The relief of Y2K not taking down the world’s computers over something as basic as 19s turning into 20s was short-lived, when eleven Islamic radicals under their leader, Osama bin Laden, martyred themselves in lower Manhattan. Besides the immediate terror the attack caused, life in the U.S. was changed forever at airports, protecting the homeland, and instilling fear that we were vulnerable to outside attacks.
Having a war-mongering presidential administration increased the anxiety by lying the country into wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; the conservative cable “news” channels amping it up with a xenophobic campaign versus all dark-skinned, shifty-looking them—them, that stereotyping pronoun echoing the 19th century’s denigration of the American Indian. It wasn’t long before some folks in Dallas City were openly panicked, scared that these religious extremists “wearing rags on their heads were comin’ upriver to destroy our Jesus-ordained, red-white-and-blue, small-town ways.”
Two Septembers later, Julia Mayhew faced her own anxiety. With a bicep-building stack of textbooks under his left arm, her sweating hand clutching his right, Jack gave her a coach’s pep talk as they walked down the hallway, looking for Room 1132. “You can do it, Ju! You’re the smartest, most beautiful woman in the world!”
“Room 750 . . . 911 . . . 1025.” He could feel her hand sweat worse. “Gettin’ close.”
No reply, but a face looking more frightened with every passing door. He smiled wide. “Here we go! Room 1132 and ‘Introduction to Data Communication and Networking’, Professor Daniel W. Clark. Have fun and good luck!” He gave her one of his longest hugs in years, a kiss, and a gentle kick in the ass into the classroom. “Go get ’em! Love ya!”
Jack’s pride was bursting, yet in the back of his mind he wondered if Angie’s first day of kindergarten was as frightening as her mother’s first day of community college. Nevertheless, his lips were stretched thin with a grin as he wound through the “hallowed halls of learning”--these of purple-painted cement blocks--following the arrows to Student Parking ONLY - Lot 3.
He would have jumped for joy if not for a growing feeling of being pulled off the ends of the Earth. By the time he reached Lot 3, he felt like he was on a spinning carnival ride--drunk--where disorientation is the name of the game. The more he aimed for the car, the further away it got. The results would be the same in either case.
Jack wrenched his guts three times before he was able to navigate straight. It took him another thirty minutes with the seat down before he could venture home. This was the second episode like this, but he would grin-and-bear it without troubling Julia because, judging by the muscles in his left arm that were still sore from carrying her textbooks, she was going to have enough to worry about.
2
It appeared that the Webbers had made a sound investment as floods of Latter-Day Saints made their pilgrimage to nearby Nauvoo to view the new temple, visit the sacred sites so crucial to their faith, and pay homage at their martyred prophet’s granite sarcophagus. On June 27, 2002, a date that coincided with the 158th anniversary of the murders of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, it was dedicated by the LDS Church. During the six-week public open house, it was thronged by 331,849 visitors eager to tour the interior of the extraordinary edifice.
The majestic building is a faithful reproduction of the original Nauvoo Temple built by settlers of the Church in the 1840s, and destroyed by arson fire in 1848, and by tornado-force winds in 1850. It was erected on the same site as the original on a high bluff overlooking a wide bend in the Mississippi River.
The limestone used for the original temple was quarried from a site just west of the temple. Much of that quarry, however, was submerged by rising water behind the Keokuk Dam in 1912. Therefore, a Russellville, Alabama, subsidiary of Minnesota’s Vetter Stone Company was chosen by the Church to provide stone for the temple. Church officials say the quarry was selected because it was a close match to the limestone originally used.
The floors are hardwood with rugs, runners, and furnishings typical of the time. The first floor Assembly Room, featuring ten chandeliers, was duplicated on a smaller scale allowing enough area for planned administrative offices. The second floor has dressing rooms, and the upper floors house the six sealing rooms and instruction rooms, which were arranged in progressive style to include a Creation Room, Garden Room, World Room, Terrestrial Room, and Celestial Room.
In his dedication speech, LDS president Gordon B. Hickey, spoke wistfully about the original structure the exiled Mormons had to abandon: “I can just see the people in 1846, the wagons that bitter, bitter cold day going down Parley Street to the water’s edge, getting on a barge, moving across the [Mississippi River] up on to the higher ground and looking back on this sacred structure which they had labored so hard to build and realized that never in this life would they see it again. It is difficult to imagine their emotions.”
