Mike and I are back home after another enlightening, productive, and thoroughly enjoyable conference of the John Whitmer Historical Association. This was our third JWHA since Mike and I became the association’s executive directors, and the sixth I’ve attended in total.

The conference was held at the Alpine Valley Resort near Burlington, Wisconsin. In the winter, Alpine Valley is a ski resort of the kind we have in the Midwest. The hill is actually pretty good for the flat plain of Chicagoland, but due to its scant size relative to the Rockies we had to endure a lot of ribbing from our incredulous Utah cousins. Because it was summer, JWHA had the entire facility—including the hotel, conference rooms, restaurant, and bar—making socializing convenient.

I think our format this year also fostered interaction. We’ve settled on 90-minute sessions interspersed with 30-minute breaks. Each concurrent session had two 30-minute papers and 30 minutes for responses, questions, and answers. This seemed to be just the right amount of time to be able to give a substantive paper without going on so long as to tax the audience’s patience. On Friday, one conference attendee told me he’d made no less than six important connections that day where someone had either shared research with him or he had helped them. Fostering these connections tops our list of goals for these conferences.

The conference began with the association’s annual business meeting, where the committee chairs, officers, and staff give reports to the members, who then vote on proposals and new officers. Mike announced that the operating fund had a surplus last year of $6,709.88, having $34,932.90 on hand as of August 31, 2008. This represented a significant turnaround from the $10,000 annual deficit we inherited three years ago. As of September 30, the endowment fund had $147,944.44, having taken some losses in the current crisis in the U.S. financial markets. The members voted Jeanne Murphey president-elect and added Craig Foster, Steve Shields, and Vickie Speek to the JWHA Board. The membership elected Jean Addams, Robin Scott Jensen, Barry Murphey, and Eric Rogers to serve on the 2009 Nominations Committee, which will be chaired by our outgoing past president, Alex Baugh.

After the business meeting, the Sterling M. McMurrin Lecture was presented by Roger D. Launius, a former president of both JWHA and the Mormon History Association (MHA). Roger is one of the great Mormon Studies researchers and writers of the past few decades, authoring or editing a string of books including Joseph Smith III: Pragmatic Prophet, Kingdom on the Mississippi Revisited, and Differing Visions: Dissenters in Mormon History. Roger’s presentation was a history of the wars over creationism and evolution in American history. As curator of the nation’s most popular science museum, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., Roger has a lot of firsthand experience with the way Christian evangelicals confront this aspect of science. Although LDS members by and large are scriptural literalists and although RLDS members used to be, Roger pointed out that both have always been much more willing to try to reconcile evolution with their faith than Christian evangelicals. Why? Although he raised the question, he did not have a conclusion, but the lecture led to a very lively discussion with the audience.

All day Friday and again on Saturday morning we had blocks of concurrent sessions between plenary sessions at lunch and dinner. One entire concurrent track featured new research on the Strangites, which will allow John Whitmer Books to assemble an articles compilation tentatively entitled The Strangites: Histories of the Great Lakes Mormons (to be published September 2009). The many interesting papers in the other sessions assure us that next year’s JWHA Journal will be another lengthy volume.

Lunch Friday was an "author meets the critics" panel reviewing the manuscript of Mark Scherer’s upcoming history of the Community of Christ, The Journey of a People, Vol. 1: The Era of Restoration, 1820-1844, to be published by Herald Publishing House by the end of 2008. (Although the Community of Christ is the publisher, both Mark and his editor Peter Judd made the point that the book should not be considered the church’s "official" history.) Interestingly, although the book’s intended audience is primarily members of the Community of Christ, the assembled critics represented everyone else. Newell Bringhurst, a cultural Mormon, commended Mark for his openness and honesty, but criticized him for failing to consider issues such as race, gender, and ethnicity among the early members. Ron Esplin of the LDS Church’s Joseph Smith Papers Project also praised the manuscript, but he argued that Mark was abandoning certain traditional narratives prematurely because Ron feels that much of the evidence supporting the new narratives is insufficient. Finally Roger Launius, a lapsed member of the Community of Christ, questioned the enterprise itself. Why does the church need a new official history? Roger also argued that the title "Journey of a People" did not match the content, because he felt that the focus rarely left Joseph Smith.

Our dinner on Friday began with the awards. The Best Article Award was split between Erin Jennings and Robin Jensen for their articles in Scattering of the Saints: Schism within Mormonism. The winner of the Best Book Award was Newell Bringhurst and Craig Foster’s The Mormon Quest for the Presidency.

The keynote address of the awards dinner was given by celebrated Mormon historian Mike Quinn on "The Ambiguous History of Us-Vs.-Them in the Mormon Experience." Somewhat surprisingly, Mike explained that he had come "not to bury tribalism, but to praise it"—going onto explain how tribalism was an essential ingredient in constructing the Mormon identity. After dinner, the conference attendees adjourned to the resort’s bar where we watched the first presidential debate. As is generally the case in both academic and Community of Christ settings, the majority of those assembled seemed to be strident Democrats already committed to Obama.

The weather was perfect for our tour of Old Voree. Nearly every conference attendee packed into two buses that left the Alpine Valley Resort to visit four nearby sites. The Voree sites are located along Mormon Rd., on the western edge of Burlington. Most of the area is part of the Wingfield Watson Trust land. Wingfield Watson became Presiding High Priest (acting president) of the Strangite Church after the death of the last Strangite Apostle, Lorenzo Dow Hickey. Watson was responsible for saving and republishing much of Strang’s writings. The trust was set up for the benefit of the church’s mission, and is administered by trustees including Bill Shepard, the incoming president of JWHA.

