Review
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Title: Witness to the Martyrdom: John Taylor’s Personal Account of the Last Days of the Prophet Joseph Smith
Author: John Taylor, w/Mark Taylor, Editor
Publisher: Deseret Book
Genre: Biography
Year Published: 2nd Edition, 2017
Number of Pages: 164
Binding: Hardbound
ISBN10:
ISBN13: 9781629723136
Price: $17,99
Reviewed by Kevin Folkman for the Association for Mormon Letters
As a part time historian, I have learned the value of primary source documents. It is hard to describe the feeling when one discovers something written by first hand observers that has not yet seen the light of day, adding critical information to our understanding of history. It is equally disheartening to realize that some narratives of past events have been lost to memory, or never recorded in the first place.
John Taylor’s first person account of the last days of the life of Mormon founder and prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., is a document that almost missed being created in the first place, and then languished in obscurity for decades. Its original publication came about in Sir Richard Burton’s “City of the Saints” as an appendix in 1862. However, mainstream Mormon Church members were only aware of excerpts published here and there, and in the separate but related account given by Taylor as recorded in the Doctrine & Covenants, Section 135.
Mark Taylor, a great-great grandson of John Taylor, third President of the LDS Church, had heard the stories and read the existing fragmentary accounts of the martyrdom. That led him to search out the original account in Burton’s book, which he edited for a new stand-alone publication of John Taylor’s manuscript in 1999. In 2017, Mark Taylor has published an updated second edition with additional introductory material and revised notes. He describes how, with the death of Willard Richards in 1854, the realization came to the Church Historian’s office that no complete account of the Martyrdom existed within church records. George A. Smith began compiling the existing accounts, but it fell to Wilford Woodruff to complete the work. In May of 1856, he composed a letter to John Taylor, as the only surviving eye witness from within Carthage Jail, asking Taylor to write down from memory his account of those days in June, 1844. Woodruff also included a number of specific questions that needed answering. John Taylor was serving as a mission president in New York City, and publishing a church newspaper there. With the help of George A. Smith and John Bernhisel, who were in the East to promote Utah’s statehood petition, Taylor responded with a detailed 54 page account.
In his retelling of the martyrdom, Taylor recounts the last few weeks of Joseph Smith’s life, beginning with the general atmosphere of Nauvoo and the surrounding area. He writes of the Nauvoo City Council’s decision to destroy the *Nauvoo Expositor,* an anti-Mormon newspaper, as a public nuisance. Noting that there were concerns over the concept of freedom of the press, Taylor justifies the decision to destroy the press by outlining the fears of the damage to the church by continued publication. He admits that this decision played into the hands of the church’s enemies, and energized the anti-Mormon elements in Carthage, Warsaw, and other nearby settlements.
Taylor includes in his account parts of the texts of pertinent legal documents, assorted letters, and Illinois Governor Thomas Ford’s history of the state. He also reconstructs many key conversations between church leaders, leaders of the opposing militias, and the negotiations to try and defuse the rising tensions between the Mormons and their non-Mormon neighbors. His account climaxes with the attack on the Carthage Jail where Joseph and Hyrum Smith, Willard Richards, and Taylor himself were being held. He ends his account with descriptions of the immediate aftermath of the murders, including his own recovery from the multiple gunshot wounds he received.
John Taylor is hardly a dispassionate narrator in his account. The enemies of Mormonism are, in his words, “the vilest and most unprincipled men,” who were “recreant to virtue, honor, integrity, and everything that is considered honorable…” (p 48). He is almost completely resistant to the idea that the Nauvoo City Council may have exceeded their legal authority in destroying the *Expositor,* stating that a judicial review was unnecessary as the municipal court officers were also all part of the City Council. He is indifferent to any difference it would have made to give the publishers of the *Expositor,* “…these infernal scoundrels.” a hearing in their defense. He viewed them as completely in the wrong in their accusations, and their motives fueled by a desire to destroy Joseph Smith and his followers.
