16 Organization of Wards and Stakes: A Historical Approach

Since 1830 the Church has operated on the fundamental, unchanging priesthood principle that inspired prophets direct the work of priesthood units and members. However, application of that principle to the day-to-day operations of the Church has varied according to ever-changing needs and circumstances.

The nineteenth century, for example, offers us some intriguing and perhaps puzzling priesthood practices when measured by present Church practices. We find, for example, a stake being formed within a branch, high priests serving as deacons, four types of bishops, wards with presidents, and branches with bishops. To help make sense of Church government matters of the past century, five keys to understanding ward and stake history are useful.

1. Bishops Were Not Always Linked to Wards

The Church had no wards or stakes when the first general bishops were called in 1831. Not until 1834 were stakes created. Wards were created in 1839. Thus, the first bishops supervised temporal matters in branches, not wards or stakes. When the Kirtland and Zion stakes were formed, the two general bishops functioned almost like stake officers, stake bishops. When Commerce/Nauvoo was divided into urban wards, bishops were appointed over each, and we had the first ward bishops in the Church. These, however, did not conduct meetings on a ward basis, as worship and quorum meetings in Nauvoo were communitywide gatherings not limited by ward boundaries.

For some time, the Church had four types of bishops: Presiding Bishop over the entire Church; local presiding bishops over valleys or settlements having more than one ward; traveling bishops who operated as agents of the presiding bishop to help collect tithes; and ward bishops.

Samuel Atwood, for example, served as a local presiding bishop “to repair to, and to take charge of, and preside over the settlement in Kamas Prairie and on the Weber River,” to collect tithing, care for public property, counsel and guide local bishops, and transact Church business.

Another practice, unusual by our standards, was to have ward presidents. Winter Quarters’ branches from 1848 to 1852 each had both a president and a bishop. So did Nephi and Manti wards in the 1850s. In 1862, Brigham Young said, “As soon as the elders have wisdom sufficient to magnify their calling and Priesthood, we will give to every Branch, no matter how small the Ward, both a Bishop and a President.” The idea, however, was never fully implemented.

2. Unit Designations Were Used Quite Loosely

During the nineteenth century, just about any local unit could be and was called a branch. Branches, in fact, predated the formation of the first stakes (1834) and wards (1839). But even after the latter date, a ward or stake might be called a branch. We read, for instance, of the Nauvoo Third Ward Branch. The term ward sometimes was used just as imprecisely, as for example aboard immigrant ships, where the passengers were divided into wards, each with a presiding elder. In 1849, New Orleans was divided into four wards, and over each were teachers who were responsible to that city’s presiding elder. Similarly, the term stake had many meanings. A branch might be called a stake. Units similar to present-day missions were designated as stakes. St. George, for example, is termed a stake many years before an official stake was organized. What is the point? Simply that no one should be troubled when reading that a unit was designated a branch, a ward, or a stake when the unit fails to match our current precise definitions of those terms.

3. Salt Lake Stake Served as a Center Stake

For most of Brigham Young’s era, Salt Lake Stake had a higher status than all other stakes. Perhaps this came naturally from the fact that so many General Authorities resided there. The stake had a president and high council but never held stake conferences like other stakes. Rather, general conference served the purpose: its officers were sustained at the general conferences right after the General Authorities. At the stake’s bishops meetings, the Presiding Bishop, not the stake president, presided. When Parowan high priests needed a new president in the 1850s, they petitioned the Salt Lake Stake high priests quorum presidency to name a replacement, which it did. Finally, in 1876 President Young made an announcement that Salt Lake Stake really possessed no higher status than any other stake, that all stakes were on equal footing. That announcement created no small stir among the bishops who heard it.

