Artwork on display in the <a href="http://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/learn/history/sites/church-history-museum/exhibits/early-images-of-historic-nauvoo">Early Images of Historic Nauvoo</a> exhibit at the Church History Museum from April 2002 through November 2002.

This painting, one of the earliest images of the city painted after the Saints fled to the West in 1846, shows the city as part of an exotic and romantic story. Publishers in the eastern United States and in Europe were eager for images of the abandoned Latter–day Saint religious metropolis. An engraved image of this painting was published in United States Illustrated in 1854 or 1855. The city’s religious identity was visually reinforced by exaggerating the scale of the prominent white walls of the temple in the center. In the foreground is a log home suggesting that Nauvoo was built on the edge of the American frontier. Located on a bend of the Mississippi River, the city offered one of the most dramatic views for riverboat travelers between St. Louis and St. Paul. This painting was created after the temple was burned in 1848, but before most of the walls were knocked down by the tornado of 1850.

1848-1850 
Oil on canvas

Unknown Artist

View of Nauvoo

This fanciful engraving is a composite scene, celebrating the western frontier of which Nauvoo was a part. The temple had been destroyed by this time, but it was included because it symbolized the city and had been one of the most significant man–made structures on the Mississippi. The temple’s size and location were exaggerated to give it visual prominence. Flatboats plied the Mississippi but were more common on the Ohio River. The great rocky bluff to the right represents scenes along the upper Missouri River rather than the gently rolling Iowa landscape across the river from Nauvoo.

July 22, 1854 
Engraving 
Gleason's Pictorial Magazine

Nauvoo from the Mississippi, Looking Down the River

This is an accurate view of how the city appeared nine years after the Saints left. The English artist published his book Route from Liverpool to Great Salt Lake Valley in 1855, almost ten years after the departure of the Saints. This book was written as a guide for emigrants coming from Great Britain to Utah. By this time, emigrants using this guide were no longer leaving from Nauvoo. Images of the city were included because Nauvoo was the beginning of the original trek west.

1855 
Steel engraving 
Route from Liverpool

Frederick Piercy

View from the River

By 1860 the grandeur and vitality of Nauvoo had declined. An unknown professional artist painted this clear view of the city and of the lay of the land around Nauvoo.

About 1860 
Oil on canvas

Anonymous 19th century painter

Painting of Nauvoo, Illinois

The temple in Nauvoo overlooked the city from the eastern bluffs. At the time Schroder recorded this scene, the Saints had largely abandoned their city to seek a new homeland in the American West. Only a portion of the temple remained standing after an arsonist's fire had gutted the interior.

(Dates unknown) 
1859 
Oil on tin

Johann Schroder

This 1849 engraving illustrates the interest in the temple just before it burned. It also shows how the temple had become inextricably linked to the Latter–day Saints, even after they had journeyed over thirteen hundred miles away to their new homes in the mountain valleys of the West. Smith has taken the artistic license to depict the stone baptismal font on the backs of oxen outside the building so that this unique and dramatic visual element could be seen. The font was actually in the temple basement. The original drawing was made for Smith’s 1848 panorama.

1849 
Engraving 
Graham's Magazine

J. R. Smith

Nauvoo Temple

Although not entirely accurate, this French image of the temple points to European interests in the city of the Saints and their temple. After the Latter–day Saints had abandoned Nauvoo, a French communitarian group, the Icarians, purchased the burned–out Nauvoo Temple. When winds toppled the temple walls, the Icarians and others salvaged the stone to build a schoolhouse and other structures.

Nineteenth century 
Tin engraving

Varin (engraver)

Temple Mormon de Nauvoo

Copy photograph 
Courtesy Iron County Company Daughters of Utah Pioneers

The Nauvoo Temple

After being forced to flee to the West, many of the Saints longed for a visual remembrance of the temple. Although inaccurate in many respects, this widely published print helped meet this need. Among the errors are the windows and proportions of the tower, the star stones, the proportions and windows of the attic story, and the treatment of the balustrade.

1868 
Lithographic print

W. Murphy

Joseph Smith had a general plan for House of the Lord in Nauvoo. William Weeks, the architect, altered his drawings over time to fit the Prophet’s vision. Note that the front elevations of these drawings differ in many ways from each other. Compare the gabled Greek Revival façade shown on this 1841 rendering with the next revised 1846 drawing.

Ink on paper 
Courtesy Church Archives

Front elevation of the Nauvoo Temple

The general architectural style of the temple reflects the New England background of Joseph Smith and early Church members, including the architect. William Weeks was born in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Weeks was trained by his father in the New England classical style of architecture. Only a few of his drawings and technical sketches of the temple remain. They were useful references for the recent rebuilding of the temple.

Section Detail #9

William Weeks, the architect of the original temple, created this drawing. It was used by Charles Allyn in making the replica window.

Ink on paper 
1841–1846 
Courtesy Church Archives

Architectural Drawing of a Temple Window

Front Stair Detail

Window Detail #6

Courtesy Church Archives

Architectural Drawing – "South of Temple"

Ink on paper 
Courtesy LDS Church Archives

Architectural Drawing – Decorative Detail

Architectural Drawing – Interior Columns, and Windows

The original plans show an angel in the form of a horizontal weather vane. The newly rebuilt temple has a more contemporary vertical sculpture angel like those used in more recent temples.

Architectural Drawing – Angel

Joseph Smith and his family moved into the Mansion House in 1843, less than a year before his death. It was also used as a place for Church and civic business, and as a hotel. After the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, thousands of Saints visited the Mansion House to pay their respects to their slain leaders. Following the exodus, Emma Smith remained behind and continued to run the Mansion House as a hotel to support her children.

