Cloak Blessed by a Prophet
Sickness sometimes was rampant in
Nauvoo, and Joseph Smith went among the people and administered to them. On occasion
he blessed cloth articles that could be used by others in healing and blessing
the sick and afflicted (Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View,
221-23, and illustration 89, a patch from the Butler cloak). For the benefit of
the Butler family, he blessed John’s large broadcloth cape or cloak. During the
rest of their lives, John and Caroline wrapped this cloak around family members
when they became ill. In time the coat passed to the next generation. In 1945 Bertha
M. Butler wrote that the family of John Lowe Butler Jr., inherited the cloak:
The family would often put it
around an afflicted person and through their faith in the blessing of the cape
they were made better. The cape became old and somewhat shabby and was finally
cut into ten pieces, one piece each for the ten [nine surviving] children of
John L. Butler II. My husband John Lowe Butler III received one piece of the
cape and I have had it in my possession for nearly 30 years. (William G.
Hartley, My Best for the Kingdom: History and Autobiography of John Lowe
Butler a Mormon Frontiersman [C. L. Dalton Enterprises, 2017], 114)
In the endnote to the above, we read that
Bertha Butler Thuber, “John Lowe
Butler’s Coak,” BFA. Bertha said that at a Daughters of Utah Pioneers meeting
where she told about the cape, a sister who did not feel well eagerly grasped
the cape, believing it could heal. “She said when she touched it there was a
great thrill went all thru her boy, she gave testimony that this piece of cape
really carried healing power with it. She felt the power go thru her system and
has been better since that time.” In 1957 Zettie Butler Christiansen, another
daughter of John Lowe Butler, Jr., told her daughter Laurel, “When our family
were youngsters we knew that if we were ill, if we wrapped a certain cloak
around us we would get well. The cloak was one which was blessed by the Prophet
Joseph Smith for the purpose of healing the sick and was given to my
grandfather John Lowe Butler, Sr., who in turn gave it to my father, John Lowe
Butler, Jr. Each of father’s children, including those of his second wife, were
given a pieces of the cloak.” Zettie Butler Christiansen, typed copy of
statement in BFA. (Ibid., 452 n. 49)
