3 “Once More at Home”

“We were pleased to find ourselves once more at home.” William Clayton and his English immigrant friends were fully convinced that in this fledgling American frontier community, dominated by a man named Joseph Smith, they would find all the happiness and fulfillment promised by the gospel. William’s faith was more than rewarded as he was drawn into almost daily, close association with the Prophet. It was not long, however, before any expectations he may have had for a life of peace and security were shattered by the economic and political realities of western Illinois.

When the first Latter-day Saints arrived in Illinois, the population was already a homogeneous lot, consisting of migrants from northern and southern American states as well as some European immigrants. The largest centers of population were in west central Illinois, though by 1840 the north was filling in rapidly. Chicago was beginning to boom, the river towns (Alton, Quincy, Jacksonville, Springfield, Peoria) were growing vigorously,¹ and land sales were flourishing. Certain speculators and politicians, however, saw some signs of economic stagnation as plans for a canal and a railroad system were not maturing. One way to forestall such a disaster, they believed, was to encourage continued large-scale immigration. When the Saints began to arrive in early 1839, they were given a sincere and hearty welcome. But, like a runt that suddenly surpasses the growth of its brothers and sisters, the tiny settlement of Commerce soon became Nauvoo and, bursting its borders, was transformed in less than five years into one of the two largest cities in Illinois. The brother and sister cities were not enamored with the change.

Driven from Missouri because they seemed to threaten the political and social stability of that frontier state, the Mormons were aided generously in their resettlement in Nauvoo by the citizens of nearby Quincy. As they considered the future, however, some said it would be unwise to make another attempt at creating their own community or communities. Rather, they believed, they would have a better chance for peace if they simply scattered themselves among the population. Joseph Smith felt differently, and even before he arrived he began making plans for a grand new community of Saints. There would be several communities, in fact, but Nauvoo would be the queen, and the center of the Kingdom. On Sunday July 19, 1840, when Nauvoo was little more than a struggling collection of small wooden houses, shacks, and various temporary shelters, Joseph Smith gave a dramatic public discourse in which he proclaimed his vision of the future greatness of his city as well as all of western Illinois (illus. 3-1). As recorded by Martha Jane Knowlton, he boldly declared:

Now let all who can cooly and deliberately dispose of their property come and give of their substance to the [poor?] that the hearts of the poor may be comforted and all may worship God together in holiness of heart. Come brethren come all of you. And I prophecy in the name of the Lord that the state of Illinois shall become a great and mighty mountain as [a] city set upon a hill that cannot be hid and a great that giveth light to the world. The city of Nauvoo als[o] shall become the greatest city in the whole world.

. . . I now invite all liberall minded men to come up to Nauvoo and help to build up the city of our God. We are not greatly distressed, no nor ever will be. This is the principle place of gathering therefore let the brethren begin to roll in like clouds and we will sell you lots if you are able to pay for them, and if not you shall have them without money and without price.

. . . Yea I prophecy that pleasure parties shall come from England to see the Mamoth and like the Queen of Sheba shall say the half was never told them. School houses shall be built here and High schools shall be established and the great men of the [earth] shall send their sons here to board while they are receiving their education among us. And even Noblemen shall crave the priviledge of educating their children with us and these poor Saints shall chink in their pockets the money of these proud men received from such as come and dwell with us.

Now brethren I obligate myself to build as great a temple as ever Solomon did, if the church will back me up. Moreover, it shall not impovrish any man but enrich thousands. And I prophecy that the time shall be when these Saints shall ride proudly over the mountains of Missouri and no Gentile dog nor Missouri dog shall dare lift a tongue against them but will lick up the dust from beneath their feet.²

Illus. 3-1. Clayton and his family arrived in Nauvoo in November 1840. Plans were already underway for the building of a temple, which is only partially completed in this rendition by Herrmann J. Meyer. Courtesy Church Archives

When Joseph Smith delivered this stirring discourse, William Clayton was still in Manchester. If he had heard the Prophet’s grand projections, however, they would have stirred his soul with marvelous images of his own involvement in the glorious future of the Kingdom. Undoubtedly he heard similar predictions after he arrived four months later, and his pulse quickened with expectation. By that time there were Latter-day Saint settlements scattered throughout Adams and Hancock Counties, as well as across the Mississippi River in Lee County, Iowa.

