The history of Nauvoo, Illinois, starts with the Sauk and Meskwaki tribes who frequented the area, on a bend of the Mississippi River in Hancock County, some 53 miles (85 km) north of today's Quincy. They called the area "Quashquema", in honor of the Native American chief who headed a Sauk and Fox settlement numbering nearly 500 lodges. Permanent settlement by non-natives was reportedly begun in 1824 by Captain James White. By 1830, the community was called "Venus", and it was the site of the first post office in the county. In 1834 the name was changed to "Commerce" in anticipation that the town would prosper under the United States's westward expansion.
In late 1839, arriving Mormons bought the small town, and in April 1840 it was renamed "Nauvoo" (a Hebrew word meaning "they are beautiful") by Joseph Smith, the leader and prophet of the Latter Day Saint movement. Nauvoo grew rapidly and was one of the most populous cities in Illinois for a few years. Within two years of Joseph Smith's being killed by a mob in 1844, most of the Mormon population had departed, fleeing armed violence. The majority headed west with the group led by Brigham Young.
In 1849 Icarians moved to the Nauvoo area to implement a utopian socialist commune, which continued until 1856. After the departure of most Icarians, Nauvoo became the largest German-speaking community in Illinois and remained so until the First World War. By that time, the community was religiously diverse, including Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, and Presbyterian congregations.
Today, a plurality of Nauvoo's population is Methodist or another Christian faith. Nauvoo is an important tourist destination for Latter Day Saints (Mormons) and others who come to see its restored historic buildings and visitor centers.
Sauk and Meskwaki village (before 1824)
A large village of Sauk (Sac) and Meskwaki (Fox) was established along the Mississippi River, near what is now Nauvoo, in the late 18th century; this village had as many as 1,000 lodges. In 1823 or 1824, Captain James White purchased the village from Quashquame, a Sauk leader. White gave Quashquame "a little sku-ti-apo [liquor], and two thousand bushels of corn" for the land. Quashquame's village moved to the west side of the river, merging with an existing Sauk village near what is now Montrose, Iowa.
In 1841, Joseph Smith, living in Nauvoo, was visited by Sauk and Meskwaki from the Iowa village. "The ferryman brought over a great number on the ferry-boat and two flat boats for the purpose of visiting me. The military band and a detachment of Invincibles (part of the Legion) were on shore ready to receive and escort them to the grove, but they refused to come on shore until I went down. I accordingly went down, and met Keokuk, Kis-ku-kosh, Appenoose, and about one hundred chiefs and braves of those tribes, with their families." Smith then discussed the Mormon religion with them, followed by a feast and dancing by the Indians.
Early European settlement: Venus and Commerce (1824-1839)
By 1827 other white settlers had built cabins around the area that Captain James White had purchased from Quashquame. The community came to be called "Venus". Hancock County had been created in 1825 and organized in 1829. By 1829, this area of Hancock County had grown sufficiently that a post office was needed, and this first post office in Hancock County opened in Venus on March 13, 1830. The first postmaster was George Y. Cutler, a graduate of Yale. In 1832 the town was one of the contenders for the new county seat. However, a location closer to the center of the county was selected, and that place became the nearby city of Carthage.
On October 11, 1834, the name Venus was changed to "Commerce" because the settlers felt that the new name better suited their goals. Plans were made for significant redevelopment, and absentee investors A. White and J. B. Teas laid out and plotted the town of Commerce. By 1839, the town had failed to attract settlers, and only a few frame houses had been built. The hopes of commercial success, based on the townsite being beside a necessary portage trail past seasonal rapids, were dashed by the fact that the site and surrounding lands were also most of the time a malarial swamp.
Nauvoo as the home of the Latter Day Saints (1839-1846)
In early 1839, Latter Day Saints were forced to flee Missouri as a result of the 1838 Mormon War and a non-legal proclamation known as Missouri Executive Order 44 issued by Governor Lilburn W. Boggs. They regrouped in Quincy, whose non-Mormon citizens were shocked by the harsh treatment given them in Missouri and opened their homes to the refugees.
