The Iosepa Origin of Joseph F. Smith’s “Laie Prophecy”

Joseph F. Smith, then an apostle, lived at Laie, Oahu, for about two years in 1885–86. At that time, tradition has it, the Hawaiian Saints who had gathered to Laie were discouraged by drought, harsh living conditions, and barren land; some even wanted to sell Laie and find a different gathering place. In response, President Smith is supposed to have made a prophecy encouraging the Saints to stay at Laie, promising that the barren land would become beautiful and prosperous. Frequent repetition in recent years has made this a popular tradition among many members of the Church in Hawaii.¹

Diligent search of the libraries and archives at BYU–Hawaii, BYU–Provo, and the Church Historical Department in Salt Lake City, however, has yielded no evidence of the “Laie prophecy” before 1940, though at least forty later documents contain part or all of the 1940 printed version of the prophecy. Church records and journals kept by missionaries in Hawaii during the 1880s do not mention it; in fact, they prove that Laie in the mid-1880s was not a dry, barren wasteland. Nor is there evidence that the Hawaiian Saints were discouraged and anxious to leave Laie at that time.

In the early 1890s, however, just a few years after President Smith’s stay in Hawaii, a group of Hawaiian Saints were struggling to survive in a dry, barren, unfamiliar place—Iosepa at Skull Valley, Utah. Some documents suggest that the “Laie prophecy” originated in a letter or verbal counsel from Joseph F. Smith to those Hawaiian Saints residing at Iosepa around 1890 and that his prophetic assurances were later brought back to Laie. After briefly tracing the evolution of the “Laie prophecy” since 1940, this article will show, from the language of the prophecy and from missionary records and journals, that President Smith’s words most likely referred to Iosepa and that tradition apparently linked them with Laie after some of the Iosepa Saints returned to Hawaii.

Pedigree of the Prophecy

The earliest printed version of the prophecy appears in an unpublished report by Joseph B. Musser, “Laie—Home Place of the Church in Hawaii.”² Musser, who had been a bookkeeper at the Laie plantation, prepared the report for Oahu Stake President Ralph E. Woolley. It was submitted to Church authorities in Salt Lake City about October 1940.³ The Musser version of the prophecy reads as follows. (Note that Musser credits W. F. Bailey, Hawaiian Mission president from 1936 to 1939, for translating the prophecy, presumably from a version written in Hawaiian.)

Musser (1940)
The Earliest Known Version of the Prophecy

Dear brothers and sisters, do not leave this land, for it is the land chosen by God as a gathering place for the saints in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the Hawaiian Islands as well as in the islands of the sea.

Do not complain because of the trials which have come upon you, because of the desolation and lack of water, which makes it impossible to secure the food to which you are accustomed, and the great poverty in which you are obliged to live.

Be patient for a while for the day will come when this desolate land will become a land of beauty. Springs of water will gush up and spread upon the land, and upon this dry waste you now see the saints will build beautiful homes, they will plant taro and they will eat and drink in abundance. They will also plant trees which will grow to furnish pleasant shade, and the fragrance of flowers will fill the air, and those trees, which we now see growing so luxuriant in the mountains, will be transplanted hither by the saints to grow here, and because of the verdure and beautiful appearance of the land, the birds from the mountains will come hither to sing their songs.

And here will the spirit of the Lord brood over his saints who love him and keep His laws and commandments, and there arc those in this house today who shall not depart this life before seeing the fulfillment of those things which I have today uttered under the inspiration of the Lord. Therefore do not go backward. Work with patience, persevere, stand firm and keep the commandments, including the commandment of gathering, which have been given you, and you shall receive blessings of the spirit, and of the body which will compensate you for the present trials and those that have passed.

