The Temple Lot , located in Independence, Jackson County, Missouri, is the first site dedicated to the construction of a temple in the Latter-day Saint movement. The area was dedicated on Wednesday, August 3, 1831 by the founder of the movement, Joseph Smith, Jr., and purchased on December 19, 1831 by his colleague Edward Partridge to become the center of New Jerusalem or "City of Zion" after he received a revelation stating that it would be the gathering of the Saints during the Last Days.
The most prominent section of the 2.5-acre Temple Lot today is an open, covered grass field occupied in the northeast corner by several trees and the headquarters of Christ Church (Temple Lot), which is not considered a temple by its adherents. of the sect. No other buildings (with the exception of monuments, markers and signs) are in the 2.5-acre section, although many important structures are in the 63.5 hectare section, such as the United Nations Plaza, Community of Christ Auditorium, Truman Railroad Depot, LDS Visitor Center, Community of Christ Shrine, center of LDS Church, and the Six Nations Peace Tree.
Video Temple Lot
Overview
The City of Independence, Missouri became important to the Latter-day Saint movement that began in the autumn of 1830, just months after it was founded in New York state in April 1830. The founder of the movement, Joseph Smith, has said he has received a revelation designates this city as the "Center of Places" of "Zion", and many early believers seem to believe that the Garden of Eden has been there - including later LDS Church leaders Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball, who said he was told this by Joseph Smith. Alexander Majors, a sixteen-year-old Independence citizen in 1831, wrote in his memoir:
None of the excellent records occurred in the Jackson area, after the typhoon of 1826, until 1830, when five Mormon parents appeared in the area and began to preach, proclaiming to the audience that they were chosen by the priesthood which had been organized by the Prophet Joseph Smith... They chose a place near Independence, Jackson County, Mo., in the early part of 1831 they named Temple Lot, a beautiful place on high ground. They there trapped their Jacob's staff, as they call it, and said: "This place is the center of the earth.This is the place where the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve live, are, and we are sent here according to the directions of the angels who reveal to our prophet Joseph Smith and tell him that this is the point where the New Jerusalem will be built, and, when completed, Christ Jesus will make a reappearance and stay in this New Jerusalem city with the saints for a thousand years, at the end of that time there will be a new agreement with reference to the nations of the earth, and the end of the career of the human family. "
However, since Smith never issued an official declaration that Independence and the Temple are the place of the Garden of Eden, Latter-day Saints (other than some followers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) have traditionally not officially accepted this claim as a doctrine. While Smith later issued a revelation indicating a place named Adam-ondi-Ahman (fifty miles north of Independence) as the place of Adam and Eve went after being expelled from the Garden, he never officially affirmed or rejected the idea that Freedom had become the location of Eden itself.
Although Smith had designated the Temple Lot site as the heart of his new Zion City, Latter-day Saints were expelled from Jackson County (late 1833) and then from Missouri (early 1839) before a temple could be built. Property ownership later became the subject of court challenges among several sects of the Latter-day Saint movement that emerged from the crisis of succession after Smith's assassination, especially between Christ Church (Temple Lot) and the Community of Christ, formerly known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of the Saints End Times (RLDS Church). In 1891, the Reorganized Church, founded by Smith's son, Joseph Smith III, was sued at the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri to take ownership of the property. It won in the lower court, but lost in the US Court of Appeals. The US Supreme Court refused to review the case.
The Temple Lot is currently owned by a small Church of Christ (Temple Lot), which acquired the land in 1867. The organization made a failed attempt in 1929 to build a temple of its own on the property, which represents to date its sole attempt to build such structures since the time of Joseph Smith. Currently this agency has its headquarters on site, which has twice been damaged by a combustion attack. The Temple Temple Church has been adamant since about 1976 (when the last attempt at conciliation by the RLDS Church took place) that it would not cooperate with other Latter-day Saints or Christian denominations in building a temple, nor would it sell Lot, regardless of price which might be offered. Several other members of the Latter-day Saint group have described the Temple church as "'squatters' on the scene," but the organization firmly defends its right to own property as a physical and spiritual "guardian".