4. Aaronic Priesthood Ranks Were Filled with Melchizedek Priesthood Bearers

Aaronic Priesthood work then consisted of such adult duties as watching over the Church, ferreting out iniquity, settling disputes, and being ward officers second only to the bishop. Therefore, worthy adults were recruited to fill these positions. When qualified men, not ordained to a priesthood, could not be found to put into the quorums, then Melchizedek Priesthood bearers were called by bishops to serve as “acting” deacons, “acting” teachers, and “acting” priests. Records show cases of men serving double duty in the priesthood. As one example, John Picknell was a seventy, a teacher, and a deacon at the same time. While some boys served in Aaronic capacities ever since the earliest days of the Restoration, only after 1877 did it become Church policy that all active boys receive some Aaronic Priesthood ordination before adulthood. In practice, boys became deacons at ages eleven and nineteen, but many did not receive further ordination until they were called on missions or got married and were ordained as elders. In 1908 the Church established definite ages for deacons, teachers, and priests (twelve, fifteen, seventeen) and stipulated that boys should advance through each of the offices sequentially.

5. Loose Church Government Practices Were Tightened in 1877

Before Brigham Young died in 1877, he directed a major reordering of priesthood work in the Church. A letter from the First Presidency, dated July 11, 1877, directed that a number of current practices be corrected or eliminated: Apostles no longer would preside over settlements or stakes; unordained acting bishops would be ordained; bishops lacking counselors would receive them; bishopric counselors who were not high priests would be ordained such; many bishops and stake presidents would be replaced by new appointees; young men were to receive some Aaronic position; the offices of traveling bishops and local presiding bishops were eliminated; stakes organized Aaronic Priesthood and elders quorums where there had been none; and high priests quorums and seventies quorums, used to recruiting at will to fill their ranks (to the detriment of other quorums), could ordain no more men without First Presidency approval. Stakes would hold regular quarterly conferences that summer as part of this major Church reorganization, wards and stakes were divided and doubled in number, and many settlements became organized into official Church units for the first time.

While modern students might find the nineteenth-century situation of wards, stakes, and quorums confusing by present standards, when understood in context those practices simply support the tenet that the priesthood is led by a prophet. If change in the Church disturbs some, three ideas might be helpful.

First, one reason we need a prophet is to have change. Otherwise we could as a Church lock into whatever was revealed in the 1830s and maintain it.

A second idea is the application of Elder George A. Smith’s cornstalk analogy to Church growth and change:

Suppose a man should go into a corn-field where the corn is six, eight, or ten inches high, who had not been raised in a country where it was cultivated, . . . and he had never seen such a plant before, and let him employ himself a few days in hoeing it and admiring its beauty,—suppose by some means he becomes perfectly blind for two or three months, and then goes into the field after he has received his sight, he now beholds corn seven, eight, and ten feet high, with large ears upon it,—he would exclaim, “What is this? Who has destroyed the beautiful plants that were here two months ago?” . . . He is told it is the same corn. “Oh, it cannot be, for the corn is little stuff.”1

President John Taylor (center), with George Q. Cannon (left) and Joseph F. Smith (right), c. 1880. President Taylor received a revelation saying that changes in the organization of the Church would be a normal part of its growth and development. This helped the Saints to understand and accept new callings in the reorganized priesthood structure. Courtesy Perry Special Collections. 

Third, we may quote the word of the Lord to President John Taylor in 1883, after significant changes had been made in the operations of the Seventies in the Church. This statement is like an “elastic clause” in our Church government “constitution,” explaining how and why the Lord can rearrange priesthood operations when Church needs require such changes:

Thus saith the Lord unto the First Presidency, unto the Twelve, unto the Seventies and unto all my holy Priesthood, let not your hearts be troubled, neither be ye concerned about the management and organization of my Church and Priesthood and the accomplishment of my work. Fear me and observe my laws and I will reveal unto you, from time to time, through the channels that I have appointed, everything that shall be necessary for the future development and perfection of my Church, for the adjustment and rolling forth of my kingdom, and for the building up and the establishment of my Zion. For ye are my Priesthood and I am your God. Even so. Amen.2

(Address given at the CES Church History Symposium at Brigham Young University, August 19, 1977.)

This article was originally published in Religious Educators Symposium on LDS Church History (Salt Lake City: Church Educational System, 1977), 53–55.