A Secret History of the Mormon Church - From Nauvoo, I.L. to Rapid City, S.D.

This pristine 140-acre property located in the Black Hills of western South Dakota, formerly owned by an infamous polygamist cult, can be yours for a steal of a price-- only $6.9 million.

FLDS Black Hills compound.

A dark shadow follows this secluded 140-acre compound located in the Black Hills. The western South Dakota property was tied to a fringe, polygamist denomination of Mormons who call themselves Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints. The FLDS are a cultic group run by leader Warren Jeffs, serving life in prison in Texas.

The FLDS compound is back in the local papers again. The property recently foreclosed on, and was sold at an auction for 750k to three former members last year, who are flipping the estate with a 6.9 million dollar price tag. Local State Representative, and moral pillar of the community, Tim Goodwin (R-D30) said that the FLDS compound with its polygamy and child marriage was one of the reasons why he first ran for office in 2016. He once described them as a "black cloud" looming over his district. "Young girls 12-15 years old were forced to marry elders aged 50 years and older. They believe in polygamy, so as many as 14 wives isn’t all that uncommon." Rep. Goodwin prime sponsored HB 1110, which established a penalty for failing to file birth and death certificates. It was signed into law by Gov. Noem after passing the House 67-1 and in the Senate 33-0.

FLDS Black Hills compound.

The FLDS were described by Rep. Goodwin in a recent Keloland report as “an absolute cult. It was kind of like an organized crime with sex and religion — it was absolutely evil is I guess the word you would say. It was the farthest thing from religion that there could be.”​

Dakota Free Press, the spin-blog of the SD Democrats, humorously advertised the property in District 30 as "11584 Farmer Road, about 30 minutes southwest of Pringle, has everything: six log structures with 77 bedrooms and 74 baths, a meeting hall with fifteen offices and ten restrooms, a 14,300-square foot storehouse, a 17,500-square-foot equipment shed, greenhouse, three generators, two wellhouses, shop, rock quarry, watchtower--and a history of weird Mormon sex and oppression!"

FLDS Black Hills compound.

FLDS Black Hills compound.

​Mormons started trending on Twitter last week as the Momtok gossip made the rounds on social media. Allegedly, a Salt Lake City based group of Mormon "mom-fluencers" on TikTok have been swept up in a "soft swinging" scandal. The gist of the situation is that upper-middle class Mormon influencer couples were spinning-the-Sodalicious-cup, making out and doing stuff; but then one of the mom's cheated and, in the midst of her public and messy divorce, proceeded to spill the tea on the whole thing. The 2019 South Jordan home of Taylor Frankie Paul, the woman at the center of it all, is now for sale. Complete with a huge kitchen island, and spacious master bedroom with "built in fireplace and a great master bath." It's the perfect home for weird Mormon sex, and being less than an hour out of the Mormon Temple in downtown SLC, it can be yours for only 930k!

There has been speculation on whether or not the drama is actually real, or if the entire thing is scripted for views with a Mormon mom reality television show on the way. There are shows such as Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, or Sister Wives which followed the life of a polygamist family in Utah, but the people demand their bread and circus!

Salt Lake City, Utah, is a booming metropolis nestled at the foot of the Rocky Mountains with many secrets hiding beneath a suburban façade.

The Latter-Day Saints are known around the world for their works of charity, they are always willing to lend a helping hand anytime someone is in need, but they are also extremely wary of outsiders. There is a LDS family ideal, with an enormous amount of pressure to fulfill it, but hidden behind the thin superficial veneer of suburban Americana perfection; Mormon women are popping opioids like candy and Mormon men are addicted to pornography. The Mormon Words of Wisdom teach abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, and hot beverages like tea and coffee; but whenever Mormons finally get out on their own, it's like the kids just crack open a can of Dr. Pepper and start falling off the rails.

Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Utah

The Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter-Day Saints, commonly referred to as the LDS or Mormon Church, controls every lever of power in the state of Utah. The presence and influence of the Mormon Church casts a shadow which looms over the entire state. ​The LDS Church was founded by Joseph Smith during the mid-1800's. It was a time of religious revivalism in nineteenth century America called the Second Great Awakening.