God be with you all. (Translated by W. F. Bailey, Pres.-Hawn. Mission)

Since 1940 the “Laie prophecy” has been widely (and variously) quoted. Parts of the Musser version appeared in a 1942 publication in an article by Elder D. James Cannon called “Across the Years.”⁴ Many subsequent authors borrowed Cannon’s abbreviated version of the prophecy. In 1950 a magazine article, a slide show, and a pageant⁵ used it to celebrate the centennial of the Hawaiian Mission. The Cannon version, with minor word changes, was also featured in the Laie Centennial Pageant during June 1965. Around 1980, BYU–Hawaii librarians used the 1950 slide-show script to caption a black-and-white photograph display. An improved display, exhibited at the June 1990 meeting of the Mormon Pacific Historical Society, used the same captions.⁶ Librarian Rex Frandsen probably used the photograph display script when preparing his “Thumbnail History of Laie.”⁷ The author of the 1989 Polynesian Cultural Center tour manual probably borrowed its version of the prophecy—still essentially the 1942 Cannon version—from Frandsen.⁸ These are only a few of the in-print generations and permutations of the prophecy.⁹

All current versions of the prophecy, however, are not based on Cannon’s article. David W. Cummings’s “Centennial History of Laie” includes a rendition of the prophecy which seems to be based directly on Musser’s report.¹⁰ Cummings’s version follows Musser in the exact number and order of sentences and paragraphs, but Cummings’s language is often exaggerated or sensational; he possibly reworded Musser to suit his own taste.¹¹

The Cummings (1965) Version of the Prophecy

My brothers and sisters, do not leave this land, for this place has been chosen by the Lord as a gathering place for the Saints of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Hawaii nei.

Do not complain because of the many trials which come to you, because of the barrenness of the land, the lack of water, the scarcity of foods to which you are accustomed, and poverty as well. Be patient, for the day is coming when this land will become a most beautiful land. Water shall spring forth in abundance, and upon the barren land you now see, the Saints will build homes, taro will be planted, and there will be plenty to eat and drink. Many trees will be planted and this place will become verdant, the fragrance of flowers will fill the air, and trees which are now seen growing on the mountains will be moved by the Saints and will grow in this place near the sea, and because of the great beauty of the land, birds will come here and sing their songs.

And upon this place the glory of the Lord will rest, to bless the Saints who believe in Him and keep His commandments. And there are some in this house who will live to see all these things fulfilled, which I have spoken from the Lord.

Therefore, do not waver, work with patience, continue on, stand firm, keep the commandments and also the laws of the gathering, and you will receive greater blessings, both spiritual and temporal, than you now enjoy or have enjoyed in the past. May the Lord be with us all.

Two text families emerge from the Cummings source. Some of these versions are essentially identical to Cummings while others contain the words “inland birds” instead of “birds” in the last phrase of the third paragraph. The “inland birds” version appears in two books by R. Lanier Britsch.¹² Britsch kindly supplied me with a copy of his source material—a sheet containing the prophecy and an attached page by Eva Kapolohau Bray Makuakane which reads:

I was the one who heard this prophecy while I was young, and frequently heard my grandparents telling about it and heard them bear testimony of it to others when occasion arose. As I was asked to write this prophecy, I prayed to the Lord to restore to my mind the things I had heard the prophet Joseph F. Smith prophesy, and [he] gave me an understanding of these things, and I have written as directed by the Spirit.¹³

Britsch discovered the “inland bird” or Eva version (1970) of the prophecy between 1976 and 1978 in a file compiled by Eugene Campbell. I could learn nothing about the identity of Eva Kapolohau Bray Makuakane or the original date of her statement. Yet the Eva version is identical to Cummings except for one comma and the word “inland.” The author of the Eva version could have added “inland” to Cummings to make it compatible with the then-popular version featured in the 1965 Laie Centennial Pageant, which reads “the birds from the mountains”; in any case, the Eva version could not have existed before 1965. I suspect that the Eva version of the prophecy and Eva’s testimony were part of a script for a local Church play or pageant presented some time between 1965 and 1975.

