of Freedom: Wilford Woodruff And The Signers
Of The Declaration Of Independence
Authors: Michael De Groote and Ronald L. Fox
Publisher: Covenant Communications
Genre: Historical/Religion
Year Published: 2015
Number of Pages: 271
Binding: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-60861-227-7
Reviewed By Trudy Thompson for the Association For Mormon Letters
In 1841, upon hearing Joseph Smith Jr. speak for the first time about doing vicarious work for the dead, the first thought Wilford Woodruff had was: “I have a mother in the spirit world.” However, because his mother died when he was 15 months old, he had no memory of her.
As he grew, death surrounded Woodruff, and it shaped his life. Even one of the first dreams he considered to have come from God was about death. When he was eleven years old, he dreamed of a great gulf through which everyone in the world had to pass and drop their worldly goods before they could move on when they died. In his dream, he saw an aged and sorrowful looking man. Woodruff said, “I saw him come with something on his back, which he had to drop among the general pile before he could enter the gulf.”
A few years later, after he had moved to another town with his father and stepmother, he ran across a man he immediately recognized as being the aged man from his dream. The elderly man died a few years later, and Wilford attended his funeral. When the coffin was being lowered into the grave, again he remembered the dream. And that night, the elderly man’s son found one hundred thousand dollars in a cellar belonging to the old man.
For Woodruff, the lesson from this dream was that God can use dreams to tell people truths–and one of those truths is how the grave separated people from the things of this world. Throughout his life he continued to have dreams, but he often spoke on the fact that not every dream a person has is inspired by God–it might have been the result of what you ate last night.
The ensuing years in Woodruff’s life led him to baptism after hearing two missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints speak. Just a little over a year later, he was called on his first mission, after which he was called to the First Quorum of the Seventy and got married. A few months after he was married, he was called on another mission, and during that mission he was called to be a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, which he was formally ordained to after returning home. Four months later, he was called on yet another mission. He faithfully followed the Saints to the Salt Lake Valley, after which he was sent to St. George by Brigham Young to assist with the temple there. It was against this backdrop that Wilford Woodruff was approached by the fifty six signers of the Declaration of Independence asking to have their temple work done.
One of the most fascinating aspects of the story of the signers of the Declaration of Independence appearing to Wilford Woodruff in the St. George Temple is the fact that they “argued” and “demanded” that all of their temple work be done. In his journals, Woodruff states that every one of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence appeared to him as well as George Washington. The men argued with Woodruff stating, “We laid the foundation of the government you now enjoy, and we never apostatized from it, but we remained true to it and were faithful to God.” The message from the signers continued: “You have had the use of the Endowment House for a number of years, and yet nothing has ever been done for us.”
To follow the admonition of the signers, Woodruff busied himself compiling a list of people for whom temple work would be done. This list was put into three categories: 1. The fifty six people who had signed the declaration. 2. The former presidents of the United States, including some of their wives. Absent from this list were Martin Van Buren and James Buchanan, both of whom were unpopular among church members. 3. This category included Noted Men and Women from the 1700’s and 1800’s. This last list included such notables as Daniel Webster, Washington Irving, Napoleon Bonaparte, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Lord Horatio Nelson, Sir Walter Scott, Christopher Columbus, John Wesley, Martha Washington, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Marie Antoinette, and Sarah Barnard. The list of women included the mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and great-great grandmother of George Washington, as well as several other relatives of George and Martha Washington. The impulse of Wilford Woodruff to compile such a list came from the growing realization he had that all of the temple ordinances were for all people. Woodruff used the two volume book titled “Portrait Gallery of Eminent Men and Women of Europe and America” by Evert A. Duyckinck to compile his list.
I found the stories of some of the lesser known men interesting and meaningful. They are the unsung heroes of the founding of the United States and its independence. Several of my favorite stories are about the lives of Richard Stockton and Charles Carroll.
Richard Stockton found himself a prisoner of the British a mere four months after signing the Declaration of Independence. He had been a New Jersey delegate to the Continental Congress, but he found himself being treated like a common criminal in the squalor of the Provost Prison in New York City. Stockton was the first and only person specifically targeted, captured, and tortured because he was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Others were imprisoned for fighting in the war, or suffered losses of property, family, and health, as a result of the revolution. He was deprived of food and was in failing health. His son-in-law made efforts to secure his release. He informed congress of the treatment this patriot was suffering under, in hopes they would take action. Congress ordered General Washington to investigate and threaten the British military leader with similar treatment to British prisoners if something wasn’t done.
