We can positively affirm that
Joseph Smith never gave a revelation which intimates that the church would be
driven to the Rock Mountains. The Utah Mormons published a purported statement
of Joseph Smith’s which, upon critical examination, is found to be based upon
definitely unreliable evidence. They claim that a man, Anson Call, heard Joseph
utter the prophecy at a Masonic Installation Meeting at Montrose, Iowa, on
August 6, 1842, and that he entered the alleged prophecy in his personal diary
under date of July 14, 1843. This is the only evidence they possess.
Without entering a detailed
discussion of the conflicting statements of this “supposed revelation” in their
various publications, we merely affirm that such meager evidence is too flimsy.
In none of the writings, sermons, or other statements of Joseph Smith is there
any reference to such a prophecy. In fact, this alleged prophecy was never
published even by the Mormons of Utah until after 1850 in the Deseret News,
published in Salt Lake City, and the Millennial Star of 1857, published
in England. The Reorganized Church has constantly challenged the Utah Church to
produce more reliable evidence than a purported statement entered eleven months
later in the “supposed” diary of Anson Call and not verified by any other
witness. (Question Time [Independence, Miss.: Herald Publishing Company,
1953; repr., Independence, Miss.: Price Publishing Company, 2003], 74)
On the Rocky Mountains prophecy, see:
Oliver H. Olney's 1842 Journal Entries on the Saints Then-Future Move to the Rocky Mountains (cf. Brigham Young's Letter to William L. Marcy (December 17, 1845); Paulina Eliza Phelps Lyman Recounting Joseph Smith's Promise in 1832 that She Would Go to the Rocky Mountains; Helen Mar Kimball Whitney on the Importance of the Rocky Mountain Prophecy to LDS Truth Claims over RLDS Claims to Authority; 1831 and 1834 Accounts of a Then-Future Expansion to the West as far as the Pacific Ocean; Jonathan Dunham's Belief in 1840 that the Saints would go to the Rocky Mountains; Brigham Young and Joseph Smith's Prophecy of the Saints Moving to the Rocky Mountains; Plans to Establish a Settlement in Texas: Evidence Against the Authenticity of a Rocky Mountain Prophecy?