Joseph Smith preaching.

As Smith's new religious movement began to expand throughout America, so too did anti-Mormonism. Communities feared the growing expansion of Mormon settlements because of their increasing economic and electoral might. The conflict between locals and Mormons culminated in the 1838 Missouri Mormon War, resulting in the violent expulsion of Mormons from the entire state. The Missouri governor said in issuing Executive Order 44, also known as the Mormon Extermination Order,  "The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the state if necessary for the public peace--their outrages are beyond all description."

Joseph Smith

Joseph Smith

After having been driven out of Missouri, in 1829, the Mormons bought a town in Illinois. They called this town Nauvoo and established a community there. Nauvoo is derived from Hebrew meaning pleasant, suitable, beautiful, a pasture, a place of rest and beauty. Under the authority granted by the Nauvoo city charter, they formed a militia called the Nauvoo Legion. A third political party sprang up in the local area called the Anti-Mormon party. Thomas Sharp over in neighboring Warsaw, IL. was one of the party's founding members and the proprietor of a Mormon critical newspaper called the Warsaw Signal. 

Joseph Smith claimed to have received a revelation from God about plural marriage and introduced Church leaders to the practice of polygyny, the most common type of polygamy, where one man is married to multiple women. Due to the illegality of polygamy in the United States, what modern day historians do know today about the early Mormon practitioners of plural marriage is limited largely to whatever the LDS Church has begrudgingly decided to make public. 

Joseph Smith preaching to Native Americans.

On January 29th, 1844, the prophet Joseph Smith formally launched his campaign for the office of the President of the United States. The Smith brothers were quickly becoming two of the most influential men in the state. His brother Hyrum was also running for office in the Illinois state legislature. Joseph Smith's life, as well as his short-lived campaign for the presidency, would later come to end in tragedy. A chain of events, which ultimately culminated in the death of Joseph Smith, was set off when a local newspaper called the Nauvoo Expositor published a lone edition of the paper one fateful day on June 7th, 1844.

Joseph and Hyrum Smith

Nauvoo Expositor

The paper was founded by ex-communicated and non-Mormons.​ The Expositor began with a preamble, taking note of the potential consequences of speaking out against the prophet and presidential candidate Joseph Smith,

We have dared to gird on the armor, and with God at our head, we most solemnly and sincerely declare that the sword of truth shall not depart from the thigh, nor the buckler from the arm, until we can enjoy those glorious privileges which nature's God and our country's laws have guaranteed to us-- freedom of speech, the liberty of the press, and the right to worship God as seemeth us good. We are aware, however, that we are hazarding every earthly blessing, particularly property, and probably life itself, in striking this blow at tyranny and oppression.

​Nauvoo Expositor, June 7th, 1844

The Nauvoo Expositor

The Expositor explained that a schism had formed in the early LDS church over Joseph Smith's revelation regarding the doctrine of polygamy, 

It is absurd for men to assert that all is well, while wicked and corrupt men are seeking our destruction, by a perversion of sacred things; for all is not well, while whoredoms and all manner of abominations are practiced under the cloak of religion. Lo! The wolf is in the fold, arrayed in sheep's clothing, and is spreading death and devastation among the saints.

​Nauvoo Expositor, June 7th, 1844

Nauvoo Expositor

The newspaper claimed that, under the pretense of religion and God, impressionable young women were lured into leaving their friends and family to join Joseph Smith's sex cult and that the participants of these marriages were made to keep it a secret.

It is a notorious fact, that many females in foreign climates, and in countries to us unknown, even in the most distant regions of the Eastern hemisphere, have been induced, by the sound of the gospel, to forsake friends, and embark upon a voyage across waters that lie stretched over the greater portion of the globe, as they supposed, to glorify God, that they might thereby stand acquitted in the great day of God Almighty. But what is taught them on their arrival at this place?

