September 2nd

Sept 2, 1829 - The PALMYRA REFLECTOR publishes: "THE GOLDEN BIBLE, by Joseph Smith Junior, author and proprietor, is now in press and will shortly appear. Priestcraft is short lived!" The REFLECTOR is published in the same building in which the Book of Mormon was being typeset and printed.

Sept 2, 1842 - Orson Pratt Orson writes in the Mormon newspaper THE WASP that, contrary to rumor, he had not "renounced 'Mormonism,' left Nauvoo, &c." He further explains how he is able to believe his wife's accusations against Joseph Smith while remaining in the Church: "The lustre of truth cannot be dimmed by the shadows of error and falsehood. Neither will the petty difficulties existing among its votaries weaken its influence or destroy its power. Its course is onward to accomplish the purposes of its great Author in relation to the happiness and salvation of the human family."

Sept 2, 1844 - Brigham Young performs the first plural marriage by his own authority.

Sept 2, 1852 - Henry Jacobs, living in California, writes to his legal wife Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Smith Young (a plural wife of Brigham Young who was also a plural wife of Joseph Smith while married to Henry), "O how happy I should be if I only could see you and the little children, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. . . . I am unhappy, there is no peace for poor me, my pleasure is you, my comfort has vanished. . . . O Zina, can I ever, will I ever get you again, answer the question please."

Sept 2, 1862 - Brigham Young holds a meeting with "with some merchants . . . for the purpose of getting our Brethren who were Merchants to enter into some arrangements to lower the present high prices of goods, and by combination to drive from our midst all foreign merchants. . . . Many explanations were made by the Brethren present relative to their manner of doing business showing from figures that their profits were not so large now as they were when goods were sold at much lower figures. . . . No definite conclusion was arrived at, The Brethren agreed to think about the matter and expressed themselves willing to do what they could to accomplish the object in view."

Sept 2, 1875 - The day after his father (George A. Smith, First Counselor to Brigham Young) dies Apostle John Henry Smith writes, "Father still lays in the ice and is keeping very nicely."

Sept 2, 1877 - At Brigham Young's funeral "18,000 people by actual Count passed through the Tabernacle to visit the Body of President Young and several thousand were not Counted. It is estimated that 25,000 took their last fare well of the honored dead."

Sept 2, 1887 - Wilford Woodruff notes the cost for the yet uncompleted Manti Temple: "Total up to date $890,662.95. Almost one half of this Expense was in Moving a Mountain to get a place to build a Temple on." Brigham Young had said that the site had been chosen by Moroni.

Sept 2, 1897 - First Presidency and apostles at their weekly meeting in the Salt Lake Temple "agreed that our people should try and avoid having outsiders settle in their midst."

Sept 2, 1898 - Death of Wilford Woodruff, only Utah church president to die outside Utah (in San Francisco, California, at the home of non-Mormon Isaac Trumbo); buried in Salt Lake City. Lorenzo Snow has a vision in the Salt Lake Temple where Jesus Christ instructs him to organize a First Presidency. A new First Presidency is organized eleven days later. Each of the previous three times a church president had died it had taken from twenty months to over three years to organize a new First Presidency. Apostle Brigham Young Jr. writes I his journal: "Pres Woodruff has passed away far from home and in the house of one I cannot believe to be an honest man."

Sept 2, 1908 - First Presidency and apostles meet in Salt Lake Temple and agree "that the Rule made in the past and adhered to by all of the former Councils of the church [is] that the Negro Race might be baptised but could not have the Priesthood."

Sept 2, 1938 - Popular general authority J. Golden Kimball, asleep in the back of the car while returning from a vacation in California, is thrown from the car and suffers a fatal skull fracture when the driver loses control.

Sept 2, 1965 - A month after race riots in the Watts suburb of Los Angeles, Reed Benson, Utah John Birch Society coordinator and son of Apostle Ezra Taft Benson, writes to Birch Society Members in Utah: "It is common knowledge that the Civil Rights Movement is Communist controlled, influenced and dominated. . . . Our founder and guide, Mr. Robert Welch, has instructed us that when necessary we must adopt the communist technique in our ever present battle against Godless Communism. It is urged that in the coming weeks the Utah Chapters begin a whispering campaign and foster rumors that the Civil Rights groups are going to organize demonstrations in Salt Lake City in connection with the forthcoming LDS conference. . . . A few well placed comments will soon mushroom out of control and before the conference begins there will be such a feeling of unrest and distrust that the populace will hardly know who to believe. The news media will play it to the very hilt. No matter what the Civil Rights leaders may try to say to deny it the seed will have been sown and again the Civil Rights movement will suffer a telling blow."

Sept 2, 1996 - Gordon B. Hinckley receives American Legion's "Good Guy Award."

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