The situation, however, was fraught with potential problems. Those of other faiths became restless and suspicious as the Mormon population grew so rapidly that it soon threatened to overwhelm them. At the same time, both banks of the Mississippi were notorious for the “mean, rascally characters” who made up at least part of the population, and such people could only exacerbate any latent conflict. Finally, certain Latter-day Saint religious beliefs would eventually arouse opposition, as they had in Missouri.

The economy of western Illinois was highly speculative, and it was not difficult to purchase land on credit. Joseph Smith and other Church leaders secured thousands of acres on both sides of the Mississippi. As a result, Joseph Smith became, among other things, a real estate agent, as he encouraged his followers to purchase and settle the lands he had gone in debt to obtain. Little did William Clayton suspect, as he entered Nauvoo so excitedly on November 24, that Joseph Smith’s business activities would soon absorb a major part of his own time and become one of his contributions to building the Kingdom of God in America. Joseph Smith (illus. 3-2) envisioned the Kingdom as much more than a spiritual, preaching institution. “Wherefore, verily I say unto you that all things unto me are spiritual,” the Lord had said through him in 1830.³ Clayton found that even the prophet of the Lord must spend most of his time on the secular, economic, political, and mundane realities of life, and much less time on such priestly and prophetic roles as administering Church affairs, preaching doctrine, and receiving revelation.

What manner of man was Joseph Smith—the man who, from this moment on, had a more profound impact on Clayton’s life than anyone he had ever known or ever would know?⁴ The opinions of the time were, to say the least, varied: his contemporaries saw him as everything from charlatan and uneducated impostor to impressive enigma or inspired leader, and his followers loved and revered him as a prophet. Peter Burnett, who had been one of his attorneys during his recent Missouri difficulties, characterized the unique mixture in his personality and probably drew as balanced a view as anyone outside the Church at the time. As he later wrote:

You could see at a glance that his education was very limited. He was an awkward but vehement speaker. In conversation he was slow, and used too many words to express his ideas, and would not generally go directly to a point. But, with all these drawbacks, he was much more than an ordinary man. He possessed the most indomitable perseverance, was a good judge of men, and deemed himself born to command, and he did command. His views were so strange and striking, and his manner was so earnest, and apparently so candid, that you could not but be interested. There was a kind, familiar look about him, that pleased you. . . . He had the capacity for discussing a subject in different aspects, and for proposing many original views, even of ordinary matters. His illustrations were his own. He had great influence over others.⁵

If Joseph Smith was born to command, then the disciple from Penwortham was born to follow. Once he became acquainted with the Prophet, his awe quickly turned to unwavering personal loyalty. He expected to have his faith confirmed, and what he saw in Joseph Smith did just that. “He is not an idiot,” Clayton wrote his friends in Manchester as if to combat some vicious tale, “but a man of sound judgement, and possessed of intelligence which expands your mind and causes your heart to rejoice.” The rest of his statement is a classic summary of what thousands of believing Mormons would say:

He is very familiar, and delights to instruct the poor Saints. I can converse with him just as easy as I can with you, and with regard to being willing to communicate instruction he says “I receive it freely and I will give it freely.” He is willing to answer any question I have put to him and is pleased when we ask him questions. He seems exceeding well versed in the scriptures, and whilst conversing upon any subject such light and beauty is revealed I never saw before. If I had come from England purposely to converse with him a few days I should have considered myself well paid for my trouble. He is no friend to iniquity but cuts at it wherever he sees it and it is in vain to attempt to cloke it before him. He has a great measure of the spirit of God, and by this means he is preserved from imposition. He says, “I am a man of like passions with yourselves,” but truly I wish I was such a man.⁶

Illus. 3-2. The Prophet Joseph Smith was a great influence on the young disciple from Penwortham. Clayton wrote of Joseph, “I wish I was such a man.” Museum of Church History and Art

Nowhere in the available papers is there even a hint that Clayton ever doubted the Prophet or found cause to criticize him. His complete loyalty during Joseph’s lifetime as well as his unwavering devotion to the Prophet’s memory in later years is only one example of the powerful influence the Church’s founder had on the lives of thousands of followers. There were over thirty thousand of them by the time Joseph died in 1844.