Moreover, Musser and later versions which follow Cannon include the phrase: “And here will the Spirit of the Lord brood over His Saints.”¹⁴ In Cummings’s rewording in 1965, however, the phrase became: “And upon this place the glory of the Lord will rest, to bless his Saints,”¹⁵ suggesting something quite different. Yet Cummings’s words are often attributed to President Joseph F. Smith. One author even comments that they “had been interpreted by many Saints to mean that a temple would be built at Laie.”¹⁶

President Smith promised the Hawaiian Saints a temple, but his words in this regard were far more direct. On February 15, 1885, the first Sunday that President Smith was at Laie during his third Hawaiian mission, he told the Saints assembled at the Laie meeting-house that “if they would keep the commandments of the Son, they would probably have the privilege of building a temple in this land and performing the ordinances for their dead friends.”¹⁷ According to the mission president, Edward Partridge Jr., “The Saints were overjoyed to meet Bro. Smith, and delighted to hear him preach in their native tongue.”¹⁸ Prosperity and a good spirit prevailed in the community at that time.¹⁹

Conditions at Laie during the 1880s

To explain why President Smith made the “Laie prophecy,” most authors describe harsh living conditions in Laie in the mid-1880s and great discouragement among the residents. Like the prophecy itself, these stories have been frequently repeated and gradually altered, until some call the lovely land of Laie a “dry, barren waste-land,²⁰ believing that Laie was desolate one hundred years ago. These comments, from Musser’s “Laie—Home Place of the Church in Hawaii,” are typical of many that followed:

Houses and buildings were purely utilitarian. There were no refinements, no luxuries, life paralleled that of the settlers in the valleys of the western United States and, like those who first looked upon the barren Salt Lake Valley with misgivings, many of the Utah company as well as Hawaiians from more comfortable places, felt that Laie was a mistake. They advocated selling it for a cattle ranch and trying to secure a better location on the leeward side of the island nearer Honolulu.

During a discussion of this matter in 1885 at which Elder [later President] Joseph F. Smith was present, several of the Saints advocated giving up the struggle as a hopeless one. This meeting was held in the old chapel which stood on the present site of the Temple. President Smith, after hearing the complaints, many of which were no doubt well founded, arose [and gave the “Laie prophecy”].²¹

Similarly, the following scenario appears in the Mission House script at the Polynesian Cultural Center:

In the mid-1880s the land [of Laie] comprised of 6000 acres was very dry as pictured here and was referred to as a barren wasteland. The owner tried to plant sugar cane but failed because of no water. There was little rainfall. Being discouraged, he put the land up for sale. The missionaries of the Church . . . purchased the Laie plantation for a gathering place. . . . They [the Hawaiians] were also having a hard time raising enough food due to lack of water. Being discouraged, they were ready to leave.²²

According to this script, after President Smith made his prophetic statement, the Saints searched and found water in the Koolau Mountains, drilled twenty artesian wells, and had ample water for all their needs. Most of the hardship stories resemble this one in claiming, without verification, that “scarcity or lack of water and “barren” land discouraged the Laie Saints. Table 1 lists the reasons for discouragement mentioned by the various versions.

Table 1. Hardships Mentioned in Versions of the Laie Prophecy

Yet, according to the journal entries of resident missionaries in the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s, Laie was not a desolate, barren wasteland. There must have been ample rainfall during the spring and summer of 1865, because F. A. Hammond, who made the original land purchase, reported that “the plough-land needs no irrigation and is mostly situated in a bottom slightly elevated above the sea.”²³ Missionaries later learned that the summer months were often dry, especially on the lower plain where the present community of Laie is located. Benjamin Cluff, who completed two missions at Laie during its early years, wrote, “It is a beautiful location, but unluckily in the dry season suffered for the want of water.”²⁴ And available records show that severe drought occurred on windward Oahu in 1869, 1878, and 1889, and that there was lesser drought during the summers of 1883 and 1887.²⁵ However, water was available during most of the year, and after the discovery of artesian water beneath the lower plain in 1881, several wells were drilled which provided water for irrigation during the dry summer seasons.