The Community of Christ, the second largest church in the modern Latter-day Saint movement, now owns most of the original 26 hectares of land around the Lot Temple, often referred to as the larger Temple b>. This land was purchased in the 1830s by the Edward Partridge End Times bishop into a common and major sacred area according to the Plat of Zion. He defended his headquarters in this area, opened his Auditorium to the south of Lot in 1958, while in 1994 he dedicated his Independence Temple just to the east.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) operates an interpretive visitor center one block east and south of Temple Lot. It also maintains the Stake Center, the LDS Social Service center, and the mission headquarters in its section of the Temple Temple.
Maps Temple Lot
Initial property history
Site selection
In March 1831, Joseph Smith said he had a revelation stating that the New Jerusalem would be established in the United States. In June 1831, Smith said he had a second revelation that the New Jerusalem would be established somewhere on the western border of Missouri, "on the border by the Lamanites (Native Americans)." Independence is six miles (10 km) east of Kaw Point on the current Missouri-Kansas border, forming a north-western west line where all the tribes should be removed in the Indian Removal Act of 1830.
On July 20, 1831, Smith presented another revelation on the subject, with more precise details:
"[T] he land of Missouri... is the land which I have established and sanctified for the gathering of the saints: therefore this is the promised land, and the place for the city of Zion.... Look at that place now called Independence is the place the center, and the place for the temple lie to the west of the upper lot not far from the courthouse: hence the wisdom that the land should be bought by the saints, and also every channel lying to the west, even to the [Missouri-Kansas border line] walk directly between the Jews [Native Americans] and Gentiles, as well as every channel that borders the meadow, as long as my students are activated to buy the land.See this is wisdom, that they can earn it for eternal inheritance.
Smith's vision of acquiring every piece of land between Independence and the Kansas frontier would attract the anger of Latter-day Saint settlers in Jackson County, including what is now the center of Kansas City.
On August 3, 1831, Smith, Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, Peter Whitmer, Jr., Frederick G. Williams, William W. Phelps, Martin Harris, and Joseph Coe laid the stone as the northeast corner of the anticipated shrine. On December 19, 1831 Edward Partidge bought 63 acres (250,000 m 2 ), including the Shrine Lot. During the purchase, Smith will reveal: "The temple will be preserved in this generation, for surely this generation will not pass until a house built for the Lord and the cloud will rest upon it." Since no temple in this location has ever been built, Smith's prediction that a temple will be fostered "in this generation" has sparked a debate.
Temple plan
In June 1833, Smith established the Plat of Zion, which organized how the community should be structured. In the planned city center there are 24 "temples" - 12 for the high priesthood and 12 for the lower priesthood. The special name for the temple to be built at Temple Lot is "House of God for Presidency" which has the following description:
The House of God for the Presidency, is eighty-seven feet long and sixty-one feet wide, and ten feet taken from the eastern end for the ladder, leaving the inner court, seventy-eight feet with sixty one, which is counted and divided for seats by the following ways, namely: two aisles with four feet wide each; the middle block of the bench is eleven feet ten inches long, and three feet wide each; and two lines drawn through the center are four inches (102 mm); where the curtain room will fall to the right corner, and divide the house into four sections if necessary. The bench of the side block is fourteen and half feet long, and three feet wide. The five benches in every corner of the house, twelve feet long six inches long. Open space between corner and side bench for fireplace; those in the west have a width of nine feet, and the east has a width of eight feet and eight inches (203 mm), and the chimney is brought to the wall where they are marked with a pencil.
...
Make your house as high as four meters between floors. There will be no galleries but a room; every story as high as fourteen feet, curved upward with elliptic arches. Let the foundation of the house be made of stone; let it be raised high enough to allow banks to rise as high as possible to recognize the descendants of every street from home, as far as to split the distance between this house, and the one next to it. On the foundation, above the embankment, let there be two rows of stone carved, and then begin to work the bricks on the chisel. The height of the whole house is twenty-eight feet, each consisting of fourteen feet; making a wall of sufficient thickness for a house of this size. The final display represents five windows of the same size as those on the side, the middle window is excluded, the same, with the addition of side lights. This central window is designed to illuminate the rooms above and below, because the upper floors should be dismissed in the same way as the lower floors, and curved upwards; with the same curtain or veil arrangement as mentioned earlier. The doors should be five feet wide, and nine feet high, and are on the eastern end of the house. The western end has no door, but in another case it is like the east, except the window is opposite the alley backing east and west. The roof of the house is has a quarter pitch, a door to have a Gothic top, just like a window. Roof roofs are painted before they are placed. There will be a spotlight, as you can see. The windows and doors all have venetian blinds. A bell tower is on the eastern end, and a bell of enormous size.