Photograph 
Courtesy Church Archives

Mansion House

This was much more than a store. The upper floor was a meeting room where the City Council and the Temple Committee met. Before the temple’s completion, ordinances were performed in these upper rooms. The Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, created for “the relief of the poor, the destitute, the widow and the orphan, and the exercise of all benevolent purposes,” was also founded here.

Joseph Smith's Red Brick Store

Brigham Young built this brick home for his family in 1843 after returning from his second mission to England. It replaced his first home, a small log building. As President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Brigham Young led the Church after the martyrdom of Joseph Smith. Three years later, Brigham Young became the second President of the Church and led the Mormon pioneers across the plains and mountains to Utah.

Brigham Young's Home, Nauvoo, Illinois

This brick home was completed in May 1844, one week before Elder Woodruff left for a mission to New England. During a previous mission to England, this early Apostle baptized more than two thousand converts, many of whom emigrated to Nauvoo. The Woodruffs sold the home when they left the city in 1846. Wilford Woodruff became the fourth President of the Church and presided over the Church at the time of the completion of the Salt Lake Temple.

Wilford Woodruff Home, Nauvoo, Illinois

Heber C. Kimball finished building this brick home for his family in October 1845. Five months later, finding no buyers, the Kimballs abandoned their new home and headed west with the Saints. Elder Kimball crossed the plains to Utah in the original pioneer company of 1847. He was called as First Counselor in the First Presidency when it was reorganized that same year.

Heber C. Kimball Home

This famous early photograph of Nauvoo is the only known image taken while the city served as Church headquarters. Focused on the temple, it offers a glimpse of the town the year the Saints were driven out by organized opponents. Note the plethora of young fruit trees in the back yards that testify of the Saints’ dreams of creating permanent homes in this garden city.

Copy photograph 
Daguerreotype 
Courtesy Church Archives

Temple on the Hill

Robert Campbell

General Joseph Smith Addressing the Nauvoo Legion

This painting depicts the same event as Campbell’s watercolor sketch, but it was created forty–four years after the event and has been somewhat romanticized. Behind Joseph stands his brother Hyrum, who died with him in the June 1844 attack. The artist included the finished temple in the background to locate the event in Nauvoo, even though this great symbol of the city was not finished at the time. Gift of Eugene K. Mangum, Museum Collection

1888 
Lithographic print

John Hafen

Last Public Address of Lieutenant–General Joseph Smith

The Nauvoo legion paraded, drilled, held mock battles, and functioned as a deterrent to outside mob violence for several years. The temple, which was actually completed twenty–two months after the Prophet’s death, was included in this picture because it had become the visual symbol of the city. The Swiss–born artist lived after these events happened. He based his painting on eyewitness accounts and drawings by Robert Campbell and Sutcliffe Maudsley.

Oil on canvas 
1888

Joseph Smith Directing the Nauvoo Legion

The body of Joseph Smith, dressed in white, lies in the center of the picture. From a second floor window Willard Richards looks down at the martyred prophet. After the murder, the mob fled, fearing the arrival of a Mormon posse that never came.

Photographic copy of original 
Oil on canvas 
Courtesy Church Archives

Carthage Jail, Hancock Co., Ill., June 27, 1844

Under the threat of violence, the main group of Mormon pioneers left Nauvoo in February 1846. Many crossed the frozen Mississippi River, launching a journey that would eventually take them over fifteen hundred miles to Utah. The Saints quickly came to see their journey in biblical terms as the exodus of the Camp of Israel into the wilderness. This experience became one of the defining events in Latter–day Saint history.

Oil on canvas 
Courtesy the Morgan Dyreng family

Crossing the Mississippi Feb: 1846

This heroic image was created almost a quarter century after the winter departure of the Saints. The exodus of the Saints from Nauvoo has been inextricably linked in books and articles to the foundation of early Utah history.

1870 
Engraving 
Life in Utah

John William Orr

Mormons Driven Out of Nauvoo, Crossing the Mississippi on Ice

The first pioneers left Nauvoo in February 1846 even before the temple was dedicated in April. The temple on the hill was the last thing they saw as they left Nauvoo and crossed the Mississippi River. This Norwegian artist created this image many years later after talking with people who had experienced the epic departure.

Nineteenth century 
Dan Weggeland, (1827–1918)

Early Images of Historic Nauvoo

Early Images of Historic Nauvoo

View of Nauvoo

Nauvoo from the Mississippi, Looking Down the River

View from the River

Painting of Nauvoo, Illinois

Painting of Nauvoo, Illinois

Nauvoo Temple

Temple Mormon de Nauvoo

The House Of The Lord

The Nauvoo Temple

Nauvoo Temple

Front elevation of the Nauvoo Temple

Front elevation of the Nauvoo Temple

Nauvoo Temple Architectural Drawings

Section Detail #9

Architectural Drawing of a Temple Window

Front Stair Detail

Window Detail #6

Architectural Drawing – "South of Temple"

Architectural Drawing – Decorative Detail

Architectural Drawing – Interior Columns, and Windows

Architectural Drawing – Angel

Historic Photographs of Nauvoo

Mansion House

Joseph Smith's Red Brick Store

Brigham Young's Home, Nauvoo, Illinois

Wilford Woodruff Home, Nauvoo, Illinois

Heber C. Kimball Home

Temple on the Hill

The Nauvoo Legion

General Joseph Smith Addressing the Nauvoo Legion

Last Public Address of Lieutenant–General Joseph Smith

Joseph Smith Directing the Nauvoo Legion

The Martyrdom And The Exodus

Carthage Jail, Hancock Co., Ill., June 27, 1844

Crossing the Mississippi Feb: 1846

Mormons Driven Out of Nauvoo, Crossing the Mississippi on Ice

Migration from Nauvoo