Living LDS History

11/11/2022

1876 Doctrine of Covenants in beautiful leather historic rebind.

08/26/2021

A big thank you to for showing me around his shop this evening. I’m sitting down in Brigham Young’s rocking chair that he used when visiting his St. George home in the winter. If you ever get the chance to visit B. Ashworth’s Rare Books and Collectables, I promise you won’t be disappointed!

10/19/2020

UPDATE: If you saw the last post with the love letter you might be interested in how that turned out. Thanks to we have some answers! Alexander McMaster wrote this letter to Laura Mitchell on July 28, 1883. You’ll be happy to know they were sealed in SLC in the Endowment House 5 months later on December 27th. When Alex wrote the letter he was 26 years old. Laura was 17. They had 4 children together and Alex went on to serve a mission to the Southern States Mission from 1887-1889. He worked through school to become a very successful layer in SLC. Alex died at 59 in 1916 and Laura went on without him for another 17 years, undoubtedly continuing there tradition to write daily while they were apart.

10/03/2020

This photo was glued into a 1903 leather Book of Mormon. I’m not sure if it is Pliny Siculus Bradbury or Andrew Uckerman. It sounds like the 2 men were friends and Andrew would stop at the Bradbury Ranch while traveling back and forth from Richfield to Beaver. People usually stayed there overnight since it was about as far as a wagon team could travel in one day. Jane was Pliny’s wife who had earned a reputation for her good cooking and welcomed everyone into her home as they passed through. One evening the Borg family passed through with their child who was very ill. Jane stayed up all night with the child helping the doctor who had come, but the child passed away as the sun began to rise. .lds.history

07/01/2020

If you've never had the chance to go to the Mormon Battalion Historic Site here is your opportunity to go virtually!

We are excited to give you a 30-40 minute virtual tour of the Mormon Battalion Historic Site!Here are some things you need to know: Check under the calendar to make sure you are signing up in your own time zone There will possibly be other people/groups on your tour The Zoom link for the tour will

06/27/2020

This is a fallen leaf from Carthage Jail. Today we remember the fallen lives of Joseph and Hyrum Smith who were martyred 176 years ago. Elder Holland said, "As one of a thousand elements of my own testimony of the divinity of the Book of Mormon, I submit this as yet one more evidence of its truthfulness. In this their greatest — and last — hour of need, I ask you: would these men blaspheme before God by continuing to fix their lives, their honor, and their own search for eternal salvation on a book (and by implication a church and a ministry) they had fictitiously created out of whole cloth? Never mind that their wives are about to be widows and their children fatherless. Never mind that their little band of followers will yet be “houseless, friendless and homeless” and that their children will leave footprints of blood across frozen rivers and an untamed prairie floor. Never mind that legions will die and other legions live declaring in the four quarters of this earth that they know the Book of Mormon and the church which espouses it to be true. Disregard all of that, and tell me whether in this hour of death these two men would enter the presence of their Eternal Judge quoting from and finding solace in a book which, if not the very word of God, would brand them as imposters and charlatans until the end of time? They would not do that! They were willing to die rather than deny the divine origin and the eternal truthfulness of the Book of Mormon."

04/05/2020

Jesus Christ lives. This is His church.

12/24/2019

Today, Joseph Smith was born 214 years ago in Sharon Vermont. Praise to the man!

12/09/2019

09/08/2019

Just outside Santa Fe, New Mexico right off Interstate 25 is a lesser known monument that stands in memory of the Mormon Battalion. It has been called the longest infantry march in history—approximately 1,850 miles and began 20 July 1846 on the Little Pony River in Council Bluffs, Iowa. During the Mexican War of 1846 James K. Polk, president of the United States, requested five hundred Mormon men to help in the war effort. Brigham Young saw it as an answer to prayer as a way to help move the saints west and the Battalion was organized.
After traveling several months there were some members who where too sick to carry on and a sick detachment was designated here and headed to Fort Pueblo, CO. Three of my direct ancestors were members of the Mormon Battalion. The next photos show my ancestors William Holmes Walker, George Deliverance Wilson and William Carroll McClellan. @ Mormon Battalion Monument

06/28/2019

Today marks 175 years since the testimony of Joseph Smith was sealed with his blood at Carthage. Five men were indicted for the killings but were acquitted at a jury trial. At the time of his death, Joseph Smith was also running for President of the United States. The Carthage Greys reportedly feigned defense of the jail by firing shots or blanks over the attackers' heads, and some of the Greys reportedly joined the mob, who rushed up the stairs. The mob first attempted to push the door open to fire into the room, though Joseph Smith and the other prisoners pushed back and prevented this. A member of the mob fired a shot through the door. Hyrum Smith was shot in the face, just to the left of his nose, which threw him to the floor. He cried out, "I am a dead man!" and collapsed. He died almost immediately. After being shot twice in the back and one from a musket below, which hit him in the chest, he cried out, “Oh Lord, my God” and fell from the window to his death. @ Carthage Jail