Expulsion from Jackson County
In July 1833, the Mormon leader W. W. Phelps published a copy of a Missouri law that stipulated a requirement for free blacks to come to Missouri at Night and Morning Star, a prominent Mormon newspaper. Latter-day Saints had been in great disarray with their neighbors in Jackson County before this event, but Phelps's publication proved to be the last straw for many non-Mormons in the area - especially slave owners. Angry that the Mormons seem to bow to show blacks that there is an alternative to slavery in Missouri, they set fire to newspaper factories and raved and wicked Bishop Edward Partridge and Elder Charles Allen's church. The process driven by this event will end with Latter-day Saints People who were expelled from Independence and Jackson County, Missouri area later that year.
Latter-day Saints move across the Missouri River to Clay County, Missouri, where they defend David Rice Atchison as their lawyer to settle their real estate claims in Jackson County. The Mormons will move again to Caldwell County, Missouri with his territory seat in Far West, before being driven out of Missouri entirely in the 1838 Mormon War. In March 1839, Smith - who surrendered to the State Militia in Far West to end the conflict - told his followers to "sell all the land in the Jackson area, and all other land in any state." Lot Temple was sold to Martin Harris, but Harris did not record the deed.
Legend of the stacks of ancient Indian rock
A common legend among the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) membership is that the ancient Native American encounter took place at the end of the Lot Temple, and representatives of various tribes each left a stone on a pile. This legend's description is published in 2015 in two installments from Zion's Advocate church publications .
Post-Smith Era
Lilburn Boggs assassination trial
Lilburn Boggs, Missouri Governor during the Mormon War, lived in Independence before the conflict. Boggs was widely regarded as a violent "anti-Mormon", having issued his "destruction order" in the autumn of 1838, and Latter-day Saints blamed him for the many hardships and sadness they had borne. After the war, and after he left the office, Boggs settled in a house located three blocks east of Temple Lot in Sion City plot. On the evening of May 6, 1842, while sitting in his home, he was shot in the head by an unknown assailant. Despite being seriously injured, Boggs survived. Mormon was suspected, and Smith associate Orrin Porter Rockwell was arrested for the crime, but no conviction ever came in the case.
Acquisition by Hedrickit
Joseph Smith was murdered in Carthage, Illinois in June 1844. On April 6, 1845, the Apostle Brigham Young expressed a desire to reaffirm the church's control over Lot Temple: "And when we enter the territory of Jackson to walk in the court of the house, we can say that we built this temple: for as the Lord lives we shall build up the region of Jackson in this generation. "However, he could not act on this desire at the time, because he and most other Latter-day Saints were in the process of migrating to Utah, and they remain unsure of the Jackson Countians' attitude to the possible renewal of Mormon interest in their area. On April 26, 1848, Young, Heber C. Kimball, Orson Pratt, and Wilford Woodruff in Winter Quarters, Nebraska debated what they should do about their claim to the property before the planned trip to the Salt Lake Valley. Their decision was to accept a claim offer stopping 300 dollars on the deed.
In 1847, the city of Independence was officially established, with Temple Lot accepting the legal appointment of the 15 to 22 lot at "Woodson and Maxwell Apart". While the Latter-day Saint main body accompanies Brigham Young to Utah, other remaining groups in Illinois argue that they should return to Independence to build the temple. The first of these groups to move to the area was the small Church of Christ (Temple Lot), also called "Hedrickit", which held its first worship meeting in Independence on Sunday, March 3, 1867. This was the first time the Holy Day had lived in Independence since the beginning of 7 November 1833, when they were expelled from the area at gunpoint. Unable to obtain all of the larger Temple Lot due to lack of funds, the organization successfully purchased Lot Temple itself, erecting the first worship house on it in 1882. (A June 2009 lecture on the history of the land of Temple Lot declared damaged for the first worship house on the site on April 7, 1884 - not in 1882 - and the structure was completed in 1889).