The summer drought of 1883 prompted the mission president, Edward Partridge Jr., to hire the firm of McCandless and Barnes to drill an artesian well in the cane field nearest to the sugar mill. This was the first well paid for by the Church but the fourth one at Laie. Thus, there were four artesian wells flowing when President Joseph E Smith arrived at Laie on February 10, 1885. Two more wells were drilled for the Church in 1886 before President Smith and his family returned to Utah.²⁶

Missionary journals of J. F. Gates and M. F. Eakel confirm that there was plenty of water at the Laie plantation during the mid-1880s:

We have facilities for a very extensive plantation, plenty of land and water, but our policy is to look first to the spiritual welfare of our people, and for this reason we have not devoted our energies to develop the many resources of wealth that lay around us.²⁷

The past summer has been very dry, so that the cane not under irrigation will amount to but little; that watered from our artesian wells recently sunk is looking very fine. Recently, copius [sic] rains have started the grass over our beautiful hills and valleys.²⁸

Plantation matters are looking quite promising. President King is gradually extending the area of our cane field, so that before long our small mill will be run to its full capacity during the greater part of the year. We have land and water sufficient to raise a thousand tons of sugar per annum, but our mill cannot make over three hundred.²⁹

The cattle on this plantation have suffered but little [during the severe drought of 1889], as there is a good supply of water here and considerable grass in the hills and mountains close at hand.³⁰

I suspect that Laie’s present weather patterns are similar to those in the late nineteenth century. Laie still experiences strong winds, heavy rains, floods, and drought at various times. The “scarcity of water” stories also err by implying that during the mid-1880s “unfavorable conditions” occurred most if not all of the time.

Another often-cited reason for the Saints’ discouragement is the supposed “barrenness” of Laie. Musser wrote, “An old photograph of Laie settlement shows but two or three trees on the whole stretch of land below the present site of the building as Lanihuli. It was bare cattle range.”³¹ But Musser is referring to the lower plain, not the whole Laie property, and he calls the lower plain “bare” simply because there were few trees there. Cannon and Johnson changed Musser’s narrative to read, “Laie was a barren site when the Church purchased it,”³² suggesting that all of the land from the seashore to the top of the Koolau Mountains was barren, treeless, and nonproductive. Hardship stories written in 1957 and 1965 amplify the harshness, claiming that “water was scarce and the land a barren waste.” Thus the written version of the story began; later it was modified and compounded to perpetuate the impression that all of Laie was a “desolate dry, barren wasteland” in the mid-1880s.³³

Original Laie Plantation buildings. Courtesy BYU–Hawaii Archives. While at Laie, Susa Young Gates wrote this description: “Inside our picket fences is the much-added-to mission house . . . also a large square new house used as bedrooms, by mission-house boarders, and three other various-size houses used as dwelling houses by the families living here. A wash-house (the old cook-house moved away and turned to its present use) stands back a ways from the mission-house. [Note the clothesline in the foreground.] Near this rises our huge wind mill pump. . . . Under it . . . has been built a very convenient bath room with a huge tub, and shower bath. Near these, on the southeast of the mission-house, stands the barn, one side of which is used as a carpenter shop” (“Homespun,” Deseret News, February 22, 1886, 206).

Matthew Noall built the mission home: “My first assignment here [was] to build a one-story house, including four single-room apartments (each 12 × 12 feet in size) in which the missionaries staying at Laie could live. . . . President Joseph F. Smith was my helper, even on the scaffold work when we made the cornices” (“To My Children,” 33; see also Noall’s journal, November 27 and December 2, 1885).

Laie sugar mill complex (southeast side). The mill on the left, which replaced the original mill, was built by James Hamilton Gardner while Harvey Cluff was president. The shed on the right was added later. It was used for drying the waste cane stocks, which then served as fuel for the mill. The mill pond is in the foreground. Courtesy BYU–Hawaii Archives.

