The arrangement of subdivided lots around the central square is similar, but an adaptation of Joseph Smith Jr.'s plans for the cities of Zion and Kirtland. It is "reminiscent of evolving plans pertaining to the assignment of inheritances following Zion's Camp." [McKiernan and Launius, The Book of John Whitmer, 130-40.] The public square was reserved for an envisioned temple and public buildings. The city was laid out on a grand scale. Albert Rockwood described the plan in a letter to relatives, "The publick square in the center contains 10 acres, the 4 main streets are each 8 rods wide, the others are 6 rods wide. The squares contain 4 acres each, and are calculated for 4 Buildings, (streets [are] marked 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th North st. also East, south, and West). [Albert Perry Rockwood, letter, 6 October 1838, Family and Church History Department Archives, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.]
Albert Perry Rockwood
The square was intended as the focus of the business and public life of the community. Business lots were provided all around the edges of the public square. Members were encouraged to build their homes on town lots and live in the city, while farming the surrounding countryside.
Samuel Miles wrote, “Father entered 80 acres of land at the land office being mostly prairie land with several acres of good timber situated 2 1/2 miles south of Far West. . . David Whitmer being in charge as President in Far West. . . . I attended the exercise [excavation of temple, 3 July 1837?] with my parents while on the way, I stepped on a scythe taken along to cut prairie grass for the team, and being bare-foot, was partly severed in two. Father took me to the house of David Whitmer, where my foot was attended to. A crutch improvised so that I went out and heard the Martial band, [and] attended the services at the Temple foundation. . .” [Samuel Miles, MS 5096, LDS Church Historical Department Archives.]
Samuel Miles
David and John Whitmer and W. W. Phelps were later criticized because "they selected the place for the city Far West and appointed the spot for the house of the Lord to be built on, drew the plan of said house, and appointed and ordained a committee to build the same, without asking or seeking counsel at the hand of either bishop, high council, or first presidency, when it was well understood that these authorities were appointed for the purpose of counseling on all important matters pertaining to the Saints of God." [Elders' Journal, No. 3, 1 (July 1838): 37.]
Initially, a log school house was built in the southwest quarter of the city. This building served as school building, courthouse, a worship facility, and a place for public meetings. The History of Caldwell and Livingston Counties, Missouri, suggests the school building was moved to the public square during the Mormon era. [(St. Louis, MO: n.p., 1886), 120-22.] However, it appears the log school building remained in its original location and a new frame building was built on the square in early 1838. The new multi-purpose facility was erected on the public square soutwest of the temple site. This structure served as a school house, church, public meeting hall and eventually courthouse. At a citizens meeting, 6 August 1838 [in the new hall?], Sidney Rigdon favored removing “the County seat to this place [Far West Square?] [Scott H. Faulring, 200-201.]
" Public hall was just across the street, south from the temple lot. [An] old apple tree marks the spot. J. D. Whitmer saw it tore down because [he was] afraid [it] would fall on the stock." [Richard Holzapfel, Jeffery Cottle, Ted Stoddard, eds., Church History in Black and White: George Edward Anderson's Photographic Mission to Latter-day Saint Historical Sites (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center Brigham Young University, 1995), 80.]
| On the 1st day of July, 1838, the cornerstones of the temple were laid, they having been hauled to the spot before hand. My team helped to haul them. They were quarried from the ledge down west and were about seven feet long, four feet wide and two feet thick by the First Presidency, Joseph Smith, Jr., and counselors and others. An address of oration was delivered by Sidney Rigdon with cheering from the audience. There was a liberty pole on the public square of white oak some 60 feet in length but the lightning struck it in about three weeks and that caused it to lean about one-third way from the top and thus ended our liberties in Missouri. [Joseph Holbrook, 38, 39].   |
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Tuesday, [October] 2 [1838]. . . .The Kirtland Camp arrived in Far West from Kirtland. I went in company with Sidney Rigdon, Hyrum Smith, Isaac Morley and George W. Robinson, and met them some miles out, and escorted them into the city, where they encamped on the public square directly south, and close by the excavation for the Lord's House. [LDS History of the Church, Vol. 3:85].