Nauvoo Expositor, June 7th, 1844

The Nauvoo Expositor

The harmless, inoffensive, and unsuspecting creatures, are so devoted to the Prophet, and the cause of Jesus Christ, that they do not dream of the deep laid and fatal scheme which prostrates happiness, and renders death itself desirable; but they meet him, expecting to receive through him a blessing, and learn the will of the Lord concerning them, and what awaits the faithful follower of Joseph, the Apostle and Prophet of God,

Nauvoo Expositor, June 7th, 1844

The Nauvoo Expositor took aim at Joseph Smith's presidential aspirations, in his attempts to unite church and state,

We do not believe that God ever raised up a Prophet to Christianize a world by political schemes and intrigue.

Nauvoo Expositor, June 7th, 1844

The question may arise here, in voting for Joseph Smith, for whom am I voting? You are voting for a man who contends all governments are to be put down and the one established upon its ruins.

Nauvoo Expositor, June 7th, 1844

Joseph Smith for President

Joseph Smith, Lieutenant General of the Nauvoo Legion

As the Mayor of Nauvoo, Joseph Smith called a city council meeting where the Nauvoo Expositor and its publishers were put on trial. Ultimately, the city council at the behest of Smith declared the newspaper  a "public nuisance." Smith, the Lieutenant General of the Nauvoo Legion, ordered the destruction of the newspaper saying that the publication was "calculated to destroy the peace of the city--and it is not safe that such things should exist--on account of the mob spirit, which they tend to produce." Smith said, as an angry mob of Mormons and Nauvoo Legionaries stormed the Expositor to destroy its printing press.

Artistic rendition of the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor.

A June 11th edition of the neighboring Warsaw Signal cried out, "War and extermination is inevitable! Citizens ARISE, ONE AND ALL!!!" The Signal said, recapping the events explaining that Mayor Joseph Smith and the Nauvoo city council,

...had enacted an ordinance in relation to libels, providing that anything that had been published, or anything that might be published tending to disparage the character of the officers of the city should be regarded as LAWLESS. They also declared the "Nauvoo Expositor" a "nuisance," and directed the police of the city to proceed immediately to the office of the Expositor and DESTROY THE PRESS and also the MATERIALS, by THROWING them into the STREET!!!!
​
-Warsaw Signal , June 11th, 1844

Smith's destruction of the Expositor's press stoked the already existing undercurrents of Anti-Mormonism. Tensions between locals and Mormons would once again erupt into violence. After a warrant was issued for Joseph Smith's arrest, Smith penned a letter to the Illinois governor defending the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor's printing press,

In the investigation it appeared evident to the council that the proprietors were a set of unprincipled men, lawless, debauchees, counterfeiters, Bogus Makers, gamblers, peace disturbers, and that the grand object of said proprietors was to destroy our constitutional rights and chartered privileges.
​
-Joseph Smith, June 14th, 1844
Letter to I.L. Governor Thomas Ford

Joseph Smith and Carthage Jail.

Joseph Smith declared martial law, and activated the Nauvoo Legion. The Illinois governor responded to Smith's letter, 

There are many newspapers in this state which have been wrongfully abusing me for more than a year, and yet such is my regard for the liberty of the press and the rights of a free people in a republican government that I would shed the last drop of my blood to protect those presses from any illegal violence.
​
-Illinois Governor Thomas Ford, June 22th, 1844
Letter to Joseph Smith

Joseph Smith, already having acquired a lengthy rap sheet from encounters with the criminal justice system, fled Nauvoo to avoid arrest but surrendered to the authorities.

Artistic rendition of Joseph Smith's assassination at Carthage Jail.

Artistic rendition of Joseph Smith's assassination at Carthage Jail.

Two days later on June 27th, a mob of two hundred men stormed the Carthage jail in  Illinois where Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum Smith were awaiting trial. According to the Church's official records Smith was pierced by two balls, with one in the right breast. In his final words, Joseph Smith cried out the Masonic signal of distress, "O Lord, My God!" as he fell out of the window of the jail cell "into the hands of his murderers"-- a mob of non-Mormons, Anti-Masons and Freemasons.