This portrayal of Laie is drastically different from the green, lush pasture land described by the resident missionaries, who considered Laie part of the “Paradise of the Pacific.”³⁴ Even in the 1860s, the Laie estate was considered one of the “very best grazing, agricultural tracts on O’ahu.³⁵ The following journal entries indicate that the lower plain was covered with rich grass in 1864 and well into the 1880s:

[The eastern portion of the Laie estate is a] level plain of several hundred acres, covered over with luxuriant grass.³⁶

Everywhere the pasture is excellent, . . . Hills clothed with grass to their summits.³⁷

No trees or shrubs . . . along the grassy stretch of a mile and a half, lying between Laie Malou and Laie proper.³⁸

The Possibility of Selling Laie

Some of the hardship stories say that disgruntled Hawaiians wanted the Church to sell Laie and obtain land elsewhere. No evidence has been found in the journals or in the mission records that this might have happened. On the contrary, the records praise Laie. An alternative gathering place would have had to match Laie: fertile land and water for the natives’ kalo (taro) gardens, access to a fishery and to the mountains, and a large acreage of land suitable for raising sugar cane. Marvin E. Pack, a missionary at Laie in the early 1880s, wrote the following in his history, “The Sandwich Islands Country and Mission”:

After having visited every portion of the Islands, the writer is impressed with the superiority of Laie above every other location upon the whole group for the purpose for which it was designed, and far as my knowledge goes it is the universal testimony of all Elders who have visited the Islands that no better choice could have been made.³⁹

Lanihuli Mission Complex, Laie Sugar Plantation, about 1907 (southeast side). In the lower left is the schoolhouse. The new mission home in the distance is evidence of progress. Courtesy BYU–Hawaii Archives.

Even if an equally good site had been found, abandoning Laie would have cost too much. The Utah Church was in deep financial straits in the mid-1880s, and property and improvements suitable for a new gathering place in Hawaii would have cost at least $200,000 at that time. In 1884 all or part of the Kahuku Ranch, located north of Laie, was for sale by James Campbell for $15 to $20 per acre.⁴⁰ According to President Partridge, this property was inferior to Laie.⁴¹ The Church had completed a new sugar mill at Laie in 1881, and they were still paying on the mortgage. A new meetinghouse had been dedicated in 1883; the Hawaiian Saints had put substantial labor, money, and sacrifice into the structure, and they viewed it with pride and reverence. Also, according to devout Church members, then and now, Laie was divinely chosen by God as a gathering place for the Saints in the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands.⁴² It is doubtful that local members, especially owners of kuleana (homestead land), wanted to leave Laie—except to gather to the “land of Joseph” in Utah.

Of course, even if no one wanted to abandon Laie, the discouragement reported in the hardship stories may have been very real to some of the residents. How was morale at Laie when President Joseph F. Smith was there in 1885–86? According to journal entries, missionaries at Laie did not complain much about physical adversities, except for poor housing (especially in the early days), the scarcity of fresh wheat flour, and the periodic abundance of rats, mosquitoes, and fleas.⁴³ They were discouraged mostly by the slow progress of many Saints in living gospel principles—and by the members’ failure to appreciate what was being done for them on the plantation.⁴⁴ Yet this discouragement must not have been severe. Missionary journals and histories indicate that harmony and prosperity prevailed on the Laie plantation in the mid-1880s.

Unfortunately, little is documented about the feelings and experiences of the native Saints. Some apparently had difficulties. On January 26, 1884, President Partridge wrote to President John Taylor that the three “natives cultivating on shares might come behind.” Later journal entries show that one of these natives had a poor cane crop, owed the plantation fifty dollars, and wanted to move to Utah.⁴⁵ Living conditions at Laie were harsh during the early years from 1865 to around 1880; however, they were better at Laie for native Hawaiians than elsewhere. In 1877, on his second mission, James Kesler stated,

natives who have gathered to Laie are in a better condition than any of the native population on the Islands that I have seen. . . .

