|
Another
Witness of the Light:
The Museum of Church
History and Art Showcases
Two Twentieth Century Photographers
by Scot Facer Proctor
Images
of Nauvoo
Opening
Statement
The Prophet
Joseph Smith stood just over six feet tall in stocking feet (though
he often wore boots so he appeared six feet two inches tall) and
weighed between 212 to 220 pounds. After I had grown to my full
stature I discovered that I was the same height and weight as he-a
reality that has deeply affected my photography. When I am shooting
Church historical photographs, I always keep "Joseph's view" in
my mind. Sometimes, as I mentioned in the introduction to Gallery
1, I will crank the tripod and camera to Joseph's exact eye level
so I can see and capture things as he did. For some reason this
is important to me. I have not been disappointed in the results.
Shooting
Nauvoo
I have not
kept track of how many images I have taken of Nauvoo over the past
thirty years. I love Nauvoo and the spirit which still lingers there.
I love the Prophet Joseph. I love to walk where he walked and try
to imagine what he felt at any given period of his short life to
capture in my images. I have spent untold hours in the Carthage
Jail pondering and praying and meditating about Joseph and the Restoration.
It was a very emotional day for me to pass Joseph's exact age and
to be extended a mortal sojourn beyond his.
Don Oscarson,
the writer and producer of "The City of Joseph" pageant, a long-time
lover of Nauvoo, Church History, and the Prophet Joseph (and a great
personal friend) once told me a story about a moment he had in Nauvoo
that I have never forgotten. The story affected me deeply. One wintry
evening he and Stan Kimball (another remarkable man and a world
class expert on the Mormon Pioneer Trail) were coming out of the
visitor's center in Nauvoo. A snow was lightly falling, the lights
around the gardens there were almost magical, the night was still
and serene. They paused for a moment and gazed upon the incredibly
beautiful scene. At once Stan said, "Don, we're in love with a city
that never was."
I knew in an
instant what he meant and I didn't want that statement to affect
my long-years love affair with Nauvoo. All that we see is what we
have imagined the City of Joseph was like. It has attained a mythic
quality for us. There was something about Nauvoo that has, however,
been passed down through the bloodlines. It is something great.
It is something of our heritage to have taken a mosquito-infested
swamp and turn it into a thriving city on the horseshoe bend of
the river. It is something to remember hundreds of converts arriving
week after week in certain times-all of them coming there to find
and build Zion. It was a place of love and joy. A place of happiness
for a season. It was a place of learning and maturing. And yet it
was a place of sorrow, the likes of which have probably not been
felt any other time in this dispensation when the Saints lost Joseph.
I have felt those emotions at times as I have walked the streets
of Nauvoo late at night or perhaps at 5:00 o'clock in the morning.
There is something that lingers in the air there. I can't explain
it, but you can feel it if you want to.
I led a small
tour back about four years ago which ended at the Carthage Jail
(as all our tours do). As a tradition we have a testimony meeting
to conclude the tour-mainly to let people release their emotions
of following in Joseph's footsteps for 3,000 miles and two weeks
and then coming to this place where he was martyred. Twenty-seven
of the twenty-eight tour participants had borne testimonies--two
people were left, my twelve-year-old son Thomas, and our Roman Catholic
bus driver. Our drivers generally don't join us for the testimony
meetings but this one did. He looked around and said, "Well, I guess
it's my turn." I was mildly shocked but did not physically show
it. I just couldn't wait to hear his feelings. He had been in every
site, had joined nearly every lecture, had been reading the Book
of Mormon along the way. He continued, "I have learned this one
thing from all of this. Perhaps it is or should be the watch cry
of the Mormons----Remember Nauvoo." He went on to talk about why
and we all cried. He was right. There is something in our blood
(whether new convert or old timer) about Nauvoo. We even like to
say the name Nauvoo. We love that part of our heritage. We dream
about it. We talk about it in classes and read about it in books.
Nauvoo. Nauvoo. We say it loud and we say it clear. Camelot! It
is that indeed. And those who were forced from their homes and from
their secure lives in that place looked back upon their city fair
and imprinted The City of Joseph upon their souls so deeply that
perhaps it even re-patterned the DNA to create memory in our souls
today.
There are now
twenty-nine or thirty restored sites in Nauvoo-most of them lovely
brick structures; not much of a representation of what Nauvoo was
really like. There were only about 300 brick structures in olden
time, the rest were frame homes or more common the crude log cabins.
It was a city that rose from the swamp, was inhabited by as many
as twenty-thousand people, then was abandoned all in a matter of
seven years.
Final
Thoughts
Maurine and
I were in Utah for a visit a couple of weeks ago. We actually were
able to visit the Museum of Church and History and Art across from
the Tabernacle and see the display for the first time which we have
been publishing online for the last two months. The display was
very moving. It made us want to hang all those images in our home.
It humbles me to think I have been able to record these sacred places
on film. It is privilege beyond words. I suspect when I finally
pass on, God willing, I will have a panorama of photographs spanning
seventy years.
George Edward
and I have captured different parts of Nauvoo. I'm grateful for
George Edward's images-they show us some things that don't exist
now. He arrived there just sixty-one years after the Saints left-it
seems like there could have still been fires smoldering from the
early times. I will try to point out some interesting things in
the captions below and I hope that you will enjoy them.