They were innocent of any crime, as they had often been proved before, and were only confined in the jail by the conspiracy of traitors and wicked men.
​
Doctrine and Covenants 135:7

Artistic rendition of Joseph Smith's assassination at Carthage Jail.

Artistic rendition of Joseph Smith's assassination at Carthage Jail.

The LDS Church maintains to this day that the Nauvoo Expositor conjured inflammatory and "vicious lies" about Joseph Smith, even though the paper's accusations about Mormon polygamy ended up being true. A high ranking Church member named John C. Bennett was excommunicated by the Church for adultery after claiming that the prophet authorized his plural marriages, and in 1842, he published History of the Saints: Or, an Exposé of Joe Smith and Mormonism. Bennett's exposé included the testimonies of Sarah Pratt, Nancy Rigdon, and Martha Brotherton. These women claimed that Smith propositioned them in secret with marriage proposals. Joseph Smith wielded his influence in the community to destroy the reputations of these women, formerly in good standing, who rejected and publicly disclosed his proposals for plural marriage.

John C. Bennett with a Hidden Hand.

Hyrum Smith accused exposé author John C. Bennett of using his position as a doctor to seduce women with a promise of performing abortions should they become pregnant from sexual activity. Of Martha Brotherton, who converted to the Mormon faith and immigrated with her family from England, John C. Bennett wrote "Miss Brotherton is a very good-looking, amiable, and accomplished English lady, of highly respectable parentage, cultivated intellect, and spotless moral character." Church leadership accused Brotherton's testimony of having been "given by prostitutes." According to Bennett's History of the Saints, Smith allegedly told Sarah Pratt "If you should tell, I will ruin your reputation; remember that." 

​Joseph Smith accused Nancy Rigdon of committing adultery with exposé author John C. Bennett. Nancy was the daughter of Sidney Rigdon, a high ranking Church member who Joseph Smith also accused of conspiring with Bennett to "defraud the innocent," as he attempted to have Rigdon removed from his position within Church leadership. There were certainly power plays happening behind the scenes in the Latter-Day Saint Church, as Sidney Rigdon who was opposed to polygamy, was selected as Joseph Smith's running mate in the 1844 presidential election. After Smith's death, Rigdon fled the power vacuum in Nauvoo as he said he felt threatened by the supporters of polygamist Brigham Young.

Nancy Rigdon

Joseph Smith made a pass at Jane Law as well, the wife of high ranking Church leader William Law. The Laws would later become founding members of the Nauvoo Expositor.

Map of Nauvoo

​Joseph Smith became a brother Mason in 1842, was a founding member of the Nauvoo lodge, and plagiarized much of Latter-Day Saint doctrine and ritual directly from Freemasonry. Smith threaded Masonry into the fabric of Mormon faith, and while the Church claims his death was a religious martyrdom, some speculate whether Smith's assassination had other motives behind it. Over a decade before the creation of the Anti-Mormon party, in 1828 the Anti-Masonic party was formed as a response to the Morgan Affair.

A New Yorker named William Morgan penned an exposé of Masonry in 1826 called Illustrations of Freemasonry before mysteriously disappearing. This sparked national backlash against Freemasons in America, leading to the creation of the Anti-Masonic party, the first third political party in the U.S. The Anti-Masons argued that Masonry and secret societies were subversive to American institutions.

Steps of Freemasonry Illustration

Masonic Lodge in Nauvoo, IL

The Anti-Masonic movement was anti-elitist, as many prominent political and business figures were Freemasons. The Anti-Masons argued that men who make oaths and handshakes were a secret aristocracy and a threat to republicanism. The Anti-Masons migrated into the Whig party, and became a powerful faction within the party. When the Whigs later collapsed over the issue of slavery, the Anti-Mason faction of the former Whig Party linked arms with anti-slavery Democrats to found the Republican party in 1854. The Anti-Masons probably assassinated Joseph Smith fearing his rise to power and, all things considered, the Masons were probably not pleased with Smith either; as he revealed the secrets of Freemasonry, and even initiated women into the brotherhood, under the guise of his new religious movement called Mormonism.

