June 13, 2015 - Saturday

The day got started a little too early for me... I was so tired from getting home at 10:00pm last night and the bed still felt so good this morning!  But the meeting in Nauvoo scheduled for 7:45am this morning for all missionaries, was calling.  Mom and I were up early, mom at 5:30am and I finally got up at 6:00am.  Er left for Nauvoo at 7:05am after our morning preparations including our daily devotional.  

The drive into Nauvoo was good and we arrived in plenty of time to be in our places when the meeting began.  I do not remember the name of the brother who spoke but he was high up in the visitor center hierarchy, and spoke for about 45 minutes on the opportunities afforded missionaries assigned to visitor centers.  He was an interesting person with a lot of experience in this field.  Mom readily agreed that she got some good ideas on how to be more effective as a visitor center missionary.

We then went back to Carthage and I had the privilege of giving a Priesthood blessing to one of our senior missionaries.  He has been suffering from a very bad cough and yesterday and today, especially,  he had no energy to do anything.  I was grateful for the opportunity to exercise my Priesthood.

The Carthage Jail Visitors Center was steady today but certainly not overwhelming.  We were able to help share the experience about the martyrdom with about 300 visitors.  There is such a special spirit here in Carthage and especially here on these sacred grounds.  

I have come to better appreciate the song, "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief", that John Taylor sang for the Prophet Joseph twice on that terrible afternoon of June 27th.  I did some research on this song and here is what I found from the Joseph Smith Papers;

John Taylor chose to remain that fateful day at Carthage with Joseph and Hyrum Smith. The scene of these men in the jail’s upstairs bedroom referred to as the “debtor’s cell” is forever etched in Latter-day Saint memory. Little is remembered about what was discussed during that long afternoon in June 1844 between these leaders. Scriptures were read. Legal strategies were discussed. A few letters were drafted. Time was essentially suspended as the men waited for a legal hearing to determine whether the prophet and his brother would be released on bail. John Taylor recounted of that day, “All of us felt unusually dull and languid, with a remarkable depression of spirits.” The humid afternoon heat led the men to remove their jackets, and Taylor sang a tune recently introduced in Nauvoo, “A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief.” The lyrics embody the Savior’s teaching in Matthew 25:40: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” How could they have known at the time that this song would forever become connected to the Martyrdom that occurred later that day?

Sometime between three and four in the afternoon, John Taylor sang “A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief.” John Taylor’s memory of that song, possibly tainted by the events that followed, are in some conflict with the reverenced place it now holds. He opined that “the song is pathetic, and the tune quite plaintive, and was very much in accordance with our feelings at the time for our spirits were all depressed, dull and gloomy and surcharged with indefinite ominous forebodings.”[74] Taylor sang the song twice that day. The first time was of his own accord. Shortly before the mob stormed the ill-guarded jail, Hyrum requested he sing it again, to which John replied, “Brother Hyrum, I do not feel like singing.” Hyrum persisted, replying, “Oh! never mind, commence singing, and you will get the spirit of it.” So John sang it a second time.

This hymn has been printed in Church hymnals since 1840. Under the direction of John Taylor, Brigham Young, and Parley P. Pratt, it was included it in an 1840 hymnal published in Manchester, England. This hymnal would be known as the “Manchester Hymnal.” The words for the hymn are from a poem written in December 1826 by James Montgomery, a well-known Christian and English poet. He entitled his poem “The Stranger and His Friend.” While both a poet and hymnist, Montgomery never considered the poem as text for a hymn. He published it in several of his collections of poetry under the shortened title “The Stranger.” By the 1840s his poetry was often reprinted in Christian publications in America, including newspapers in Nauvoo.[80]

George Coles, a British minister and musician living in New York, put “The Stranger” to music in 1835. Naming the tune after a New York City church at which he had preached, “Duane Street” became the most popular tune accompanying Montgomery’s poem. This tune was the basis for what John Taylor sung at Carthage Jail. Taylor noted that this song had “been lately introduced into Nauvoo.”  However, he was surely aware of it before that time as he included it in the Manchester hymnal that he assisted in publishing four years earlier. While the earliest known print version of “The Stranger” put with Cole’s tune “Duane Street” is B. F. White’s Sacred Harp, published in 1844, one can assume that Taylor already was familiar with the poem put to this music, as evidenced by his singing of it at Carthage Jail. White’s Sacred Harp was advertised in Taylor’s Nauvoo Neighbor.