At Laie . . . they have more liberty, and are better off for food and raiment.⁴⁶

The new mission president, Edward Partridge Jr., recorded the following observation in his journal on June 18, 1882, just one week after arriving at Laie on his second mission to Hawaii:

I find things much different here now to what they were when I was on this mission before. The people are not so poor, have better houses, dress better, have more money and appear altogether more civilized people. They have more conveniences and comforts generally.⁴⁷

President Partridge was released shortly after Joseph F. Smith arrived at Laie on his third mission to the islands. During an interview in Salt Lake City on March 14, 1885, Partridge reported that Laie was “perhaps more prosperous than any time in the past.”⁴⁸

Conditions for both the Hawaiians and the Utah missionaries residing at Laie continued to improve during the 1880s.⁴⁹ In fact, 1880 marked the beginning of a new era for the Laie plantation and the Church mission in Hawaii: fifteen years of relative prosperity, peace, and plenty. In 1893, at the request of President Wilford Woodruff, Hawaiian Mission President Matthew Noall was able to give the Utah Church more than $20,000 to help maintain its financial solvency. According to President Noall, the sum was amazing, but the Saints at Laie “laid aside enough money to help the Church at home and to get ourselves out of the red.”⁵⁰ Clearly, in the mid-1880s, the Laie plantation was not facing a financial crisis.

Possible Origin of the Joseph F. Smith Prophecy

The evidence shows that Laie was never dry and barren, that there was neither noticeable drought nor extensive crop failure at Laie in the mid-1880s, and that the Laie Saints were not particularly discouraged at the time of President Joseph F. Smith’s presence. Since these conditions did not prevail at Laie when he was there, President Smith’ s prophetic words of extraordinary encouragement were not needed in that place. The prophecy and explanatory hardship story are inconsistent with evidence from the Laie of the mid-1880s. Moreover, Musser claims that his version of the prophecy was “translated by W. F. Bailey, Pres.—Hawn Mission.” But on February 13, 1991, President Bailey reported that he had not heard of the prophecy before that evening and that he did not translate it.⁵¹ So where did Musser obtain the version of the prophecy quoted in his article? And how did the prophecy become so important to the Hawaiian Saints?

Professor Lanier Britsch believes “there is little reason to doubt that President Smith made this prophecy [but] the accuracy of statements remembered after so many years must be questioned.”⁵² I agree. I propose that President Smith did indeed make the prophecy probably sometime around 1890 to Hawaiian Saints at Iosepa, Skull Valley, Utah.

Iosepa—the Hawaiian Colony in Utah

By the late 1880s, about seventy-five Hawaiians were living in the northwest section of Salt Lake City, Utah, in an area affectionately called “Hill of Hawaii.” For a number of reasons, the Hawaiians were not well integrated into Salt Lake community life.⁵³ Deeply concerned for their social welfare, Church leaders established the community of Iosepa in Skull Valley, “as a gathering place for the [native] Saints from the Islands of the sea.⁵⁴ Iosepa is “Joseph” in Hawaiian. Here they would be able to work together, practice their religion, and eventually mesh with Utah culture and environment.⁵⁵ Iosepa was founded August 28, 1889, and functioned until 1917. Typical of many pioneer towns still being colonized by the Church in the late nineteenth-century,⁵⁶ “the Iosepa colony began as a struggle to survive. Colonists battled isolation, severe weather, financial difficulties, leprosy, and a high mortality rate.”⁵⁷ The struggles and discouragement of the early Iosepa settlers make it likely that President Joseph F. Smith’s prophecy was responsive to their problems.

Prior to and throughout the life of the Iosepa colony, President Smith and the other members of the First Presidency maintained a close relationship with the Hawaiian Saints in Utah. Both George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith had served missions in Hawaii. Both always manifested great love and concern for Hawaiians, and both were highly esteemed by Hawaiian members of the Church. Many of the Hawaiian members considered President Smith, who had been to Hawaii most recently, a kind and benevolent father. They were his “children.”⁵⁸ Some twenty letters written around 1890 confirm this warm relationship, indicating that the Hawaiians went directly to President Smith for counsel and help and that he responded promptly and lovingly.⁵⁹

Some of these letters gave counsel to the Hawaiian Saints who had decided to leave Iosepa. Samuela Kii, his wife Caroline, and their two children had experienced the previous hard winter at Iosepa, where they shared one room in the “big” house with another family. President Smith’s letter to Samuela on January 9, 1891, suggests that they had talked earlier with him about returning to Hawaii:

Aloha to you all—There is in this letter from me to Paka [mission president Ward A. Pack], telling him and all others, that you do not go home [to Laie] with a bad spirit . . . nor thought of leaving the Church . . . but because you so desire. . . . [We know that you have made up your mind to go home], but I am not going to censure you because of it. That’s with you and the Lord.

