Kirtland, Ohio

“ Ch 47, February 1831 A Revelation to seven elders of the church, assembled in Kirtland, Ohio, given February 1831.
47:1 Every person who belongeth to this church of Christ, shall observe to keep all commandments and covenants of the church;
47:2 And it shall come to pass, that if any persons among you shall kill, they shall be delivered up and dealt with according to the laws of the land ”

“ Resolved unanimously, that we sanction the Literary Firm, and give them our voice and prayers, to manage all the affairs of the same, as far as it concerns this place, according to the revelation in book {483} of Doctrine and Covenants, first edition, published at Kirtland, Ohio, page 152, section 26th, given November, 1831, (current edition, section 70) . [1]
{484} Minutes of a High Council held in the Lord's House, in Kirtland, Monday, May 29, 1837, ten o'clock a. ”

“ I remained in Kirtland until the temple was finished and dedicated. I then received my anointings, and was also a witness to the great manifestations of God's power in that sacred edifice.
On Thursday, April 7th, 1836, all things being ready, Lydia and I started for Clay county. Brother Hyrum Smith let me have his horses to go to Liverpool, on the Ohio river, where we were intending to take passage on a steamer for our destination; the roads were very muddy. ”

“ In the valleys of Utah the Church has erected four great temples, each more stately than the last; and in these holy houses the sacred ordinances pertaining to salvation and exaltation of both the living and the [Pg 779] dead are in uninterrupted progress. The temples of the present dispensation, at the time of the present writing designated according to location, are those of Kirtland, Ohio ”

“ Revelations were had for a part of them to return to Ohio, a part to stay and take charge of the city, and a part to commence preaching 'in the region round about.' Much dissatisfaction was manifested by some as to the selection of the site, and the general appearance of the country. Smith, Rigdon and Cowdery returned to the old head-quarters in Kirtland. Their followers immediately commenced selling their lands, mostly at a great sacrifice, and made preparations for emigrating up the Missouri. All were now anxious to sell, instead of buying more land in Ohio. ”

“ After making our escape into the county of Clay—being reduced to the lowest poverty—I made a living by day labor, jobbing, building, or wood cutting, till some time in the winter of 1834, when a general Conference was held at my house, in which it was decided that two of the Elders should be sent to Ohio, in order to counsel with President Smith and the Church at Kirtland, and rake some measures for the relief or restoration of the people thus plundered and driven from their homes. The question was put to the Conference: "Who would volunteer to perform so great a journey?" ”

“ Many at once began to believe in the new religion. But the West seemed so much better a field that in 1831 Smith and his followers started for Ohio, and at Kirtland established a Mormon community. There the Mormons lived for several years, and then went to Missouri, whence they were expelled, partly because they were an antislavery people. In 1840 they settled on the banks of the Mississippi in Illinois and built the town of Nauvoo. ”

“ But even this did not disturb the believers. In 1831 Smith with his followers settled at Kirtland in Ohio. To avoid the daily increasing popular odium, he removed to Missouri, and thence to Illinois, and founded there, in 1840, the important town of Nauvoo with a beautiful temple. By diligence, industry and good discipline, the wealth, power and influence of their commonwealth increased, but in the same proportion the envy, hatred and prejudices of the people, which charged them with the most atrocious crimes. In 1844, to save bloodshed the governor ordered the two chiefs, Jos. ”

“ She fancied it stretched like a telegraph wire from pole to pole, only near the ground, so the cattle of one State could not stray into the other, and so little children could have it to talk across, resting their chins on the cord. But when they came to the line and crossed it there was not even a mark on the ground; not so much as a furrow such as Zene made planting corn. And at first Indiana looked just like Ohio. Later, however, aunt Corinne felt a difference in the States. Ohio had many ups and downs; many hillsides full of grain basking in the sun. ”

“ By the act of 21st of April, 1792 there was granted to Rufus Putnam and others, known as the Ohio Company, one hundred thousand acres of land in the Marietta district, in the territory northwest of the Ohio river. ”

