Item Detail
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17118
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16
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22
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English
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Ownership of the Kirtland Temple : Legends, Lies, and Misunderstandings
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Journal of Mormon History
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Fall 2004
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30
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no.2
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Salt Lake City, UT
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Mormon History Association
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1-80
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Loving identifies and describes the evolution of the chain of title of the Kirtland Temple and how the property passed from one to another from 1834 to 1879. By quitclaim deed, in 1873, the temple was conveyed to Joseph Smith III and Mark H. Forscutt for $150. Intent on legally establishing the legitimacy of their church by reinstating the property belonging to the church which was tax free, the RLDS passed a resolution to have the title of the Kirtland Temple transferred to the church corporation. The RLDS Church intended to distinguish itself from the what they saw as the deviations of Utah Mormonism. The courts eventually concluded that the RLDS Church was "the true and lawful continuation of and successor to the said original Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, organized in 1830, and was entitled in law to all rights and property." These finding were far more valuable to the RLDS Church than ownership of the temple itself. This fostered the misapprehension that the court had awarded the Kirtland Temple to the Reorganization as the rightful successor of the original church. The difficulty was that the Reorganization's proclamations of judicially determined legitimacy actually had no legal basis. In fact, the legal result of the lawsuit was that the title stood exactly as it had before the case was filed. Legally nothing had been accomplished. In the 1940s ownership of the Kirtland Temple was still in dispute. In 1942, Guy Hammond explained: "The Reorganization has had adverse possession too long to be upset. If Utah has any legal objections, it has certainly not manifested any faith in its legal position." Over time the temple became an icon of the Reorganization's legitimacy, fulfilling this purpose best through historical tours of the sacred structure. In 1899, the polemical purpose was inscribed on the building: "Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Succession by Order of Court February 1880."
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A Contest for "Sacred Space"
Assuming Stewardship: Notes on the Recent Transfer from Community of Christ
Beyond Nauvoo : Discovering the Reorganized Church Story Again for the First Time
Documents, Volume 4: April 1834-September 1835
"Established Agreeable to the Laws of our Country": Mormonism, Church Corporations, and the Long Legacy of America's First Disestablishment
Excavating Early Mormon History : The 1878 History Fact-Finding Mission of Apostles Joseph F. Smith and Orson Pratt
Joseph F. Smith: Reflections on the Man and His Times
Kirtland Temple : The Biography of a Shared Mormon Sacred Space
"Out of the Mists of Memory" : Remembering Joseph Smith in Vermont
Restoring, Preserving and Maintaining the Kirtland Temple : 1880-1929
Scattering of the Saints : Schism within Mormonism
Temples Rising : A Heritage of Sacrifice
The Church of Christ (Temple Lot) and the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints : 130 Years of Crossroads and Controversies
The Journey of a People : The Era of the Reorganization, 1844 to 1946
The Kirtland Safety Society and the Fraud of Grandison Newell : A Legal Examination
The Sanctification of Mormonism's Historical Geography -
A 'Goodly Heritage' in a Time of Transformation : History and Identity in the Community of Christ
A Time of Transition : The Kirtland Temple, 1838-1880
Grandison Newell's Obsession
Joseph Smith III and the Kirtland Temple Suit
Joseph Smith III : Pragmatic Prophet
Kirtland Council Minute Book
Nauvoo : A Place of Peace, a People of Promise
Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints : Moderate Mormonism
RLDS Views of Polygamy : Some Historiographical Notes
The History of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
The Joseph Smith Revelations : Text and Commentary
The Kirtland Economy Revisited : A Market Critique of Sectarian Economics
The Kirtland Temple : A Historical Narrative
The Memoirs of President Joseph Smith III (1832-1914)
The Mormon Succession Crisis of 1844
The nature and cause of internal and external conflict of the Mormons in Ohio between 1830 and 1838
The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith
The Story of the Church
The Temple Lot Suit after 100 Years
The Truth and the Evidence : A Comparison between Doctrine of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
'True Son of a True Father' : Joseph Smith III and the Succession Question
Zion in the Courts : A Legal History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900