William Clayton was what Sidney Hook once characterized as the “eventful man” as opposed to the “event-making man” in history. Both types influence subsequent developments, but the “event-making man,” as described by Hook, is one whose “actions are the consequences of outstanding capacities of intelligence, will, and character rather than of accidents of history.” Possessing a kind of greatness that involves an extraordinary talent, he appears at a “fork in the historical road” and increases the odds of success for the alternative he chooses by virtue of the “extraordinary qualities he brings to bear.” The “eventful man,” on the other hand, does influence subsequent developments, but in a way much like the brave young Dutch boy who kept his finger in the dike and saved the town—almost any passerby could have done it if he had the will to do so, but he became a hero because he was the one who was passing by and did it.⁷ In Mormon history Joseph Smith was the “event-making man,” for he was the one whose outstanding qualities largely created the direction the Church would go during his lifetime. Clayton became one of the exemplary “eventful men,” as he faithfully followed his leader in absolutely everything and unhesitantly put his finger in any crack in the dike that seemed to threaten the Kingdom. In practical terms, the “event-making men” would have little long-range impact without “eventful men” like William Clayton to support them.

But why did Clayton remain so steadfast when other converts with equally profound conviction sometimes drifted away? There is no fully objective explanation, but a few considerations are at least worth comment. At the heart of the matter was the continuing and permanent effect of whatever overwhelming spiritual experience persuaded him to ask for baptism at 11 o’clock at night. His conversion was genuine, he was convinced that the power of God had touched his soul, and the memory of that experience would not leave him. Church members call this “testimony,” and one of its effects was to make it easy for the believer to accept as truth anything that came from the Prophet.

Clayton’s will to believe may have been enhanced by the fact that he was not, by nature, a seeker for high office, unlike some who later turned against the Prophet. At the same time he relished close association with top leaders and received deep self-satisfaction from feeling that he was on the inside—that he always knew what was going on. He did not try to counsel the Prophet (such a thought would have seemed almost blasphemously presumptuous to Clayton), especially when counsel was not sought. He was willing, rather, to take counsel and let it go at that. He found fulfillment in knowing he was thought well of, and perhaps the fear of even seeming disloyal helped stifle any tendencies toward open criticism.

Further, even though Clayton was a musician, a poet of sorts, and an avid reader, he was not by nature a philosopher or a speculator. His mind delighted in the specific and the concrete, which helps account for his success as a scribe and a clerk, but he was not given to the formulation of new ideas or the imaginative construction of philosophical concepts. As a secretary and scribe he recorded what he was told to record; as a diarist and historian he described what he saw around him, usually with skill and great descriptive power but seldom with any interpretive imagination; as a dispenser of ideas he was a follower and not a leader. Some disciples who possessed a certain inborn brilliance or speculative tendency could (and sometimes did) become disaffected from the Church, as their ruminations drew them away from the mainstream of Mormon thought. Clayton’s training and basic personality led him to prefer simple, clear-cut instruction over abstract theorizing and to preach the doctrines of others rather than lead out in his own reflective metaphysical speculation.

It took a certain number of philosophers and imaginative formulators of ideas (that is, people such as Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Parley P. Pratt, Orson Pratt) to build and lead the Mormon Kingdom, but it took many more ordinary people, like Clayton, to become the brick and mortar with which the Kingdom would be constructed. Such material provided resiliency and strength—the ability to bounce back after the storm, almost none the worse for wear. None of this explains Clayton’s character, but it at least suggests that his kind of discipleship, in combination with whatever other kinds there were, was necessary for the Church’s success.

Joseph Smith’s impact on Clayton was immediate and had exactly the effect the English convert anticipated: it confirmed both his testimony and his optimism for the future. Five days after entering Nauvoo his family was still using boxes for furniture and sleeping on leaves, but he wrote to Edward Martin that “we are perfectly satisfied with the appearance of things here and we have abundance of proofs that Joseph Smith Junior is what he pretends to be viz a prophet of the most high God and this is the work of God and will roll forth to the ends of the earth.” “Last night,” he continued, “many of us were in company with Brother Joseph, our hearts rejoiced to hear him speak of the things of the Kingdom, he is an affectionate man and as familiar as any of us. We feel to love him much and so will you.” Though he certainly expected some difficulties, Clayton was convinced that the future would go well. As if to foreshadow the famous hymn he composed a few years later, he remarked to his friend, “In fact and in short all is well.”⁸

During the next few weeks Clayton heard Joseph preach in public twice, but he was also drawn to the attention of the Prophet. As the new arrivals frequently attended “singing meetings,” they were often asked to sing “Gentle Gale” for Joseph and others. This was the song Clayton wrote for the Saints aboard the North America, and it soon became popular in Nauvoo. To sing for the Prophet was, for Clayton, the command performance most to be desired.