[30 October 1838] Following the arrival of news of the attack on Haun's Mill, Col. "George M. Hinkle ordered 50 men to go and relieve, or guard them, but only our ten volunteered to go. We were determined to go and help our brethren. As we rode across the Square, the Prophet came out of George [W.] Robertson's [sic - Robinson- (the Sidney Rigdon)] house, where David Patten and O'Banion lay dead. He came out without hat or coat and stopped us and asked us where we were going. We told him we were going to Hayn's [Hauns] Mill to assist the brethren there. He told us that we were his men, and that we must not go. If we did go against his will there would not be one of us left to tell the tale tomorrow morning. He was very pale and said he, "Go put your horses up and help us to bury these two brethren." And we did just as he told us." [James H. Rollins, Autobiography, BYU, 7-8.]
Our men were collected upon the public square, where President Joseph Smith, Jr., delivered an address, in which he endeavoured to inspire the hearts of his hearers with courage, and deeds of valor, in defense of our families, our homes, and our firesides, in which he made this declaration that if the mob persisted in coming upon us, "We will play h--l with their apple cart." [LDS Church History?*.]
After a show of force by both sides on the prairie southeast of town the evening of October 30, the parties withdrew. On 31 October Joseph Smith and other leaders went to the militia camp on Goose Creek, where they were arrested and placed under guard. The next day Col. Hinkle and the defenders of Far West surrendered. The troops occupied Far West. Joseph and other leaders were brought to the square in a wagon. At first they were sentenced to be shot, then General Lucas decided to transport them to Independence, Missouri, for trial. Joseph recalled, "We were taken to the town, into the public square, and before our departure from Far West, we, after much entreaty, were suffered to see our families, being attended all the while with a strong guard. I found my wife and children in tears, who expected we were shot by those who had sworn to take our lives, and that they should see me no more. When I entered my house they clung to my garments, their eyes streaming with tears, while mingled emotions of joy and sorrow were manifest in their countenances. I requested to have a private interview with them a few minutes, but this privilege was denied me. I was then obliged to take my departure, but who can realize my feelings which I experienced at that time, to be torn from my companion, and leaving her surrounded with monsters in the shape of men, and my children too, not knowing how their wants would be supplied; to be taken far from them in order that my enemies might destroy me when they thought proper to do so. My partner wept, my children clung to me, and were only thrust from me by the swords of the guards who guarded me. I felt overwhelmed while I witnessed the scene, and could only recommend them to the care of that God whose kindness had followed me to the present time, and who alone could protect them, and deliver me from the hands of my enemies, and restore me to my family. I was then taken back to the camp, and then I with the rest of my brethren, namely, Sidney Rigdon, Hyrum Smith, Parley P. Pratt, Lyman Wight, Amasa Lyman, and George W. Robinson, were started off for Independence, Jackson County, and encamped at night on Crooked River, under a strong guard commanded by Generals Lucas and Wilson." [Millennial Star, vol. 16, pp. 510, 523-525.]
Ebenezer Robinson, associated with the printing establishment, describes his experience after the occupation of Far West. "A strong guard were placed around us and we were detained at the place of surrender until near night, while the main body of the army, now numbering two thousand five hundred men, went into the town. They placed a guard entirely around the city, so that persons inside could not go out, or those outside come in without a permit. Sometime before sunset, we were marched back into the city and disbanded, after being charged by their commanding officer, that whenever we heard the drumbeat on the public square, we must immediately repair to that place and await further orders. President Joseph Smith, Jr., and those brethren taken prisoners with him, were taken to Jackson County, Missouri. On Friday the 2nd, or on Saturday the 3rd, (we do not distinctly remember which day, but we remember the circumstance perfectly well,) the drumbeat, and we repaired to the public square, according to previous orders, where the soldiers were formed in a hollow square with a table standing inside, with a deed of trust and writing material thereon, and officers sitting by it, who required each one of us to sign the deed. In this act they informed us that we signed away all our property, both personal and real, to pay the expenses of the war. . . . [On Sunday, 5 November 1838] Several other brethren were brought and placed in our company, until they obtained near fifty. They marched us to a hotel, before the door of which two columns of soldiers were stationed, extending out about forty feet from the door, facing each other, with their guns poised so their muzzles were about breast high, between which we marched into the hotel. After we had been taken to the hotel General Clark made" his famous "speech to the brethren on the public square." [Ebenezer Robinson, The Return, 2 (March 1890)].
