Item Detail
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6438
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17
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7
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English
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Nauvoo's Whistling and Whittling Brigade
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BYU Studies
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Summer 1975
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15
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480-90
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"After the death of the Prophet Joseph Smith on 27 June 1844, anti-Mormon violence subsided briefly as the mob element awaited the expected demise of the Church. When the Church did not fall, persecution resumed, officially taking the form of the repeal of the Nauvoo Charter. The Charter, approved by the Illinois Legislature in December 1840, provided the citizens of Nauvoo with, among other things, the right to regulate their own police protection and to punish lawbreakers. In the ensuing months, the Mormons claimed that certain disreputable characters were indeed taking advantage of the situation. Facing this uneasy state of affairs, the ecclesiastical leaders felt compelled to find some means of maintaining discipline in the city streets. Not wanting to resort to extra-legal activities and being aware that their priesthood authority did not apply to any but their own people, they sought an alternative solution. If some plan were not found, they would either have to live with the consequences or resort to their own mob rule--where power prevailed but trouble ensued. So the City of Joseph's elders ingeniously met the increasing flood of Gentile undesirables by organizing the boy population into a "Whistling and Whittling Brigade." Suspicious strangers immediately would be surrounded by groups of boys, armed with long-bladed jack-knives and sticks. Whichever way the suspect moved, the boys followed; whistling and whittling as they went. Not a question would they ask, not a question would they answer. They were too small to strike individually; too many to battle collectively. When they descended on a hapless stranger, they hugged his presence like vermin, until in exasperation he was glad to take hasty leave from the abode of the Saints." [Publisher's abstract]
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Anti-Mormonism in Illinois : Thomas C. Sharp's Unfinished History of the Mormon War, 1845
Becoming Mormon
Brigham Young : Pioneer Prophet
Crime and Punishment in Mormon Nauvoo, 1839-1846
Faithful and Fearless : Major Howard Egan : Early Mormonism and the Pioneering of the American West
From Mission to Madness : Last Son of the Mormon Prophet
From the Outside Looking In : Essays on Mormon History, Theology, and Culture
Ireland to Utah : Odyssey of the William Black and Jane Johnston Family
Joseph Smith III : Pragmatic Prophet
Mormon Conquest : Whites and Natives in the Intermountain West
Mormon Enigma : Emma Hale Smith
Nauvoo Observed
Nauvoo Stake, Priesthood Quorums, and the Church's First Wards
Old Mormon Nauvoo and Southeastern Iowa
Out of the Black Patch : The Autobiography of Effie Marquess Carmack, Folk Musician, Artist, and Writer
People and Power of Nauvoo
Same-Sex Dynamics among Nineteenth-century Americans : A Mormon Example -
Autobiography of George W. Bean : A Utah Pioneer of 1847
History of Hancock County, Illinois, Together with an Outline History of the State, and a Digest of State Laws
History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Period I : History of Joseph Smith, the Prophet, by Himself
Joseph Smith and the Restoration : A History of the Church to 1846
Mormonism Unveiled : The Life and Confession of John D. Lee and the Complete Life of Brigham Young
Nauvoo-The City Beautiful
Readings in LDS Church History from Original Manuscripts