The tune “Duane Street” differs markedly from the version found in the LDS hymnals, although they are clearly related. The following is the earliest version of “Duane Street” with the words of “The Stranger” and is followed by the version that is currently found in the LDS hymnal:

Michael Hicks provides a thorough discussion about the differences between these two versions in his 1983 BYU Studies article, ‘“Strains Which Will Not Soon Be Allowed to Die . . .’: ‘The Stranger’ and Carthage Jail.” Yet this discussion does not address why or when the hymn’s tune was changed. For Latter-day Saints the starting point has to be Taylor. How did he sing this “plaintive” tune? Frederick Beesley, the son of Ebenezer Beesley (an early Utah pioneer musician and composer and one of five men called by President Taylor in 1886 to produce the first hymnal with music) records the following about Taylor singing this hymn at Carthage Jail: “Father [Ebenezer Beesley] was once called upon by President John Taylor to write down the melody of ‘A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief,’ just as Brother Taylor had sung it in Carthage Jail on the day of the Prophet Joseph Smith’s martyrdom. This father did and then arranged the four parts, as we have the piece at present in our Latter-Day Saint Hymns.”

This notation penned at Taylor’s request “appears on page 72, the last page of Ebenezer Beesley’s copy of the bass part of the manuscript compilation of hymns for the Tabernacle Choir.” The following is a copy of his notation:

Caption: Manuscript notation of “A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief,” as sung by John Taylor and recorded in 1886 by Ebenezer Beesley.

The tune sung by Taylor is obviously derived but different from the traditional “Duane Street.” This includes changing the key signature from A major to B-flat major. Beesley moved the key signature further down a half step to A-flat major. The time signature was changed from 4/4 to 3/8. This is similar to the change made by Beesley in the Church hymnal, changing the time signature from 4/4 to 6/8. Further, Taylor added ornamentation to his version, something very customary for the period.

It appears that Beesley’s changes were made as a result of Taylor’s version. Perhaps Beesley not only considered Taylor’s version but also knew Taylor viewed the song as “pathetic, and . . . quite plaintive.” Beesley’s version is certainly a more elegant, formal piece—a hymn appropriate for a memorial to the tragic events of the Martyrdom.

Yet the tune sung by Taylor in June 1844 is compelling. Being different from what we are accustomed to, it can transport us back to 1844. The tune gets into your head, and you find yourself humming it. It is not hard imagine John Taylor humming it too, and then softly singing it in the upstairs bedroom at Carthage. The tune helps us understand more clearly why Hyrum asked that it be sung again. We need to know the tune, the one John sang and Hyrum liked. Such intrigue and interest in the tune resulted in the arrangement as a traditional four-part hymn.

Taylor was seriously wounded during the rampage at Carthage Jail, being shot four times. One ball was never extracted. He was dragged by Willard Richards to a cell within the jail and covered with an old, filthy mattress. His bravery and leadership was evidenced as, despite the seriousness of his injuries and the unthinkable associated pain, he sought to comfort the Saints and prevent retribution.

We may never know if John Taylor really liked “A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief” after the Martyrdom. To Latter-day Saint it is held in reverence as a memorial to the tragic events at Carthage Jail. Clearly President Taylor understood the historic importance of the song, as he had Beesley document his version. Yet Taylor later penned his own hymn in memory of the Martyrdom, entitled “O, Give Me Back My Prophet Dear.” The words capture the loss Taylor felt for the remainder of his life as he was a unique witness to the events of the Martyrdom:

 O, give me back my Prophet dear,

And Patriarch, O give them back,

The saints of Latter-days to cheer,

And lead them in the gospel track!

But, O, they’re gone from my embrace,

From earthly scenes their spirits fled,

Two of the best of Adam’s race,

Now lie entombed among the dead.

Ye men of wisdom, tell me why—

No guilt, no crime in them were found—

Their blood doth now so loudly cry,

From prison walls and Carthage ground?

Your tongues are mute, but pray attend,

The secret I will now relate,

Why those whom God to earth did lead,

Have met the suffering martyrs’ fate.

It is because they strove to gain,

Beyond the grave a heav’n of bliss,

Because they made the gospel plain,

And led the saints to righteousness;

It is because God called them forth,

And led them by his own right hand,

Christ’s coming to proclaim on earth,

And gather Israel to their land.

It is because the priests of Baal

Were desperate their craft to save,

And when they saw it doomed to fall,

They sent the prophets to their grave.

Like scenes the ancient prophets saw,

Like these the ancient prophets fell,

And, till the resurrection dawn,

Prophet and Patriarch farewell.