saints the standard of truth

A Beautiful Place

As the malaria epidemic in Commerce continued into 1840, Emily Partridge and her sister Harriet visited the tents, wagons, and unfinished homes of the sick. Now sixteen years old, Emily was used to stark living conditions. For almost a decade, her family had been driven out of one humble dwelling after another, never enjoying the stable home life they had known in Ohio.
The sisters attended the sick until they too came down with fevers and shakes. Realizing their daughters' lives were in peril, Edward and Lydia Partridge moved them from a tent to a small rented room in an abandoned storehouse beside the river. Edward then went to work building a house for his family on a lot a mile away.
But the trials of Missouri had broken the bishop's health, and he was in no condition to work. He soon had a fever as well, which he treated with medicine until he was strong enough to do a week or two of work on the house. When the sickness returned, he took more medicine and went back to work.
Meanwhile, the cramped, stifling room in the storehouse did little to help Emily, Harriet, or their siblings, who also took sick. Emily's fever remained steady through the spring of 1840, but Harriet's grew worse and worse. She died in the middle of May at the age of eighteen.
Harriet's death crushed the Partridges. After the funeral, Edward tried to move the family to an unfinished cow stable on their property, hoping it would provide better shelter. But the exertion wore him out and he collapsed. To help the family, fellow Saints William and Jane Law took Emily and her siblings into their home and nursed them back to health.
Edward languished in bed several days before passing away, just a week and a half after Harriet's death. The losses left Emily grief-stricken. She had been close to Harriet, and she knew her father had sacrificed everything to provide for his family and the church--even when grumbling Saints, faithless dissenters, and hostile neighbors wore his soul weary.
In time, Emily emerged from the fog of sickness and grief, but her life was different now. To help provide for their destitute family, she and her nineteen-year-old sister, Eliza, had to find work. Eliza had the skills to hire out as a seamstress, but Emily had no trade. She could wash dishes, sweep and scrub floors, and do other household chores, of course, but so could most everyone else in the community.
Fortunately, the Saints did not forget how much her father had sacrificed for the church. "No man had the confidence of the church more than he," read the obituary for Bishop Partridge in the Times and Seasons, the Saints' new newspaper. "His religion was his all; for this he spent his life, and for this he laid it down."
To honor his memory and care for his family, the Saints finished the house the bishop had begun, giving his family a place they could call their own.

By the spring of 1840, the new city on the Mississippi was off to a promising start. The Saints dug ditches and canals to drain the swamps along the river and make the land more livable. They plotted streets, laid foundations, framed houses, planted gardens, and cultivated fields. By June, around two hundred and fifty new homes stood as a testament to their hard work.
Unsatisfied with the name Commerce, Joseph had rechristened the place Nauvoo almost as soon as he arrived. "The name of our city," he explained in a First Presidency proclamation, "is of Hebrew origin and signifies a beautiful situation or place, carrying with it also the idea of rest." Joseph hoped Nauvoo would live up to its name and give the Saints a reprieve from the conflicts of recent years.

Yet he knew peace and rest would not come easily. To avoid the dissent and persecution they had experienced in Ohio and Missouri, the Saints needed to forge stronger bonds with each other and create lasting friendships with their neighbors.
Around this time, Joseph received a letter from William Phelps, who had moved to Ohio after forsaking the church and testifying against Joseph in a Missouri court. "I know my situation, you know it, and God knows it," William wrote, "and I want to be saved if my friends will help me."
Knowing William to be a sincere man despite his faults, Joseph wrote back a short time later. "It is true that we have suffered much in consequence of your behavior," he stated. "However, the cup has been drunk, the will of our Heavenly Father has been done, and we are yet alive." Happy to put the dark days of Missouri behind them, Joseph forgave William and put him back to work in the church.
"Come on, dear brother, since the war is past," Joseph wrote, "for friends at first are friends again at last."
Joseph also felt an urgency to give the Saints more spiritual direction. In the Liberty jail, the Lord had told him that his days were known, and Joseph confided to friends that he did not think he would live to be forty. He needed to teach the Saints more of what God had revealed to him before it was too late.
Building a city and managing the church's temporal concerns, however, consumed most of Joseph's time. He had always taken an active part in church business, and he had long relied on men like Bishop Partridge to help shoulder the burden. Now that Edward was gone, Joseph began leaning more on Bishop Newel Whitney and the additional bishops that were called in Nauvoo. Yet he knew he needed still more help directing the temporal side of church administration so he could focus on his spiritual ministry.
Soon after, Joseph received another letter, this time from a stranger named John Cook Bennett. John said he intended to move to Nauvoo, join the church, and offer his services to the Saints. He was a physician and a high-ranking officer in the Illinois state militia who had also been a minister and a professor. "I believe I should be much happier with you," he said. "Write me immediately."
In the days that followed, Joseph received two more letters from John. "You can rely upon me," John promised. "I hope that time will soon come when your people will become my people and your God my God." He told Joseph that his public-speaking skills and untiring energy would be invaluable to the Saints.
"My anxiety to be with you is daily increasing," he insisted, "and I shall wind up my professional business immediately and proceed to your blissful abode, if you think it best!"
Joseph reviewed the letters, encouraged that someone with John's credentials wanted to unite with the Saints. A man with his abilities could certainly help the church establish itself in Illinois.