I am with love, Iosepa Smith.⁶⁰

Such correspondence shows that President Smith knew the Hawaiian Saints at Iosepa, was aware of their struggles, was concerned for their welfare, and hoped they would stay in Utah. It was at Iosepa, and not at Laie, that many Hawaiian Saints were discouraged.

Apparently many of the Iosepa colonists at least entertained the idea of returning to Hawaii; and more would have left Iosepa in its early years, except that the mission/colony president, Harvey Cluff, encouraged them to stay. During a Sunday meeting in August 1894, he told them “they were the first fruits of the gathering from the islands of the sea and that they were under the dominion of the Kingdom of God.”⁶¹ According to Atkins, “the purpose of these remarks was to check the enthusiasm that stirred the colonists and made some of them desire to return to their island home. This talk had a profound effect upon the colonists. They unanimously gave up their desire to return at that time.”⁶² President Smith’s prophecy could have been given in similar circumstances with similar effect.

Internal Evidence for the Iosepa Hypothesis

The words in the popular versions of the Joseph F. Smith prophecy reveal much about its origin. Why would President Smith use words and phrases like “desolation,” “dry waste,” “lack of water,” “great poverty,” and “impossible to secure the food to which you are accustomed” to describe conditions at Laie? He wrote the following about Laie in the spring of 1885:

Took a short walk with Julina & baby on the hill overlooking the rice lois and valley of Laie. The picture was beautiful. The mountains rising high up in the west and south bathed in fleecy clouds, and in the falling shadows of the early evening formed a dark background studded here and there by the star-like glimmering of the lighted cottages of the natives, which sparkled like golden spangles on a robe of velvet; and in the north and east the sea, illumined by the reflections of the mellow rays of twilight, appeared like a vast mirror. limited only by the distant horizon, set in a flame of floss-like clouds and standing on the base of coral reefs along the shoreline ruffled in the gausey frills of the foaming surf.⁶³

Given this description, President Smith’s prophetic advice, “Be patient for a while for the day will come when this desolate land will become a land of beauty,”⁶⁴ could hardly apply to Laie. On the other hand, this counsel and the negative features listed above could easily and precisely refer to conditions at the Iosepa colony in its early years. Furthermore, the promises described in the latter paragraphs of Musser (1940), except for planting taro, were literally fulfilled at Iosepa within a few years.⁶⁵

Other words and phrases in the Musser version also apply accurately to Iosepa and not to Laie. For example, Musser refers to a gathering place for the Saints “in the Hawaiian Islands as well as in the islands of the sea.” Before the Hawaiian Temple was completed in 1919, Laie was the gathering place for Church members from the Hawaiian Islands only. (Prior to the turn of the century, Sandwich was used in naming the islands and the Church mission there.) During dedicatory services on August 18, 1900, Wilford Woodruff dedicated Iosepa-Skull Valley as the gathering place for the native “Saints from the Islands of the sea.”⁶⁶

The Iosepa Cemetery in Skull Valley, Utah, about 1965. Buried here are many of the Polynesian Saints who succumbed to cold winters, unaccustomed food, and illness during Iosepa’s early days. The Cedar Mountains stretch along the horizon. Courtesy of the Church Archives, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Another problem in the Musser account is the promise that “birds from the mountains will come hither to sing their songs.”⁶⁷ In Hawaii, “birds from the mountains” are adapted to a rain-forest environment and do not frequent the coastal plain. But birds from the Utah mountains would come to the meadows of Skull Valley and sing in the trees planted around Iosepa.