Joseph Smith, Jr., prophet and president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, remained imprisoned in Missouri, but his chief counselor in the First Presidency, Sidney Rigdon, had been released and rejoined the main body of the church in Quincy. Church member Israel Barlow fled Missouri and entered Illinois further north than the main group of Latter-day Saints. Learning from Isaac Galland, a land agent, that a large amount of land was for sale in the Commerce area, he contacted church leaders. Galland approached Rigdon in Quincy and offered church leaders title to land in Hancock County and additional land across the river in the Iowa Territory's Lee County. Church leaders purchased this land as well as the mostly vacant Commerce plat in 1839, and Latter Day Saints began to settle the area immediately.
Physically weak from months of imprisonment, Smith and other leaders were permitted to escape from prison in Missouri. They rejoined the Latter Day Saints in Commerce by May 1839. He renamed the town "Nauvoo", meaning "to be beautiful". Latter Day Saints often referred to Nauvoo as "the city beautiful", or "the city of Joseph".
Despite the name, the site was, at first, an undeveloped swamp. Epidemics of cholera, malaria and typhoid took their toll on the struggling Mormons until the swamp was drained. The smaller community of Commerce had few buildings, so construction began promptly to meet the immediate demand for housing. Elements of Joseph Smith's generalized city plan, known as the "plat of Zion" (first introduced in 1833) were used in the street layout and lot allotments in Nauvoo. The community was characterized by wood frame homes with outbuildings, gardens, orchards and grazing plots on large lots laid out on an orderly grid system. In general, the buildings were detached single-family dwellings reminiscent of New England construction styles, with commercial and industrial buildings in the same pattern.
Building up the city
In the spring of 1840, John C. Bennett, the Quarter Master General of the Illinois State Militia, converted to Mormonism and became Joseph Smith's friend and confidant. Bennett's experience with Illinois government allowed him to help Smith craft a city charter for Nauvoo. After passing both houses of the Illinois Legislature, Governor Thomas Carlin signed the Nauvoo City Charter on December 16, 1840. Based closely on the Springfield, Illinois, charter, the document gave the city a number of important powers, including the establishment of the Municipal Court of Nauvoo, the University of Nauvoo, and an independent militia unit. At the time, the Illinois state government was closely balanced between members of the Democratic party and members of the Whig party. Both hoped to attract Mormon votes, and both were quick to place the charter into effect. After the charter was passed, Bennett was elected Nauvoo's first mayor, and Smith made Bennett a member of the church's First Presidency. A militia unit named the "Nauvoo Legion" was established, and Smith and Bennett were made its commanding generals.
The city grew quickly as Mormons gathered. At its height Nauvoo's population was as large as Quincy's or Springfield's, although it remained smaller than contemporary Chicago, still in its infancy. Many new residents came from the British Isles, as a result of a successful LDS mission established there. The Latter Day Saints published two newspapers in the city, the religious and church-owned Times and Seasons and the secular and independently owned Wasp (later replaced by the Nauvoo Neighbor). Although it mostly existed on paper, the University of Nauvoo was established, with Bennett as chancellor.
The Nauvoo Legion, a militia with 2,000 men, was headed by Joseph Smith, who was given the commission of lieutenant-general by Illinois' Governor Carlin. The Nauvoo militia consisted of a corps of riflemen.
On April 6, 1841, the Nauvoo Legion drilled in a great parade to honor the laying of the cornerstone for a new temple. and Sidney Rigdon gave the dedicatory speech. The foundation of the Nauvoo Temple was 83 by 128 feet (25 by 39 m) and, when finished, its steeple rose to a height of over 100 feet (30 m). Church elder Alpheus Cutler was put in charge of the construction of the ambitious stone structure. Another church committee began construction of a large hotel on the city's Water Street, to be called the Nauvoo House. John D. Lee was put in charge of constructing a meeting hall for the quorums of the Seventies.
