Saturday, August 20, 2022

Brigham Young and Joseph Smith's Prophecy of the Saints Moving to the Rocky Mountains

In a discourse delivered on March 16, 1856, Brigham Young referred to Joseph Smith's prophecy of the Saints moving to the Rocky Mountains:

 

The Prophet Joseph has been referred to, and his prophecy that this people would leave Nauvoo and be planted in the midst of the Rocky Mountains. We see it fulfilled. This prophecy is not a new thing, it has not been hid in the dark, nor locked up in a drawer, but it was declared to the people long before we left Nauvoo. We see the invisible hand of Providence in all this; we realize that His hand has wrought out our salvation.

 

Through His control of circumstances this people have been removed from civilization, and have been brought to inhabit these vales among the Rocky Mountains, to dwell in these desolate and barren plains where no ether people, that we have any knowledge of, would live one year, if they could get away. The providence of God has brought us here. (JOD 3:257-58)

 

Elsewhere, on March 3, 1861, Brigham said that

 

I am looking for the words of Joseph to be fulfilled. The time will come when men and women will be glad to catch what they can, roll up in a small bundle, and start for the mountains, without team or waggon. That day will shortly come. Hundreds of people in this house are my witnesses, who heard Joseph say, when asked whether we should ever have to leave Nauvoo, "The Saints will leave Nauvoo. I do not say they will be driven, as they were from Jackson County, Missouri, and from that State; but they will leave here and go to the mountains.  (JOD 8:356)

 

As Ronald K. Esplin noted, Brigham

 

was probably referring not only to the “Rocky Mountain prophecy” of 1842, but to a settled belief repeated several times that apparently dated from at least 1840. (Ronald K. Esplin, “’A Place Prepared’: Joseph, Brigham and the Quest for Promised Refuge in the West,” Journal of Mormon History 9 [1982]: 92)

 

 Further Reading:


Resources on Joseph Smith's Prophecies