Similarly, he is suspicious of Governor Ford, clearly an adherent to the philosophy of popular sovereignty, viewing him as a corrupt politician interested only in garnering votes, and particularly weak and fearful in the face of mob violence. Ford, he states, appeared to be complicit with “the scoundrels” who made up the local militias mustered against the Mormons in Nauvoo. Taylor also rejects the initial hearing in Carthage before Judge Wood as “…illegal and a complete burlesque” (p 81). But in a note added to end of his letter, Taylor’s writing is a little less impassioned, and a little more charitable towards Governor Ford. Taylor notes that the Governor told him in a conversation some time later that he agreed that the *Expositor* constituted a nuisance, and that once the Nauvoo City council had so declared, “…if we had only let a mob do it, instead of using the law, we could have done it without difficulty, and no one would have been implicated.” Taylor found it ironic that this same reasoning and nod to popular sovereignty made it possible for Ford to allow the mob to assassinate Joseph and Hyrum Smith (p116).
John Taylor’s account is clear and precise, recording time and places with great detail, and openly admitting the occasional shortcomings of memory some twelve years after the events. Taylor’s long involvement in writing, editing, and publishing for the young church is evident in his narrative style and especially in his recall of conversations. 19th century idioms and vocabulary are not distracting; Taylor knows well how to tell a story, and does it here with style. Given that history appears to have favored the side of the Mormons, Taylor’s eyewitness retelling of these tragic events becomes a primary source document of great importance to understanding the feelings and actions of the many parties involved.
For his part as editor, Mark Taylor’s touch is light and unobtrusive. He has divided John Taylor’s story into convenient chapters for clarity, providing end notes for each segment. His introduction admits to a touch of hagiography, which does not color at all the editing of the actual narration. Mark Taylor concludes the volume with an epilogue that serves as an abbreviated biography of his great-great grandfather, from John Taylor’s early life on through his time as an apostle under Brigham Young, and finally as President of the Church. For most members of the Church, this may be the most readily accessible biography of John Taylor, as Samuel W.Taylor’s biography, “The Kingdom or Nothing: The Life of John Taylor, Militant Mormon,” is not currently in print. (Fn1)
In his preface, Mark Taylor gives a full description of the circumstances leading to John Taylor’s account, and references Dean Jesse’s 2005 more detailed history of the manuscript. (Fn2) That leads to the one unusual note of Mark Taylor’s editing, in which his 2017 edition continues to promote the story that John Taylor’s watch miraculously stopped a fifth bullet, and saved his life. That John Taylor’s timepiece was broken in his fall against the windowsill of the upper room at Carthage first surfaced in Glen Leonard’s “Nauvoo: A place of Peace, a People of Promise,” and was reinforced by the forensic studies by Joseph and David Lyons, published in 2008 in BYU Studies. (Fn3) There is no question that John Taylor believed his watch stopped a bullet and saved his life, but subsequent attempts to recreate the impact of a .69 caliber bullet (the standard issue rifle of the militias in Illinois at the time) on similar pocket watches resulted in complete destruction of the timepieces each and every time. The hole in the face of the watch, currently on display at the Church Museum of History and Art (with the story of falling against the windowsill), appears to have resulted from some of the inner workings of the watch bursting through the face on impact with the windowsill. It is unfortunate that Mark Taylor, seemingly aware of current scholarship on the martyrdom, continues to promote the miracle story of the watch without acknowledging the windowsill theory.
Apart from the watch incident, Mark Taylor lets his great-great grandfather’s story tell itself as it fell from his pen. In this revised second edition, this first person account by John Taylor will reach a wider audience than it has previously enjoyed, and provides a great deal of context for the tragic events of June, 1844. This is what we hope from primary sources. The events recounted may never actually be completely understood at over 170 years distance, but John Taylor’s manuscript provides the only full eye witness account, and becomes a valuable addition to our understanding of that history.
(Fn1) Samuel W. Taylor, The Kingdom or Nothing: The Life of John Taylor, Militant Mormon, Macmillian, 1976
(Fn2) Dean C. Jessee, “Return to Carthage: Writing the History of Joseph Smith’s Martyrdom,” Journal of Mormon History 8 (1981):3-19
(Fn3)Glen M. Leonard, Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, a People of Promise, Deseret Book, 2002, pp 397-98; Joseph L. Lyon and David W. Lyon, “Physical Evidence at Carthage Jail and What It Reveals about the Assassination of Joseph and Hyrum Smith,” BYU Studies 47:4. https://byustudies.byu.edu/showTitle.aspx?title=7980