At this time, a captured prisoner could be freed on parole–meaning he wasn’t kept in jail under guard, but on his word of honor, the prisoner promised to not take up arms. Just a few days before Stockton was captured, the British General Howe issued a proclamation that for sixty days, people could be pardoned of treason, and/or not be in danger of losing their lives or their property, if they swore an oath that they would be in peaceable obedience to the King of England and not take up arms against the British or encourage others to do so.
After Stockton was suddenly released, part of the lasting mystery surrounding him was whether or not he took this oath, or some other arrangements were made for his release, or if General Washington’s investigation and the threat of similar treatment of British prisoners played a role in his sudden freedom. It wasn’t until two years after his release that Stockton’s health returned. But, sadly one year later he was suffering from the effects of cancer, which would take his life four years after his release as a British prisoner of war.
Charles Carroll, also known as Charles Carroll of Carrollton, to distinguish himself from his father, who was known as Charles Carroll of Annapolis, was born in Maryland in 1737 on his father’s estate. He was first taught by Jesuit priests at another estate, then sometime between eight and eleven years of age, he traveled to France to continue his education. He spent 12 years in studies at various locations around France and then another six years at Middle Temple in London, which was referred to as the place to learn law.
Carroll returned to Annapolis at the age of twenty-eight, and was very much a European aristocrat in manner and abilities, and helped to run his father’s operations, which included many estates, slaves and an ironworks. In 1768 he married and had a son who he likewise named Charles Carroll.
Carroll frequently voiced his political opinions through letters to the newspapers about overreaching royal authority from England, even though Maryland’s anti-Catholic laws prevented him from holding any political office. He quickly gained popularity as he stated that the problems between the colonies and Britain would be ultimately resolved through military conflict.
A member of Britain’s parliament wrote to Carroll that 6,000 British soldiers could put down any opposition. Carroll replied that may be true to an extent, but “necessity will force us to exertion…your armies will evacuate our soil, and your country retire, an immense loser, from the contest.- No sire- we have made up our minds to abide the issue of the approaching struggle, and though much blood may be spilt, we have no doubt of ultimate success.”
The revolution had no political prohibitions against Catholics and used Carroll in various capacities. He was first sent to Canada to encourage Canadians to join them in the struggle against Britain. When he returned to the U.S. months later he found that Congress was debating independence, but that the Maryland delegates had been instructed to oppose it. He hurried back to Annapolis and urged them to be allowed to unite with the other colonies to support independence, and he was successful.
On the very same day, he was appointed to Congress. On the day delegates were signing the official handwritten copy of the declaration, when asked by John Hancock if he wanted to sign it even though he had not been there when it was adopted, Carroll emphatically declared, “most willingly!!” As he signed the document, another delegate recognized the wealth Carroll was risking and quipped, “There goes a few million.”
Carroll served in Congress until 1778, but when he was elected again in 1780 he declined to serve. (Something that would be refreshing to see in these current times.) Instead, he served in Maryland’s state senate. When he helped draft the Maryland state constitution, he was mindful that it included provisions on the freedom of religion.
He declined serving in the Constitutional Convention, but supported the document and was later elected as a United States Senator. He resigned his U.S. senate seat in 1792, because a Maryland law was passed that disqualified state senators from serving in the state senate if they also held a seat in congress. He left political life totally in 1801 and devoted himself to managing his estates, which comprised 80,000 acres stretching across three states. At the ripe old age of ninety-one, he helped establish the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company.
When Carroll died at the age of ninety-five in 1832, he was the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was the only Roman Catholic among the signers. At his passing, the federal government closed down for a day in his honor.
“Visions of Freedom” is an amazingly well researched, well documented and well written volume documenting the correlation between the Founding Fathers of the United States and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its temple work for the deceased. The volume includes the history of temples and endowment houses in the church and the work done there. Fifty five chapters comprise the biographies of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, arranged in alphabetical order. There are ten appendixes which include extracts from Wilford Woodruff’s journals and other journal entries of church leaders and members, and family history accounts. One appendix is a full list of the signers, presidents, and other eminent men and women, including spouses of the founding fathers, whose temple work was done for them. The Declaration of Independence is included, along with a bibliography, source notes and end notes. At the beginning of the book is a timeline of America in the 1700 and 1800’s.
As it states on the back cover: “‘Visions of Freedom’ will bring readers face-to-face with the Signers of the Declaration of Independence. where they can look at the lives of the eminent men and remember not just the things they achieved in life but also their final act for true freedom as they came to an Apostle in a white temple among the red rocks.”
Every home library and every church library should include this memorable and meaningful book.