The Sac and Fox peoples surely must have shared Mr. Hinkley’s lament when they were forced into exile to Iowa territory from the very same location twenty years previously, then from there to Oklahoma; as the Cherokees must have shared when 16,000 of them were marched over 1,200 miles of rugged land in 1836 on the Trail of Tears, causing over 4,000 of them to die of disease, famine, and warfare.
Does not history share this sad fate with those who have been forcefully dispossessed because they were considered less than or afraid of because of skin color or religious beliefs or for a number of other ’less than” reasons?
3
The ads that Ben and Deena Webber placed in The Deseret News, the major Salt Lake City newspaper, and in various Mormon travel publications proved effective--every guest room at the Captain’s Keep through most of the summer of 2003 was filled with tourists not only from Utah, but from around the country; many from the United Kingdom, where the Church had many early converts.
One guest was a mid-30ish-aged man who paid for room and board for a full year up-front while he did his missionary work here. His name was Ian Noonan and hailed from Blackstone, Massachusetts, an area that was the former home to the Nipmuc, an indigenous Algonquian people of central Massachusetts and adjacent portions of Connecticut and Rhode Island. The English had their first encounter with members of the tribe in 1630, when John Acquittamaug (Nipmuc) took maize to sell to the starving colonists of Boston.
Sadly, Nipmuc’s altruism turned tragic: the colonists carried endemic pathogens, such as smallpox, to which the Native Americans had no prior exposure to, nor acquired immunity from; thereby suffering high mortality rates. In addition, the English introduced them to alcohol.
Soon after the Bostonians passed increasingly harsh laws against practicing Indian culture and religion, Nipmuc joined Metacomet’s rebellion in 1675. But this also proved disastrous, as they were soundly defeated by the well-armed English. Many of the surviving Nipmuc, now prisoners-of-war, were interned on Deer Island in Boston Harbor and died of disease and malnutrition, while others were executed or sold into slavery in the West Indies.
Ian seemed kind, helping Deena around the Keep, doing handyman stuff while Ben was working the fields, or when he wasn’t guiding fellow Saints around the City Beautiful.
Strong, single, and handsome, Noonan had cashed in on the dot.com boom before it went bust, making him an instant rich guy--he could afford to take a year off and share his wealth among family, friends, and the needy; tithing his 10% to the Church. (Conveniently, tithing is based on both the biblical practice of paying tithes and the modern revelation given to Joseph Smith and his accepted successors.) Coming to Nauvoo, Illinois, he wanted to pay respects to the Smith family that had come from his home state just after the Mayflower plunked down there, and to celebrate their long, proud lineage on American soil.
Noonan felt the pull with Nauvoo, Dallas City, and the area, and felt destined to be here, especially when driving along Great River Road--a 20-mile scenic route that watersnakes the river until it gets to Hamilton.
And then there was the ramshackle castle at the other end of town that shared the name of his hometown. Deena told him about the Burg history over dinner one evening and the rumors of hauntings, which only intrigued him more. And he seemed little bothered by the watery square-toed boot prints that would appear on the floor of the Keep occasionally (instantly disappearing whenever a mop was grabbed) or by the sounds the night wind made, like the creaking of an old sailing ship.
There is a belief among some Mormons that there is a planet called Kolob, as described in the Book of Abraham, a sacred text of the Latter Day Saint movement, supposedly translated from an Egyptian papyrus scroll by the prophet, Joseph Smith. They believe it is the planet where God lives, and the place where church members will go when they die; they believe that the Earth was created near Kolob over a period of 6,000 years, then moved to its present position in our solar system.
If Ian Noonan believed in Kolob, he could just as easily believe in ghosts.
4
Blackstone should have been condemned. In the 90 years since the accident, it mostly sat empty, except for squatters and hobos riding the rails during the Great Depression, and buyers who had hopes of fixing up the place throughout the many decades but reportedly got “chased off” wherever renovation began. Now it was Ian Noonan who was up to the challenge, buying the old place with the hopes of competing with his friends across town, the Webbers, for LDS tourist buckaroos.