Click
to Enlarge
The foundation
in the foreground is a great depiction of how much of Nauvoo looked
when the restoration process began in the 1960's. Nauvoo is a place
of building-not just in early times but in modern times as well.
By Scot Facer Proctor, 1990.
Click
to Enlarge
It looks like
there are a great number of cut stones left over from the original
building of the Nauvoo Temple but actually Kieth Merrill had been
here just some weeks before filming Legacy and this "fake" blocks
were still in place so I used them as props for the still photograph
as he did for the motion picture. There is a feeling of great sacrifice
in this quarry. A hundred men at a time used to work in here to
break, cut, shape and gather the stone from here to take to the
temple site about a half a mile from here.
Click
to Enlarge
A view from
the pulpit inside the Seventies Hall in Nauvoo. We always like to
bring our groups in here and just sing with our whole souls-hymns
like: High on a Mountain Top, A Banner is Unfurled," and "Now Let
Us Rejoice." Here is where some of the early, organized missionary
work began-kind of like a very abbreviated and small Missionary
Training Center. By Scot Facer Proctor, 1990.
Click
to Enlarge
This is my favorite
portion of the original 'martyrdom trail' from Nauvoo to Carthage.
The dirt and gravel roads that most closely approximate the original
26 miles to Carthage are carefully marked with directions so that
a brave, modern driver can actually follow the trek clear to the
Carthage Jail. It is a very moving experience to do this in modern
times. By Scot Facer Proctor, 1990.
Click
to Enlarge
I took this
photo the day after a tornado had blown Nauvoo to pieces in 1990.
There were large trees downed everywhere and debris spread in every
direction. This angle was one of the few I could use to block out
all the mess. Don't be deceived by the substantial nature of this
lovely brick structure and assume, "Wow, Heber C. Kimball really
had it great there in Nauvoo.. Before Heber and Vilate Kimball moved
into this house they had been living in a wagon box, then a lean-to,
then a small log cabin, then a frame house--then this brick structure.
They would only stay in this home for five months then they were
driven out. By Scot Facer Proctor, 1990.
Click
to Enlarge
Parley Street
in Nauvoo was truly a 'trail of tears' for the Saints-if you traverse
west you come to the Mississippi River and the 6,565 foot barrier
to cross-you can see the river in the background. If you follow
Parley Street to the east it will lead one to the Carthage Jail.
Either way there was sorrow, pain, and suffering. Modern tourists
can walk from the Seventy's Hall to the shores of the Mississippi
River passing numerous signs on the way to the river, which take
words from the journals and writings of the early Saints-capturing.
It is a very moving experience. By Scot Facer Proctor, 1994.
Click
to Enlarge
A gathering
of people outside the Joseph Smith Mansion House in Nauvoo. Joseph
and Emma had lived in no less than sixteen different homes in 17
years of marriage, most of them as guests of other families. Finally
Emma had her own home-with 22 rooms-who would n't have called it
a "mansion?" Joseph would only live here 10 months and then be killed.
By George Edward Anderson, 1907.
Click
to Enlarge
I love this
picture. It is so rich with detail from a different era. This is
actually taken from atop an old building on Muhlholland Street (which
still stands to this day) located just across from and to the east
of the temple lot. Just beyond the horses and carriages on the right
is the actual Temple lot where the new Nauvoo Temple is being built
today. It is covered with houses and outbuildings. Not far out of
the picture is the home of Joseph Agnew who was the arson who, with
two accomplices, burned the temple in 1848. By George Edward Anderson,
1907.
Click
to Enlarge
Perhaps George
Edward had access to the old 1846 Daguerreotype of Nauvoo taken
from this same angle and it influenced him. The David Yearsley home
can be seen in the middle of the picture (used as a missionary residence
today). Characteristic of George Edward he has placed people in
the picture for scale and interest. If the temple would have been
standing in 1907 one could have seen it to the right of the large
steeple on the hill about the exact middle of the picture. By George
Edward Anderson, 1907.
Click
to Enlarge
The most interesting
thing to me about this shot of "the Pitt Home" in Nauvoo is how
many structures are still standing down below on the flats by the
Mississippi River in the distance. This home stood up on the hill
in the area of the vineyards. The Nauvoo House can be seen down
on the shore of the Mississippi almost straight up from the prominent
fence post behind the man and a little to the left. This is truly
a fascinating view. By George Edward Anderson, 1907.
Click
to Enlarge
This is a wonderful
picture of the Carthage Jail by George Edward. The second floor
window just to the left of the large tree about the middle of the
picture (a little obscured) marks the room where Joseph and Hyrum
and Willard Richards and John Taylor were located when the deadly
shots were fired. Joseph leaped from that window crying out, "Oh
Lord, my God." By George Edward Anderson, 1907.
Click
to Enlarge
This area was
called Potter Slough and was near the place of the miracle of the
quail given to the early pioneers and poor among the Saints. The
Mississippi River was a constant presence in the lives of the Saints
in Nauvoo. By George Edward Anderson, 1907.
Click
here to sign up for Meridian's FREE email updates.
© 2001 Meridian
Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
|