Elijah Newman recalled, "These troops burnt large quantities of house logs. I judged to logs to be sufficient for forty or fifty houses They were houses taken down and moved into town just before the troops came there and the owners had not time to put them up again they were moving in for their safety. I saw the soldiers pull down the body of one house in Far West and burn the logs, they also burnt many rails I was ordered, together with the rest of my brethren that were in town onto the public square where we were closely surrounded by a strong guard and there compelled to sign an instrument of writing said to be a deed of trust, which was to bind us to put all our property into the hands of a committee to be applied in paying the debts of any of the church members. . . [Elijah Newman, Johnson, Clark V., ed., Mormon Redress Petitions. Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, 1992], 507-08.]
Chapman Duncan suggests the guarded area also included fifty to sixty prisoners being detained on the square – referring to this area as the bull pen. [Duncan, MS 6936.]
Following the surrender of Far West, church members were given until spring to leave the state of Missouri. As members were making their way to Illinois, a few families at a time, members of the twelve returned for one last event- per revelation. Wilford Woodruff recalled, April, "25th [1839] We Rode to far west & spent the night at the house of Br Morris Phelps. Br Phelps was still in Prision. April 26th 1839 The events of this day are worthy of record for a Revelation of God & commandment is this day fulfilled & that to under Circumstances which to all human appearance could not have been done.The Lord had given a Commandment to the Twelve to assemble upon the building spot of the house of the Lord in far west Caldwell Co Mo on the 26th day of April & there take the parting hand with the Saints to go to the nations of the earth.[Wilford Woodruff, Journal, Vol. 1, 1833–1840, 325-26].
Wilford Woodruff
Edward Partridge observed the decline in property values as the Saints removed from the state. By the time I moved to Illinois, Partridge said, "I held the title to forty acres of land in Clay Co. and more than four fifths of the lots in the town of Far West Caldwell Co. which was laid out one mile square and was settleing very rapidly. I had five houses and one barn in the town. I also held eight hundred and sixty eight acres of land in Caldwell county. The property in Caldwell Co. has sunk to a mere trifle, in consequence of our Church not being protected there. I give the following for a sample, I bought a house last summer in Far West and gave twelve hundred dollars for it, after I bought it a well was dug and other repairs made amounting to between fifty and a hundred dollars this property has lately been sold by my agent and only brought one hundred dollars- An other house and lot which last summer I would not have been willing to have taken three hundred dollars for has been sold by my agent and brought only thirty dollars. . . [Mormon Redress Petitions, 511-515.]
Far West quickly emptied. Many families moved in February or March of 1839. Some few, like W.W. Phelps remained for a time. Phelps provides a description of a vacant Far West in a letter to his wife written in late Spring 1839. "There is such a wide difference in the aspect and prospect of Far West, that I hardly know how to describe it to you. The inhabitants are gone. The sound of the hammer, and the bustle of business have ceased; The grass is growing in the streets, or where they were: The fences have disappeared, and nothing but empty houses, and the moaning of the Spring breeze, tell what was in Zion. . ." W. W. Phelps to Sally Phelps, Far West (Missouri), 1 May 1839, Alexander L. Baugh, "A Community Abandoned: W. W. Phelps' 1839 Letter to Sally Waterman Phelps from Far West, Missouri." ]
W. W. Phelps