“ The "Seven Ranges," lying directly south of the Reserve, 100 drew emigrants from Pennsylvania, with some from farther south. The Scioto valley attracted chiefly Virginians, who early made Chillicothe their principal center. In the west, and north of the Symmes tract, Kentuckians poured in by the thousands.
Thus in a decade Ohio became a frontier melting-pot. Puritan, Cavalier, Irishman, Scotch-Irishman, German—all were poured into the crucible. Ideals clashed, and differing customs grated harshly. But the product of a hundred years of cross-breeding was a splendid type of citizenship. ”

“ A traveler in our state, just after it had become a state, believed that we were destined to be more like the people of the North and East than the people of the South, whom he then found, in Kentucky at least, much livelier in mind and manner than the Pennsylvanians, fond of public life and society, very hospitable and courteous, but dissipated, restless, and reckless. Our public spirit did not come from our Southern ancestry, but from our New England ancestry. The South gave Ohio perhaps her foremost place in war and politics, but her enlightenment in other things was from the North. ”

“ Industry and ambition are more than a match for education in minds of the same order.
[Illustration: Your Fellow Citizen, J. P. Kirtland]
Dr. Kirtland originated at Wallingford, Connecticut. His father, Turhand Kirtland, in 1799, was appointed general agent of the Connecticut Land Company, on the Reserve. He removed to Poland, in Mahoning county, the next year, where he became a prominent citizen of the new county then known as New Connecticut. So long as the Company existed he was continued in the agency, and survived until 1833 to witness the developments of the region. ”

“ Greed of the great round dollar has been the commanding passion, and nowhere has it burned more fiercely. All the crimes, treacheries, deceptions, and frauds practiced under the sun have been repeated on the Ohio between Pittsburg and Cairo. Some, perhaps unknown elsewhere, have here been committed. But here, too, that old-time clear love of living for life’s sake only, the thing which makes sailors sing the world over, was deeply felt. In its lower extremities the river reaches practically southern climes while its northern arms reach out into New York and Pennsylvania. ”

“ Samuel Kirkland who had taken up the missionary work among the Oneida Indians in that section of country where Rome, New York, is now situated. She taught the women and children and by her example and patient work brought about a changed condition among these people. In 1787 the Ohio Company was organized in Boston and built a stockade fort at Marietta, Ohio, called Campus Martius, and Rev. ”

“ We catch sight for a moment, through a cloud crevasse, of Ceredo, the last town in West Virginia—a small saw-milling community stuck upon the edge of the clay cliff, with the broad level bottom stretching out behind like a prairie. A giant railway bridge here spans the Ohio—a weird, impressive thing, as we sweep under it in the swirling current, and crane our necks to see the great stone piers lose themselves in the cloud. ”

“ Committing my baggage to a carman, I ascended the bank of diluvial earth and pebbles with all eagerness, and walked to the point of land where Fort Pitt (old Fort Du Quesne) had stood. It is near this point that the Alleghany and Monongahela unite, and give birth to the noble Ohio. It is something to stand at the head of such a stream. The charm of novelty is beyond all others. ”

“ He will behold Pittsburgh itself, Wheeling, Portsmouth, Maysville, Cincinnati, Louisville, and numerous other towns, lining and ornamenting the banks of the noble river, daily extending their limits, and prosecuting, with the greatest spirit and profit, numerous branches of the manufacturing and mechanic arts. If he will go into the interior, in the state of Ohio, he will there perceive the most astonishing progress in agriculture, in the useful arts, and in all the improvements to which they both directly conduce. ”

“ We see, in no very distant future, the time when Pittsburgh packets will show companies of pleasure-seekers, who will luxuriate in the picturesqueness of the Kentucky and Ohio shores, as they now luxuriate along the Hudson or the Rhine.
The time is coming, too—gliding now upon our clairvoyant vision, as we sit in our office solitude—when legends of early war, and Indian chieftain, and poor Blennerhasset, and border settlements, shall spring up under artist pen, and crown the graceful mountains, that swoop right and left from the Ohio voyager, with charming historic beauty. ”

