Searching for Zion

Searching for Zion

In the bitter winter of 1846, a long line of covered wagons crossed the frozen Mississippi River from Nauvoo, Illinois, into Iowa. The migrants were Mormons, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This was not their first flight from a place they had once called home.

Their story began in upstate New York. In 1830, a young man named Joseph Smith received revelations from God that led him to publish the Book of Mormon and organize a handful of followers into a church.

As the church grew, Smith led his followers west, first to Ohio and then in several waves to Missouri. In 1838, Missouri's governor issued an infamous order allowing the Mormons to be “exterminated or driven from the State.”

More than 8,000 took refuge in Illinois. There, they created the flourishing city of Nauvoo, attracting both admiration and enmity. Now, once again, they were fleeing. Led by Brigham Young, they would travel 1,200 miles west to the Salt Lake Basin—home to Utes, Paiutes, and Shoshones—an area then claimed by Mexico. There they hoped to exercise religious freedom and build their kingdom of God.

“Crossing the Prairies,” Harper’s New Monthly, 1853
Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, New-York Historical Society

These scenes are part of a moving panorama begun in the 1870s by C.C.A. Christensen, a Mormon convert from Denmark. Christensen traveled with the panorama to audiences throughout the Mountain West. While his 23 massive paintings were rolled out one by one, he recounted the story of an exodus aided by divine intervention.

C.C.A. Christensen (1831-1912)
Crossing the Mississippi on the Ice, ca. 1878
Facsimile
Tempera on muslin, 77 7/8 x 114 inches
Brigham Young University Museum of Art, gift of the grandchildren of C.C.A. Christensen, 1970

The Book of Mormon, 1830
Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, New-York Historical Society

Joseph Smith
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

The Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon (1830), with its mix of traditional and new teachings, was the foundational text of the Church, equal in importance to the Bible. Mormons agreed with many other Christians that Jesus would return to establish Zion, the Promised Land. But, controversially, the Book of Mormon located Zion in North America. And it gave Native peoples—called “Lamanites”—a role in bringing about the millennium. The Book also taught that modern prophets such as Joseph

Smith would contribute continuing revelations. Smith claimed that by restoring the church of the New Testament, his was the only true church. The name “Latter-day Saints” evoked the early followers of Jesus who called themselves “Saints.”

The Hill Cumorah
September 1827

Christensen portrayed Joseph Smith’s account of visits from the angel Moroni, who led him to golden plates inscribed in sacred writing. Using seer stones found with the plates, Smith translated and published the Book of Mormon in New York in 1830. It identified American Indians as descendants of an early migration from Jerusalem and prophesied that they would play an important role in the Second Coming of Christ to the Americas.

C.C.A. Christensen (1831–1912)
The Hill Cumorah, ca. 1878
Tempera on muslin, 80 ½ x 116 in.
Brigham Young University Museum of Art,
Gift of the grandchildren of C.C.A. Christensen, 1970

Saints Driven from Jackson County, Missouri
July 1833

In 1831, Joseph Smith identified Independence, Missouri, in Jackson County, as the New Jerusalem and “center place of Zion.” When over 1,000 Saints flocked there, other white settlers responded violently, fearing the Mormons' economic and political strength and their apparent opposition to slavery. Although the Saints eventually found land in a different part of the state, trouble followed. In 1838, Governor Lilburn Boggs ordered them to leave Missouri or risk death.

C.C.A. Christensen (1831–1912)
Saints Driven from Jackson County, Missouri, ca. 1878
Tempera on muslin, 77 ¼ x 113 in.
Brigham Young University Museum of Art,
Gift of the grandchildren of C.C.A. Christensen, 1970

Interior of Carthage Jail
June 1844

In Nauvoo, Illinois, Joseph Smith’s complicity in the destruction of an opposition Mormon newspaper led to his imprisonment in the Carthage county jail. Illinois’s governor promised him protection, but a masked mob stormed the jail, killing him and his brother Hyrum. Their deaths established their martyrdom and signaled to the Saints that they must eventually leave the city.

C.C.A. Christensen (1831–1912) Interior of Carthage Jail, ca. 1878
Tempera on muslin, 78 x 120 in.
Brigham Young University Museum of Art, Gift of the grandchildren of C.C.A. Christensen, 1970

Entering the Salt Lake Valley
July 1847

Christensen’s final painting shows the first company of Saints entering the Salt Lake Valley. This small group set about plowing and planting while awaiting the rest of the faithful. In this new place of gathering, the Saints hoped to live their religion in a way that would bring about a new millennium of Christ's reign on earth.

C.C.A. Christensen (1831–1912)
Entering the Great Salt Lake Valley, ca. 1878
Tempera on muslin, 77 ¼ x 113 in.
Brigham Young University Museum of Art,
Gift of the grandchildren of C.C.A. Christensen, 1970

The Nauvoo Temple

Joseph Smith received key revelations urging the building of a temple where members could perform vicarious baptisms for deceased loved ones. He also dictated a revelation, kept secret until after his death, justifying plural marriage or polygamy.

Construction of the temple went forward even after Smith’s murder. In December 1845, as the Saints prepared to flee Nauvoo, Brigham Young authorized the performance of plural marriages and vicarious baptisms—sacred rituals that bound people together after death. The temple was later destroyed by arson.

J. Twigg & Co.
Plate, 1840–1860
New-York Historical Society, The Dr. Arthur H. Merritt Collection, 1961.212

Blowing the Shofar