One of those gifted souls who seemed to be good at everything, Ian spent the majority of his proselytizing down-time replacing the plumbing on every floor, gutting the bathrooms, resurfacing the hardwoods, replacing boards, restoring old doors, plastering, painting, mortaring, and putting in new windows (except for the undamaged Tiffanys). Blackstone became his obsession.
In a relatively short amount of time, the exterior was tuckpointed, which complemented the new brick-red trim and matching metal roof. With the outside and inside restored, Ian’s focus next turned towards furnishing his castle. Every piece of furniture and accents had to be carefully selected to get the home back to its original decor during the Burg era. He seemed possessed.
He admitted to Deena one day as she was helping him wallpaper a bedroom that he had a little “special” help with the renovations. The kind of help that he was afraid to mention to others in fear they would think him crazy.
“When I need some paint or when I need to touch up a place, I’ll go down to the basement and there will be enough paint until the last brush stroke. This is a real thing, this house having its own personality and helping me out. It’s just those little things that happen frequently that convince me there are friendly spirits that live here. Nothing scary happens here, it’s always good” (Fort Madison Daily Democrat, Jun 22, 2018).
He stopped to brush on some paste. “It’s just the girls–I appreciate their help, and the warm feeling that comes along with knowing there is someone watching out for me as I transform their home back to its former glory.”
“Both Blackstone and the Captain’s Keep have endured incredible sadness, but what we are doing seems to be calming the negative vibes of each place, unlike that twin-peaked horror up on the hill from a few years back that I told you about,” Deena said, gently handling the paper to be hanged. “But unless we want to be seen as mystic kooks we better keep the supernatural stuff we’ve been experiencing to ourselves.”
Ian agreed. They finished the rose-patterned papering, and she returned to Von Poppel’s residence on the other end of town.
5
Between the two restored mansions that bookend Dallas City sat the shabby little house on Cottonwood Street. Billy Langdon did not seem to have the same gumption that Deena and Ian had when it came to fixing up the property. Now, the water-streaked walls were spotted with black mold spores, and the outside had almost shed its painted skin. What remained were stubborn curls of yellowed latex curling over naked wood.
Billy and his girlfriend, deteriorating rapidly, were a perfect match with the house. Like the fruity kitchen wallpaper, specks of black were beginning to encroach upon their teeth. They were dirty and unkept, the overgrown yard that Jack had mowed for Betz a perfect metaphor for their personal hygiene.
The past few years of being Party Central was taking its toll--snorting, smoking, shooting up meth, staying up days and nights on end, not eating, smoking like chimneys in coal-burning London. With their pale skin hanging loose off their bones, they looked like the typical vampire couple. If only it were Halloween.
Even more troubling was Billy’s mental state. Several customers admitting that he was starting to act a little paranoid, a little weirder than usual, which most attributed to his addiction. Others weren’t so sure. Some remembered Billy’s insistence that there was an old Indian livin’ in the storm cellar—that, “he was the one tempting me to overindulge in the white powder, as he had been tempted to overindulge in white man’s whiskey,” he admitted as serious as the inevitable heart attack he was speeding towards.
6
Ian Noonan, as with all LDS missionaries who come to Nauvoo, fulfilled many roles--evangelizing, administrative work, tour guide. Today, he was the latter, giving his spiel to a trolley full of Saints as it poked down Water Street, pulled by a team of oxen towards the original Smith homestead along the river.
“The history of Nauvoo, Illinois, starts with the Sac and Fox Indian tribes who first lived here,” he told them, miked. “They left for Iowa territory after 1804, and settled in a village near what is now Montrose, Iowa, across the river over there. Then to Oklahoma.” He pointed westward.
“Making a permanent settlement for non-natives was led by a land speculator named Captain Jack White,” he told the rapt tourists. “By 1827, other white settlers had built cabins in the area. By 1829, this area of Hancock County had grown sufficiently so that a post office was needed, and in 1832 the town, now called Venus, was one of the contenders for the new county seat. However, the nearby city of Carthage was selected, instead. In 1834 the name Venus was changed to Commerce because the settlers felt that the new name better suited their plans.
“In late 1839, seeing the desperate situation of the Mormons in Missouri and in Quincy, another land speculator named Isaac Galland approached members of the faith about several of his tracts for sale. Receiving the offer with joy, Joseph Smith purchased the southern end of the peninsula and most of the plats in town, and Mormons came en masse. In 1840, the area generally known as Commerce had a population of nearly 2,900 people.