“ Other northern affluents, as the Muskingum, the Scioto, and the Miami, descend, like the Allegheny, from the plain studded with lakes not far from Lake Erie. The southern affluents are larger, and rise, like the Monongahela, among the upland glades of the Appalachians or on the Appalachian plateau. The Kanawha (navigable to Charleston, W. Va.) and the Licking traverse salt-yielding regions. The Kentucky River (navigable to Beattyville, Ky.) joins the Ohio above the Louisville Rapids and marks the natural division between the middle and lower courses of the river. ”

“ This was the life of the early settler in every county in Ohio, as each in its turn was organized and opened to settlement. A life so hard, was yet so attractive that many pioneers, when a few neighbors gathered around them, preferred to sell their clearings and push further into the wilderness. In the meantime the older settlements attracted newcomers. Mechanics and tradesmen came along them. Then towns sprang up, and incipient cities, with corner lots and hopeful speculators, tempted eastern capitalists to invest their money in Ohio. ”

“ In Virginia and Kentucky there are Pittsburg, Charleston, Wheeling, Limestone (Maysville) , and Louisville; and on the old-time Indian Side are Beaver (Fort Mclntosh) , Wellsburg, Marietta (Fort Harmar) , Gallipolis, Manchester, Columbia, Cincinnati; and Madison and Clarksville, Indiana. By 1800 there are forty-five thousand inhabitants in the entire Northwest Territory, of which probably twenty-five thousand are in the Ohio Valley. Kentucky contains a population of over two hundred thousand; not such a large fraction are on the Ohio however, as is true in the Northwest Territory. ”

“ The sameness of view along the banks of the river, as far down as Pointe Coupee, a distance of nine hundred miles, is scarcely interrupted, excepting by a few settlements, and some high bluffs, on the eastern side. The land appears to be one continued level, clothed with large timber, and an under growth of cane brakes, and small shrubs.
Opposite the mouth of the Ohio is a small settlement consisting principally of men whose employment is hunting. Five miles below, on the east side, is fort Jefferson, which is evacuated. On the west side, sixty-five miles further down, is New Madrid. ”

“ It is still a mystery to me how it was ever mounted to where it is to-day.
Now all of this was very long ago, before you knew anything about Oldmeadow and my river beside it. When we first knew the village, you will remember, all that was left of the college was the building, the bell, and the wonderful view of the most beautiful stream in the world, from its windows, or its top. Standing beside the relic of the General Litell, you may see the great Ohio wandering idly, vagabondishly, through the valley, until it looks like a silver thread losing itself in the misty distance. ”

“ The ordinary laws for surveying by ranges, townships, and sections, did not apply to this tract, nor to the surplus that might revert, as ordinary surveys would have thrown the townships and sections into fractions, by the hundred-acre lots previously disposed of by the company.
By compact, the United States stipulated to give to the State of Ohio one thirty-sixth part of the public lands in that State, for the use of schools; and the 16th section of each township was the land thus contracted to be given, in cases where there were regular surveys in townships of six miles square ”

“ From thence to Bigbonelick, the distance is 23 miles; the country is more hilly than on the other side of the river; it is, however, fertile, the stratum being generally limestone. The growth of timber is very fine; the trees are beech, sugar-maple, and sycamore. The contrast between Ohio and Kentucky is striking, and the baneful influence of slavery is very soon discovered. Instead of elegant farms, orchards, meadows, corn and wheat fields carefully enclosed, you see patches planted with tobacco, the leaves neglected ”

“ Jack took the belt eagerly. To go to the lodge of Tecumseh to bring back a kinswoman to whom had descended great estates and against whom foes—he at once decided that they were foes—were plotting—What boy of twenty-one would not jump at the chance.
And to go to Ohio—the very name was a challenge. The Ohio of 1812 was not the Ohio of today, not the smiling, level country, set with towns, crisscrossed with railways, plastered with rich farms where the harvest leaps to the tickling of the hoe. It was far away, black with the vast shadow of perpetual forests, beneath which quaked great morasses. ”