On June 9, 1887, the RLDS Church claimed the entire Temple area of ​​over 250 hectares, including a section purchased in 1867 by the Church of Christ, upon obtaining the deed. for the property of the heirs of Oliver Cowdery. The only contested part of the purchase is the Lot Temple itself. In 1891, the RLDS Church sued Temple Lot church to seize the land, won the trial in March 1894 but lost the appeal in the Federal Court of Appeals.
Trying to build a temple
On February 4, 1927, Otto Fetting, an apostle of the Church of Christ (Temple Lot), claimed that John the Baptist had visited him in his house as an angel and urged the construction of a temple in Temple Lot. The cheating claim was officially supported by the main quorum of the church and by most laypeople, and the land was broken on 6 April 1929, with instructions that the temple be completed within seven years. The proposed structure is 180 feet (55 m) with a length of 90 feet (27 m) in width. After lurking some of the land, an angel allegedly appears and declares that "[t] he built that you have beted is ten feet too far to the east, and if you will move the stakes then it will stand on the spot that has been pointed by the finger of God. "Excavations reveal the stones that were originally buried by Joseph Smith, in line with the survey marker. Both these stones are currently located in the Temple Lot headquarters building, while their original position is marked by two other carved stones embedded clearly in the parking lot. The outer edges of the temple are now characterized by similar stones.
A doctrinal dispute in the Temple organization of baptism took place later that year, and Fetting was let down by a majority vote of the apostles at a church conference in October 1929. The failure to leave the temple church at this time, brought many members with him. finally founded the Church of Christ (Fettingite) and the Church of Christ with the Elijah Message. Although many Temple churches request donations for the proposed temples of individuals and even from other Latter-day Saint organizations, little money will come (none from other organizations), and the construction never progresses beyond excavation to the foundation of the structure. This unhappy hole was filled by the city of Independence in 1946, after the Temple church finally abandoned all efforts on the project. Temple Lot Church relinquished the area, which now consists of grassy fields, with several trees and the headquarters of Temple Lot at its northeastern end. There are no further plans for the construction of a temple on the site that has been announced.
First burn incident
The first meeting hall built in Temple Lot is the home of Edward Partridge, which serves as a school building, Sunday meeting hall, and Conference Center. It was burned by the burning together with approximately "houses" of the Latter-day Saints on November 5, 1833.
Second fire incident
In July 1898, William David Creighton, 46, "W.D.C." Pattyson, reportedly member of the 'suspended' RLDS Church from Boston, Massachusetts, was arrested and briefly detained after trying to remove a fence placed around Temple Lot. (Mr. Pattyson had been baptized into the Hedrickite sect in May 1898). According to his critics in the Temple Lot sect, Pattyson reportedly demanded that the church official sign ownership of the property to him, claiming that he was "One Mighty and Strong". He was detained by police but later released a few days later. Beginning Monday, September 5, 1898, he ruined the headquarters building by installing it, then walked to the police station and surrendered. After he testified in the hearing in late November and early December 1898, The New York Times claimed Pattyson was found 'guilty but insane' and he was sentenced to imprisonment at a mental institution in St. Joseph, Missouri. However, according to local news reports and personal explanations. Pattyson on her release, she was found "innocent by reason of insanity" and committed to a mental institution because the sitting Judge felt that Pattyson did not deserve criminal detention.
Third fire incident
A man described as a former member set fire to the Temple Lot (self-built 1905 building to replace the previous structure, also damaged by fire) in what he claimed was a political protest on January 1, 1990, damaging the upper floors. The rest of the building was flattened, and new buildings were built. This structure serves as a church headquarters, conference venue, museum, and meetinghouse for the local Temple congregation.
Museum
A small museum operated by the Temple Lot church is located on the lower floors of the headquarters building in Lot; it contains some original stones placed by Joseph Smith to mark the corners of the temple that he meant, and also offered books and church literature for sale.
Note
External links
Media related to Temple Lot on Wikimedia Commons
- Christ Church website (Temple Lot)
- The history of Christ Church (Temple Lot) 1830-2008, published September 2012
- "After Many... Not Away From the Courthouse": The History of Lot Photography The Shrine in Independence, Jackson County, Missouri by R. Jean Addams and Alexander L. Baugh
- Distant Western Cultural Center
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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