Members of the Restoration are well informed about the basic details of the 1831 western mission, in which Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, and ten teams of elders, journeyed to Missouri. On August 3, 1831, the church held a dedication ceremony, on what has come to be called "the temple lot." The dedication emphasized two important elements which are clearly stated in John Whitmer's history: "Sidney Rigdon dedicated the ground where the city is to Stand: and Joseph Smith, Jr., laid a stone at the Northeast Corner of the contemplated Temple."

Land Records Provide One View of the Temple Lot

     Because the church did not own any land around Independence when Joseph Smith indicated the location of the city of Zion and the corner for a temple, it is logical to infer that no specific amount of land was dedicated. Following Joseph's return to Kirtland, Edward Partridge immediately set about fulfilling his assigned responsibilities. He sent for his family and began making arrangements "to divide the Saints their inheritance" (Doctrine and Covenants 57:3).

     Levi Hancock arrived in Independence in early November 1831. He and Zebidee Coltrin had started with the other western mission teams, but due to sickness and successful missionary work they were slowed down and separated. Levi wrote about his arrival, "I traveled the distance of about five miles and came to the Temple lot where some of the Saints lived and I was soon able to find Zebidee." It is of interest that some church members had started temporarily using some of the dedicated land before the church owned it.

     Jones Hoy Flournoy and his wife Clara first purchased the land in section 3, where the cornerstone was laid. They had settled in the Independence area before the first church members arrived. Flournoy built his house at the western edge of what became the town of Independence, and apparently became interested in purchasing the neighboring land in section 3. On December 12, 1831, Flournoy purchased, by payment in full, two eighty-acre tracts in section 3 surrounding the site of the dedication.

     Details about the process of purchasing United States Government land from the State of Missouri are complex. When land was opened for sale individuals would travel to Lexington, Missouri, to transact the purchase at the U. S. Land Office. If they paid in full they recieved a receipt for their lands and the land patent paperwork was started. Often it took two or more years before this paperwork was completed and the buyer recieved the patent. The fact that Partridge did not apply for a patent for this land suggests that he recognized Flournoy's prior claim. However seven days later a deed made out in Partridge's name for 63 acres was recorded in the Jackson County land records. Perhaps Partridge's pending offer to purchase helped Flournoy to pay for his purchase in full. Flournoy sold the land to the church for the same $2.00 per acre that he paid.

     This raises an interesting question. Was Flournoy's favorable land dealing an indication that he was somewhat interested in the church. It appears that the church had been successful in making several Jackson County converts at this time. However if this is the case with Flournoy, his feelings changed by 1833, for he took a prominent role in the activities of the nonmember citizens who forced the church to leave the county.

     This purchase of the nearly 63 1/4 acres from Flournoy, took place December 19, 1831. It began the process of defining the extent of land which was to be associated with the spot for a temple. Period descriptions of the consecrated area are confusing. Some contemporaries refer to it as the temple lot or spot while others call it the temple block or plot. Such confusion of terms underscores the fact that the revelation did not precisely define the term "temple lot." Was the lot to be all temple land or was part of it for the envisioned city? Since the spot was part of an undivided section of land Joseph may have been indicating a much larger area than what has come to be called the temple lot. Perhaps the entire section [3] may have been indicated. Certainly the direction to purchase "every tract lying westward, even to the line running directly between Jew and Gentile, and every tract bordering by the prairies" (Doctrine and Covenants 57:1e,f), suggests a larger interpretation. Considering these factors it appears that it is historical circumstance, rather than revelation, which has identified these 63 acres as the "temple lot." Indeed, the fact that Partridge aquired an additional 55 acres of land in section 3 from Flournoy, on February 28, 1832, suggests a wider interest. Hiram Rathbun who lived in Independence with his father's family, gives us the best indication about the early church's plans for the area.

     I have it in my mind that there were about three acres set apart for the temple lot...and the rest of it was for the purpose of settling saints on it, for the homes of the saints ultimately, and they concluded to buy more lands than that, and settle homeless saints on it. That was the idea of the church authorities at that time.

Early Member's View

     Nathan Porter gives us another early view of the consecrated land. Nathan's father, Sanford Porter, and family were some of the earliest to gather to the "land of Zion." Some of the returning elders visited their home in Taswell County, Illinois, and told them about Jackson County. The Porters set out for Missouri in the worst part of winter and traveled for three months,

     arriving at the settlement of our Brethren at Indipendence [sic] Jackson County on the first of March 1832...we were now on the consecrated land... We felt that our Pilgrimage was ore: that our abiding was shure untill the coming of the Son of Man, and through his Reign of a Thousand years; yea unto the consumation of all things spoken of by the mouth of all the Holy Prophets - we were shown the lot that was selected by revelation through the Prophet Joseph Smith for the Temple, called the Temple Block; it was now in its wild state; being covered with a heavy groath [sic] of timber-a portion of which; the Brethren had allredy [sic] began to remove; for their present use, at the same time prepare it to some extent for that magniffisent [sic] temple, soon to stand upon it, -for to us it appeared nigh at hand.