The Hill of Promise site. David August gave a rare tour of the Hill of Promise, which is on the trust land and is not normally open to the public. The hill is where Strang and the four witnesses unearthed the Voree plates. Attached to a large boulder is a plaque commemorating the event. According to a revelation by Strang, the Biblical prophet Daniel will one day come to the hill to proclaim the kingdom of God. The same revelation called upon members to build a tower (known as the "tower of strength") on the hill. Many members in the 1840s lived in temporary shelters on the hill because of their extreme poverty. David August also pointed out the location of the temple site across the White River from the hill (construction never proceeded beyond excavation and some work on the foundation). On the way back we saw the large quarry where the Saints excavated stone for their houses, the temple, and other buildings.

The Old Voree marker and homes. Vickie Speek and Mike Marquardt led the tour of the private park at the heart of Old Voree, at the corner of Mormon Road and State Highway 11. The Burlington Historical Society has set up a monument that includes a map of the Voree settlement. Across the street are two of the remaining stone houses, including the building that was the church’s print shop in the 1840s. This building is the traditional site of Strang’s death, but Vickie told us that he actually died in a smaller frame house that used to exist behind the remaining stone house. Neither this stone building nor its neighbor is owned by the trust, but the trust does own a third 1840s home located on Mormon Rd. as well as Wingfield Watson’s late 19th-century frame home.

The 1929 church and artifacts. John Hajicek led the tour of the small Strangite meeting house built in 1929. (The church is no longer in use, as the active congregation meets in a newer building a mile south on Spring Valley Rd.) In addition to being an independent researcher, John is a major collector of early Latter Day Saint papers and artifacts. He was kind enough to display a number of rare items from his collection, including copies of the Voree Herald, and photographs of Strang and Lorenzo Dow Hickey. (The Strangites are not all in communion with each other; John is an independent believer with a line of priesthood authority that is distinct from the main Voree congregation. He also has a significant web presence and is the owner and operator of Strangite.org.)

Wingfield Watson and Ann Scott Davis graves. Bill Shepard led the tour at the Lyons cemetery where we visited the graves of Wingfield Watson and Ann Scott Davis. As mentioned above, Wingfield Watson was the Presiding High Priest of the Strangite Church after the death of Lorenzo Dow Hickey, and he can be credited with keeping the Strangite movement alive to this day. Ann Scott Davis was an early Mormon who affiliated with Strang and later with the RLDS Church, where she became an editor of the RLDS Autumn Leaves periodical. She is best known for saving the manuscript of the "Joseph Smith Translation"/"Inspired Version" of the Bible, by having it sewn into her skirts during the 1838-39 exodus from Missouri.

Our president this year has been Barb Walden, director of the Kirtland Temple. Barb’s address, "Prophet, Seer, and Tour Guide: The Changing Role of Interpretation at Kirtland Temple," was a comprehensive narrative of what visitors have encountered over the past 172 years at the first Latter Day Saint temple. After Barb finished her address, her final act as president was to transfer the presidential gavel to Bill Shepard. As he had often joked, Bill took the opportunity to decree that his old JWHA "nemesis" Bill Russell could no longer refer to him as "B.S." and must instead call him "President Shepard." Along with the transfer of the gavel, Alex Baugh, Greg Kofford, and Mike Marquardt retired from the JWHA Board with our great thanks.

The hymn festival the following morning took place in the Strangite church on Spring Valley Rd., just a mile south of Old Voree. This is the last functioning congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite), although there are other scattered members in communion with the church, and other independent Strangites. Because the Book of the Law of the Lord (which James Strang translated from the plates of Laban) explained that the sabbath is Saturday, Strangite services are not normally held on Sunday. The festival itself was enjoyed by all. Brian Hales produced a beautiful program with an accompanying hymnal that he donated to the members at his own expense. Selections included hymns distinct to the LDS Church, the Community of Christ, the Remnant Church, the Church of Jesus Christ (Cutlerite), and, of course, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite), as well as hymns common to the whole Restoration tradition.

Our conference next year will be held September 24-27 in Independence, Missouri. The topic is "Race, Gender, Ethnicity, and the Restoration" and we hope it will be one for the record books in terms of participants and attendees. We’d love for you to participate. You can send proposals to Submissions@JWHA.info. The deadline for submissions is Feb. 27, 2009.

A Few Disappointments

Although all this year’s attendees reported a great experience, there were a few disappointments. JWHA’s printer failed to ship the journals and the programs to Alpine Valley Resort in time for their distribution to the membership. Instead of the fine quality, bound program with a perfect-bound color cover to which members have grown accustomed, we were forced to make do with a back-up program that was xeroxed and stapled. The cost of xeroxing was donated so that the membership incurred no cost over the error. The bound version of the programs will be mailed to member attendees along with their copy of the JWHA Journal as a commemorative souvenir of the conference.

We also had fewer attendees than we had hoped. The 2008 conference included only 105 registered attendees—a little more than half 2006’s total and by far the smallest number since the 2001 Conference in St. Louis (see chart at left). Because many of the costs of a conference are fixed, low attendance reduces the association’s operating margins. Fortunately the conference not only covered costs, but it brought in about $2,000 in profit; however, this amount is significantly down from last year’s success in Kirtland.

The small number of attendees also depressed sales for our book vendors. Once again we thank Greg Kofford Books, Signature Books, and Jim Crooks for supporting JWHA by participating as vendors and we encourage our members to support the presses.

The Board considered a number of factors for the downturn, including the high price of gas and general feeling of economic uncertainty, the relative distance of the site, and scope of interest in this year’s program and tour. The board is committed to attracting the members to future conferences, so that attendance remains in the optimal range of 130-150 for an "away conference," and 180-200 for a "home conference" (i.e., one that takes place in the Jackson County, Missouri, region). Please give us your feedback. What can we do to produce a conference you can’t resist? Send your suggestions to JHamer@JohnWhitmerBooks.com.