The diet of the islanders in the 1880s consisted mainly of poi made from the taro plant, fish, and, occasionally, pork. Since taro will not flourish in Utah’s desert environment, at Iosepa it would be “impossible to secure the food to which [the Hawaiian colonists] were accustomed.” Not so at Laie. However, the resourceful colonists managed to make an inferior grade of poi from wheat, and they raised fish in local ponds and in a small reservoir called Kanaka Lake.⁶⁸

The Iosepa Connection

How did the prophecy get back to Laie, and how was it gradually changed? Current Laie tradition has it that a Sister Ivy heard President Smith make the prophetic statement when she was young and she later recorded it.⁶⁹ Sister Ivy is remembered and respected by members of the older generation at Laie with whom I have spoken.

Through local inquiry and a visit to the Laie cemetery, I learned that Sister Ivy’s maiden name was Ivy Kekuku and that she was a long-time resident of Laie. Ivy was born April 8, 1884, and would have been one year old when President Smith arrived at Laie on his third mission to the Islands: she could not have understood or remembered anything he said at Laie during the mid-1880s. But she could have heard him make an encouraging prophecy in Iosepa a few years later.

Ivy Kekuku and her family (her parents, Joseph and Miliama; two sisters; and a little brother) were in the first group of Hawaiian pioneers to settle Skull Valley. Their company, consisting of about forty adults and ten children, arrived at Iosepa on August 28, 1889, under the direction of Harvey H. Cluff, newly called president of the mission and colony.⁷⁰ Three months after they arrived, Ivy’s mother gave birth to a baby girl, who lived only a short time. After spending the winter in the crowded living quarters at Iosepa, the Kekuku family returned to Laie in the spring of 1890. Their reason for leaving Iosepa was that the winters were too cold.⁷¹ Indeed, that first winter for the colonists was colder and longer than normal. However, the death of their baby probably increased this family’s desire to return to their relatives in Hawaii. Their close friends, the Kii family, returned to Laie about nine months later.

Ivy’s mother, Miliama, was well known at Iosepa and at Laie, for she served as a counselor in the presidencies of women’s organizations in both places. In addition, she had a beautiful singing voice and displayed her talent numerous times for the Utah missionaries and for President Smith and his wife.⁷² The Kekuku family was well acquainted with President Smith; they probably sought his advice before deciding to return to Hawaii.

Sister Ivy was six years old in the spring of 1890, when her family left Iosepa. She could have remembered what President Smith said at that time, especially if her memory was reinforced by her parents’ testimony in later years. These circumstances give credence—but not positive proof—to the Laie tradition about Sister Ivy. Other colonists, even those who left Iosepa years later, could also have carried the story back to Laie.

Conclusion

More than forty writers have quoted part or all of the Joseph F. Smith “Laie prophecy” since 1940. Yet before that date, no evidence has been found, even in the journals of resident missionaries, about the tradition. Furthermore, sources show that conditions at Laie in the mid-1880s were prosperous and that the local members were not discouraged.⁷³ There was little reason for such a prophecy in Laie at that time.

The prophecy probably originated in response to problems which existed at the Iosepa colony in Utah during the early 1890s. Though there is no written record of President Smith’s words, he could have counseled one or more members of the colony to remain at Skull Valley because “it had been dedicated by a prophet of God [Wilford Woodruff] as a gathering place for the [native] saints from the Islands of the sea.”⁷⁴ Based on the best available evidence, part of which is circumstantial, I suggest that President Smith’ s encouraging words to the Iosepa Saints were brought back to Laie as a family tradition and later recorded. After being translated into English sometime before 1940, this account became Musser’s version of this tradition.

Seeing the sacrifices of the Hawaiian Saints who faithfully colonized Iosepa–Skull Valley in Utah’s west desert helps us to understand the importance placed on the inspiring words of encouragement and promise attributed to their beloved leader, whose words would not fade in the Hawaiian memory even after the Iosepa experience was long past.