​Master Mason Joseph Smith was gunning for the presidency in the 1844 election before he was gunned down by a mob of angry citizens consisting of Anti-Masons, Masons, and non-Mormons.

The Latter-Day Saint population voted as a bloc, and therefore, held a decisive vote electorally in a state like Illinois. Joseph Smith's platform included the abolition of slavery by the year 1850, and a rehabilitation-focused view of criminal justice. Joseph Smith advocated for dramatic increases in the powers of the president. Not only was Joseph Smith Mayor of Nauvoo, but he was also the Lieutenant General of the Nauvoo Legion. His life was bound to end in tragedy. Was Smith a martyr, or a charismatic leader attempting to amass massive amounts of religious, paramilitary, and political power?

Joseph Smith for President

​The Prophet of the United States can't just go around activating the Nauvoo Legion every time someone writes or says something about him that he doesn't like. Utah's taxpayer-funded public schools teach that the prophet Joseph Smith's death at the hand's of his assassins was an act of religious martyrdom, but surprisingly little is known by the general public about Utah folk hero Joe Smith's presidential ambitions or how he made national history as the first presidential candidate to ever be assassinated.

Artistic rendition of Joseph Smith with Seer Stone.

The Smith family were notorious nineteenth century treasure diggers. The Smith's were known for using scrying, dowsing rods, ritualistic animal sacrifice, and occultism in search of buried treasure. In 1826, Joseph Smith the glass looker was arrested and brought to court for being "a disorderly person and an imposter." His father's namesake, would grow up to be a prophet in his adult life claiming that an angel directed him to the site of buried golden plates inscribed with the Book of Mormon. Joseph's brother Hyrum, and father Joseph Smith Sr., are two of the eight witnesses who saw the said plates.

Artistic rendition of Joseph Smith digging for treasure with Seer Stone.

1826 Trial of Joseph Smith the Glass Looker

The assassination of LDS prophet Joseph Smith sparked another Mormon War, leading to Mormon expulsion from Illinois, and the beginning the exodus of the Mormon pioneers. In 1848, the Latter-Day Saint Temple in Nauvoo was set ablaze by an unknown arsonist.

Artistic rendition of the LDS Temple in Nauvoo, IL.

Artistic rendition of the LDS Temple in Nauvoo, IL.

The Mormon pioneers were led by Church leader Brigham Young, upon their arrival to the Great Salt Lake valley, Young famously said "This is the place." Before the creation of the Utah territory, named after the Ute tribe, the Mormon settlers proposed a state they called Deseret which encompassed a vast area of the southwest United States. The Mormon settlers fought a year long armed confrontation with the United States armed forces in the Utah territory in 1857. The Nauvoo Legion used the natural defenses of the Rocky Mountains to block the United States Army from advancing into the Great Salt Lake valley.

Provisional 1849 boundaries of the State of Deseret shown in dotted line, Utah Territory is shaded blue.

Mormon Octopus Propaganda

The Mormon settlers practiced polygamy openly once in the Utah Territory, and in response the United States Congress passed the 1862 Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act and 1887 Edmunds-Tucker Act. The legislation was passed with the intention to stop the spread of polygamy into the western territories.

The Republican party famously called slavery and polygamy "the twin relics of barbarism." It wouldn't be until 1896 that Utah would finally be accepted into the union, and in exchange the LDS Church was required to end the practice of polygamy as an official church doctrine. Just as early frontier life in the western Black Hills of South Dakota was shaped by Deadwood gun-slingers, saloons, brothels, and the Gold Rush;

Frontier life in the Great Salt Lake valley shaped by Mormonism and polygamy. The Church maintains that the practice of polygamy was a dictate from God and served its purpose. They argue that it was necessary for a time to raise up seed unto God, saying that the early Latter-Day Saints had an Abrahamic covenant with God, like how in the Book of Genesis God promised Abraham that he would multiply his descendants as the stars in the sky. 

Family Tree of Famous Utah Politician Mitt Romney.