In October 1841, a Masonic lodge was established in Nauvoo in the building currently referred to as the Cultural Hall. George Miller, one of the church's bishops, was made its "Worshipful Master" or leader. The lodge admitted far more members than was normal in Masonic practice and quickly elevated church leaders to high roles. This was the most significant time in which the Latter Day Saints were involved in Freemasonry.
Developments in the church
At the time of Nauvoo's foundation, the church was led by a First Presidency, consisting of a prophet and two counselors. The presiding high council, known as the Nauvoo High Council, led by Nauvoo Stake President William Marks, was next in administrative authority, overseeing the church's legislative and judicial affairs. The church's "Traveling High Council" (or Quorum of the Twelve) led by President Brigham Young oversaw its missionary activities.
Joseph Smith, Jr., introduced and expanded a number of distinct practices while the Latter Day Saint church was headquartered in Nauvoo. These included baptism for the dead, rebaptism, the Nauvoo-era endowment, and the ordinance of the second anointing. In addition, he created a new inner council of the church — containing both men and women — called the Anointed Quorum.
Although not publicly acknowledged, Smith had been practicing plural marriage for some time, and in Nauvoo he began to teach other leaders the doctrine. Controversy arose because Smith's counselor in the First Presidency and Mayor, John C. Bennett, was caught in adultery (which Bennett considered and referred to as "spiritual wifery" or having multiple "spiritual" wives), claiming that Joseph Smith endorsed it and practiced it himself. Bennett was subsequently expelled from Nauvoo in the summer of 1842, and Smith himself became the city's second mayor. Bennett's fall led to Brigham Young's becoming more prominent among Smith's confidants. Young proved more loyal than Bennett, helping Smith promote the teachings of the Church and the practice of plural marriage with greater discretion.
Another key development was Smith's 1844 establishment of the Council of Fifty based upon his political theory of theodemocracy. An extension of the Mormon belief of an imminent millennium, this council was meant to be a political organization which could immediately fill the roles of purely secular governments which would be destroyed at Christ's Second Coming. The organization was meant to be fully functional only in the absence of secular government, and its governing principles were to be based on the United States Constitution. Reports of the organization, which met in secret, helped fuel rumors of an aggressive theocracy with Joseph Smith as its king. The council remained in existence long after the Nauvoo period.
Nevertheless, Joseph Smith ran for president of the United States in 1844 advocating for a "theodemocracy". He wrote, "I go emphatically, virtuously, and humanely, for a Theodemocracy, where God and the people hold the power to conduct the affairs of men in righteousness."
Growing hostility towards Mormons
As the Mormon population grew, non-Mormons in Hancock County, especially in the towns of Warsaw and Carthage, felt threatened by the political power of the growing Mormon voting bloc. In Nauvoo, Joseph Smith was not only president of the church, he was mayor, head of the municipal court, and general of the militia. This power base, plus the fact that Mormons benefited from collective group efforts as opposed to the more isolated and independent non-Mormon farmer, caused many non-LDS in the nearby areas to become suspicious and jealous.
Throughout much of the Nauvoo period, officials from Missouri attempted to arrest Smith and extradite him on charges relating to the Mormon War. When he was apprehended, Smith would appeal to the Nauvoo Municipal Court, which would issue writs of habeas corpus and force his release. The court occasionally did the same when non-Mormons tried to arrest Latter Day Saints on other charges. Although the local court exceeded their authority in some of these cases, in at least one instance Governor Ford honored the Nauvoo court's decision to deny extradition. Illinoisans, generally unaware of the Church's and Smith's legal history in Missouri, began to consider this a serious subversion of the judiciary which weakened the legal position of Nauvoo and the Latter Day Saint leadership.