“In April of 1840, it was renamed Nauvoo, which as most of you know is a Hebrew word meaning ‘beautiful place’ or ‘city beautiful’,” he said, his cadence timed rhythmically with ox hooves on cement. “Despite the name, not everything in the new community was bliss, however. Most of the southern end of the peninsula was a swampy, mosquitoes-infested area. With scores dying from cholera, malaria and typhoid epidemics, which accounted for two-thirds of all fatalities, something needed to be done as the death toll on the struggling population was growing unbearable.
“It was agreed that the swamp needed to be drained, so the prophet organized a large public works project to accomplish the massive feat. Digging, blasting and picking their way from White Street here, south to the Mississippi River along Durphy Street, the men drained nearly 800 acres of swamp. The canal was dug eight feet deep and eleven feet across for nearly three-quarters of a mile, and is still in existence today, forming the western boundary of Nauvoo State Park across the highway from the Visitor’s Center.
He took a pause to catch his breath. “Yes, ma’am?”
“What was the Moromon population at its peak?” asked an older woman, dressed nattily in flag colors.
“Right around 20,000, compared to eleven hundred now. Nauvoo grew rapidly and for a few years was one of the most populous cities in Illinois, rivaling even Chicago.”
As the tour wound through town and the red brick buildings that survived nearly 200 years of inclimacy, Ian groused that as the Mormon population grew, non-Mormons in Hancock County felt threatened by the political power of their growing voting bloc.
“You see, in Nauvoo, Joseph Smith was not only president of the Church, he was mayor, head of the municipal court, and general of a 2,500 man militia (in comparison to the approximately 8,500 troops within the entire United States Army as of 1845, which the tour guide also did not mention). This power base, plus the fact that Mormons benefited from collective group efforts as opposed to the more isolated and independent non-Mormon farmers, caused many non-LDS in the nearby areas to become suspicious, jealous and paranoid.”
Ian continued: “The Mormons claimed that they had done nothing wrong, and were attacked for their religious beliefs, their leader martyred, attacked and shot to death inside the old Hancock County jail that many of you will or have already visited, his body dumped out the second-story window.
“By the end of 1845 it became clear that no peace was possible between LDS church members and the antagonized locals. Mormon leaders negotiated a truce so that the Saints could prepare to abandon the city, and the winter of 1845-46 saw the enormous preparations for the exodus west via the Mormon Trail. By early 1846, the majority of the Latter Day Saints had left the city,” he said, continuing the tour at the low bottom land where they had crossed over to Iowa into exile.
“Throughout the spring and summer of 1846, there was a continual procession of wagons crossing the Mississippi River on anything that could get them across. By September, the town had been reduced to less than 2,000. Impatient to get the remainder of the Mormons from Nauvoo, the gentiles again marshaled their forces and attacked the city that now had only the poorest and weakest Mormons as citizens,” Ian was now lamentable as the trolley climbed back up towards the Temple on the bluff.
“A full-scale battle ensued, with cannon, rifle, and musket called into use. After two days of battle, a peace delegation from Quincy arranged the terms of surrender for the City of Nauvoo. Given an hour to pack what belongings they could, the remaining Mormons were forced from Nauvoo at the point of bayonet.
Planned, the tour ended up near the temple, with Ian’s closing remarks: “The memory of Nauvoo remained dear to the hearts of past Latter Day Saints, and in 1853 the first group of Mormon tourists, like yourselves, came here before making their great trek to Salt Lake City, and for more than a century Mormon missionaries, like me, have made the pilgrimage here to the City Beautiful. Thanks for coming, and I hope you enjoy your stay.”
He did not tell them that in 1849, German-speaking Icarians moved to the Nauvoo area to implement a utopian socialist commune based on the ideals of French philosopher Étienne Cabe, another charismatic character on par with Smith who also experimented with novel religious, political, and social structures, in vogue at the time.
At its peak, the colony numbered over 500 members, but dissension over legal matters and the death of Cabe in 1856 caused some members to leave this parent colony and move on to other Icarian locations in East St. Louis, Illinois, Iowa, and California, although descendants of this Icarian colony still live in Hancock and McDonough counties today. He did not tell them that now Nauvoo was primarily a Catholic town, if the gentiles were religious at all.
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