Church Leaders' Perspective

     Porter's language reflects expectations created by the church leaders throughout 1832 to encourage a general gathering to Zion. If the account of Samuel Smith, Joseph's brother, is typical, missionaries were commissioned and sent out in late 1831 and early 1832, "To declare the Truth according to the revelations and commandments of God." Samuel wrote that during his mission to Massachusetts, he "declared unto them that they must repent and go up to Zion... Generally the cry among them was that the Lord will save us here as well as in Missouri. . . . And thus we had to labor to get the people to understand the counsel of the Lord." As a result, many were encouraged to move to Missouri.    In late September 1832 Joseph Smith received a revelation, concerning a prototype pattern of the "city New Jerusalem":

     Which city shall be built, beginning at the Temple Lot, which is appointed by the finger of the Lord, in the western boundaries of the State of Missouri, and dedicated by the hand of Joseph Smith, Jr., and others ...that the city New Jerusalem shall be built by the gathering of the Saints, beginning at this place, even the place for the temple... For the sons of Moses and also the sons of Aaron shall offer an acceptable offering and sacrifice in the house of the Lord, which house shall be built unto the Lord in this generation upon the consecrated spot, as I have appointed (Doctrine and Covenants, 83:1c, 2a, 6a).

A View of Building Activity

     According to Partridge's daughter, Eliza, when the family arrived they "occupied a small brick house which my Father had rented for the winter as he had not yet had time to build. . . . The next spring we moved into a house that my Father rented of Lilbourn W. Boggs where we lived untill my Father built a house on his own land."

     John Taylor, a convert from Monroe County, Missouri, who apparently arrived in the early part of 1833 provides a slightly later view of activities around the temple lot. In his testimony in the Temple Lot Case he explained,

     I landed at Independence on Sunday the tenth day of April, 1833...Edward Partridge took me to the corner stone, or the stone, that marked the Temple, he and Mr. Morley together, and said that was the place where the Temple was to be built. The corner stone was up above ground.

     Soon after this John Taylor helped build the chimney for

Edward Partridge's house.

     I know where Edward Partridge was living in 1833. He came to me after the meeting was over and took me home with him to his house. He had just put up a house there... On Monday morning I commenced working for him; commenced quarrying rock on the Temple Block. He showed me where to get the stone to build a chimney to his house. There was no floor in the house at that time, but it was covered.

      John Taylor's testimony also indicated that at least two houses were built on what he called the "Temple Block." One of these houses was Partridge's, and, according to Mary E. Rollins, the other was John Corrill's, Bishop Partridge's first counselor.

     Around 1833, a school building was constructed near Partridge's house. In the Temple Lot Case Hiram Rathbun related that the schoolhouse was also used for church meetings. The meetings of the church at that time were held in a log house that they used as a school house, and the meetinghouse was located either on the Temple Lot or very near by it...and in pleasant weather in the summer time and the fall when they were having two-days' meetings at a time, they had them on the Temple Lot in the woods.

     Duncan Chapman lived with Isaac Morley whose house was on or near the temple lot.

     Arriving at Independence, I stopped the first night with Bishop Partridge. The next night I stopped with Isaac Morley as he proposed to me, so I did his chores for my board. I lived with Father Morley that winter, raised a crop on the temple lot for him, and in all things gave thanks.

     Chapman's statement shows that temple lot land was not only being used for member's houses, but that some of the land was used to grow crops.

     These activities suggest that the early church members viewed both elements of their gathering with equal priority; the building of a city and preparing a place for a temple of the Lord.

More Complete Planning

     While Bishop Partridge attended to land arrangements in Zion, Joseph Smith continued to reside in Kirtland. There he engaged in a revelatory process which more precisely defined his growing conception of temple and city design. June 1833 was an exciting period during which specific details of temple construction were stated. On June 3, 1833, at a conference of High Priests, the size of the inner court of the temple for Kirtland was discussed. Along with these new design understandings Joseph began to feel that the response which the Lord required of the members in Kirtland was part of a universal pattern which needed to be expressed equally in Zion.

     With this in mind, elements of a comprehensive plan for the city of Zion and its first temple were prepared and sent to W. W. Phelps on June 25, 1833. Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, and Frederick G. Williams, in the capacity of the First Presidency, sent detailed sketches of the first of twenty-four temples proposed for Independence and a draft of the city of Zion.

     The description for this first temple, except for some notable variations, is architecturally suggestive of the Kirtland Temple. However, its height would have made it appear more squat and shed like.