Culturally, and genetically speaking, the descendants of the Mormon pioneers are a distinct people who trace their lineage back to the early Latter-Day Saint patriarchs. The contributions of the Latter-Day Saint Church, who believe its part of their religious duty to record genealogy, has resulted in the University of Utah gaining world renown for its research in genetics. The Latter-Day Saints have a Family History Library, located at Temple Square in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City, which houses one of the largest collections of genealogical records in the world.

Utah Ancestry

Despite the LDS Church's history of interbreeding and polygamy, Utah just doesn't have the same "inbred hicks" stereotype some other states have. Utah's stereotype gives off an eerie Stepford Wives vibe. The rest of America sees it as a cult of super nice and attractive people, who all look a little related, are about as white as mayonnaise, oddly happy, and extremely persistent about recruiting you into the Church. So persistent, in fact, that not even death itself will save you from those nice Mormon boys standing on your doorstep. The LDS Church will just wait to baptize you after your already dead.

Mormon Temple Garments

LDS temple worship is shrouded in almost as much secrecy as a Mormon boy's sacred undergarments. From squares, compasses, aprons, handshakes, and blood-oaths-- Mormonism is plagiarized Freemasonry. The idea of Masonic handshakes, for example, were renamed to Tokens of the Priesthood. In the Mormon faith, ringing true to Freemasonry, only men are allowed to learn the Tokens of the Priesthood.

Until 1990, the temple endowment ceremony included the recitation of a blood-oath. This blood-oath, called a Penalty, is said with accompanying gestures such as symbolizing ones own throat being slit. The recitation of a Penalty for revealing the secrets of Mormon temple worship is, once again, stolen from Freemasonry.

My throat be cut from ear to ear, and my tongue torn out by its roots; our breasts be torn open, our hearts and vitals torn out and given to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field; our body be cut asunder and all your bowels gush out.

Penalty
Mormon Endowment Ceremony

Following the death of the prophet Joseph Smith, and until the 1930's, Mormons took an Oath of Vengeance against the United States as part of the temple endowment ceremony.

You and each of you do covenant and promise that you will pray and never cease to pray to Almighty God to avenge the blood of the prophets upon this nation, and that you will teach the same to your children and to your children's children unto the third and fourth generation.

Oath of Vengeance
​Mormon Endowment Ceremony

In the Holy Bible, it was likewise said that generational curses are passed down onto the third and fourth generations,

Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.

Exodus 20:5
The Holy Bible, KJV

Most Mormons, and many Christians today, tend to think of the Latter-Day Saints as a quirky Christian offshoot. I would argue that Mormonism is actually more akin to an offshoot of Freemasonry. In the Christian faith, the Holy Bible is God's word. In Christianity, there are no tiers of secret occult rites and rituals in which a convert must be initiated in order to be granted access to higher tiers of information. Christians do not believe that God speaks to his people through blood-oaths and secret handshakes.

Masonic Handshake on SLC Temple

All-Seeing Eye on SLC Temple

​Jesus got mad, he flipped tables, and called the religious elite vipers. Christians believe that the life, death, and resurrection of the Christ opened the avenue for a direct relationship with God. Christians believe that Jesus the man was God having a human experience on the Earth. The Mormon faith teaches that God was actually once a man who became a god, and that by practicing Mormonism human beings can become gods too, ruling over a heavenly kingdom in the afterlife.

This is juxtaposed to Christianity in which Adam and Eve caused the fall of man from the Garden of Eden, the original sin, after having disobeyed God by biting into the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil to become gods. Masonic iconography decorates the famous LDS temple in downtown SLC, and even the Utah state flag bears an emblem of Freemasonry, the beehive. The history of the Latter-Day Saints is complex and full of mysteries, the surface of which, this introductory article only scratched.

If that God who gave bounds to the mighty deep, and bade the ocean cease--if that God who organized the physical world, and gave infinity to space, be our front guard and our rear ward, it is futile and vain for man to raise his puny arm against us. God will inspire his ministers with courage and with understanding to consummate his purposes; and, if it is necessary, he can snatch them from the fiery furnace, or the Lion's den.

​Nauvoo Expositor, June 7th, 1844

Utah State Flag