     In August 1833, a document, written in Oliver Cowdery's hand, was sent to Missouri. It reveals that the first plans were being revised. "Those patterns previously sent you, per mail, by our brethren, were incorrect in some respects; being drawn in great haste. We send you another." The revision affected both the proposed temple and the city. This variation decreased the area alloted for the construction of temples and appears to have pivoted the orientation of temple complex from a north-south orientation to an east-west arrangement.

     Both the Zion and Kirtland city plans were taking on new elements. In fact, two revised city plat drawings were prepared, one for Kirtland and the other sent to Zion. Both plats reflect identical patterns of city development, except in the center blocks surrounding the houses of the Lord.

     It is during this period that the term "temple block" appears to have come into use by members in Jackson County as they became familiar with the plan to divide the temple area and proposed city into regular blocks.

     It is interesting that the plat of the city of Zion and its companion temple sketches with explanations, have been treated differently than details about Kirtland's temple and the revelations pertaining to the city of Kirtland. The Kirtland documents have been included in the Doctrine and Covenants whereas the information about Zion has not traditionally been given the status of revelation. This has probably been an accident of history, in that a note on one of the early sketches of the side and east views of the Independence temple reports, "N.B. For your satisfaction we inform you that the plot for the City and the size form and dimensions of the house were given us of the Lord." All of these documents, whether pertaining to Zion or Kirtland, are related and were developed in response to the same pattern of inspiration.

     Not even one of the twenty-four temples was to be built in the city of Zion at that time.

     During the expulsion, the Independence Branch members first gathered together upon the temple lot for corporate safety. Mary E. Rollins asserts, "The few families living in town went to the Temple Block, where the Bishop and his first counselor, John Corrill, lived, for mutual protection; while the Brethren were hiding in the woods, their food being carried to them in the night. Some of our brethren were tied to trees and whipped until the blood ran down their bodies. After enduring all manner of grievances we were driven from the county."

After the Expulsion

     Over the years a tradition has developed about a small pile of stones at the site. Perhaps they were put there by church members in an effort to better mark the spot as they were driven from the county in 1833.

     One of the early saints to return to Independence was Roderick May, a member of the Reorganized Church. He stated to

Inez Davis,

     that he came to Independence in 1884, and that Doctor W. E. McClellan [sic] showed him where the temple was to stand. . . . He said that McClellan [sic] told him that although he was not here at the dedication that he was here soon afterwards and that a few loose stones were gathered together on the spot at the time of the

     dedication and oil poured on them.

     In the 1920's, Mrs. Wheaton, a member of the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) related that

     Some of us who have been associated all our lives on the Temple Lot as well as our parents and grandparents before us, have had pointed out to us many times by the oldsters among us the exact spot where the cornerstone was laid. They in turn had it pointed out to them by Dr. McLellin who was an apostle in the early church and others who had witnessed the laying of the cornerstone. My husband and I could readily locate the approximate spot for it had been marked for years by a small heap of stones. Some years ago when the Temple Lot was being beautified, someone not knowing why the stones were there, removed them. But they had lain there so long, there was a slight indentation in the ground which was easily discernible for years.

     Besides shedding some light on events associated with the small pile of stones these interesting descriptions provide additional images of the temple lot through the years.

     But stones and empty dwellings were not all that the fleeing members left behind. An account of the James Owens family states that their oldest child, fifteen-year-old Rebecca Cordilia, died during the expulsion from exposure, improper food, and exhaustion. According to Horace B. Owens' short account: "Brother John, died [in 1833] and was buried on the Temple Lot. Sister Cordilia died and was buried by the side of Brother John.

     Even though succeeding events kept them far from Zion, the church members held hope for their return. After their expulsion from the State of Missouri, most lost their land claims by sheriff's tax sales.

     Almost as if to end the early Independence era, some who had been among the first church members to view the temple lot were also the last to visit it. In November, 1839, exactly six years after the expulsion from the County, Joseph Smith, Parley P. Pratt and Lyman Wight were taken to Independence in a covered wagon as prisoners of the State of Missouri. Pratt wrote of this visit to the temple lot.

     When we saw it last it was a wilderness, but now our enemies had robbed it of every stick of timber, and it presented a beautiful rolling field of pasture, being covered with grass...now all was solemn and lonely desolation; not a vestige remained to mark the place where stood our former dwellings; they had long since been consumed by fire, or removed to the village.

     Over the years, the temple lot has taken on a variety of appearances. Even though it is an important location to members of our movement, there seems to have been proportionately little recorded concerning the events which have occurred there through the years. For whatever reason the temple area appears to have stood still, frozen in time. Perhaps this has happened, in part, because it has been considered a sacred place, awaiting the Lord's purpose.

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