The Claytons were “at home” with the Saints and their prophet, but it was not ordained that they should settle down comfortably in the relative security of Nauvoo or that life should be easy for them. They soon began to inquire about land purchases and Joseph Smith’s brother Hyrum (illus. 3-3) told them that he had land to sell across the river in Iowa Territory for $3 an acre. Clayton was not sure what to do, for his objective was to settle with the Saints in Nauvoo. But there had been a settlement of Saints across the river since 1839, and the Prophet’s brother counseled them to go there. Other Saints counseled against it, telling William and Ruth that “the devil was over the river.” The faithful disciple made up his mind to trust the Smiths. Hyrum, after all, was a counselor in the First Presidency and another brother, William, was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Clayton finally purchased land from William on credit and agreed to pay by working on a Mississippi steamboat, in which William had an interest, and giving the Apostle half his wages until the debt was cancelled.

The new year, 1841, then, brought another new beginning for the disciple from Penwortham, and one that reflected in a most fundamental way the potential personal impact of his religion. Indeed, there was something inspiring and dramatic, but at the same time incongruous, about an English bookkeeper in his twenties, with a wife and two small children, embarking on an adventure as a farmer on the unbroken Iowa prairie, hoping to pay for his farm by working on a Mississippi River steamboat. But joining the Church wrought such changes in many lives.

On January 21, after purchasing a wagon, livestock, and some farm equipment, the young couple began moving their belongings across the frozen Mississippi. It took them four days, and after that life seemed to become a stream of unending disappointments. The little house they rented was so poorly ventilated that they could not long keep a fire indoors, which made the cold weather even more unbearable. They even had to cook their food outdoors. They were shocked at the low state of spirituality they found among the Iowa Saints, who were “having no meetings, full of envy, strife and contention and in a very bad state.” When the weather moderated they began building their own log home, but on March 15 Clayton was sitting in his temporary house when he heard someone yelling that the new home was on fire. He hailed the driver of a passing wagon, who took him the half mile to the homesite. There he found a good neighborwoman who had carried water a quarter of a mile and was beginning to put out the fire. Clayton finished the job and found that the damage sustained to the house was not drastic. But they did lose a large rope and a pair of bed cords, which, he said, “in our circumstances was a considerable loss to us.” That same day the fine hog they had “set much store on” to use for breeding purposes was mysteriously “cut” (that is, castrated) after it had broken out and wandered away from home—“a sad grief to us,” said Clayton.⁹ But all this was only the beginning of troubles for the English bookkeeper-turned-farmer.

Illus. 3-3. Hyrum Smith, Joseph’s brother and counselor in the First Presidency when Clayton arrived in Nauvoo, encouraged Clayton to settle across the Mississippi River in Iowa. Frederick Piercy, Route from Liverpool to the Great Salt Lake Valley, 1854, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, BYU, Provo, Utah

By this time Clayton undoubtedly was wondering whether it really was the will of the Lord that he should be in Iowa instead of Nauvoo. From the beginning the settlement there had been on shaky legal grounds, for Isaac Galland, a speculator of questionable character, had sold land to the Saints when his own title was unclear,¹⁰ and this led to conflicting claims. Nevertheless, on March 20, Joseph Smith received a revelation in answer to the question, “What is the will of the Lord, concerning the Saints in the Territory of Iowa?” Clayton may well have been among the Saints who had asked this question. The answer, which was read in a general conference meeting on April 8, declared that those who were “essaying to be my Saints” should keep the Lord’s commandments and prepare to build up cities to his name in the places appointed by Joseph Smith. Specifically with reference to Iowa, the revelation declared, “Let them build up a city unto my name upon the land opposite the city of Nauvoo, and let the name of Zarahemla be named upon it.”¹¹ This was probably the answer Clayton wanted: it was God’s will that they stay in Iowa, and the name Zarahemla simply made the point more dramatic. It came right from the Book of Mormon and referred to a magnificent city built by God’s chosen people in ancient America. The symbolism was obvious.

On March 19, Clayton began planting seed, but on the twentieth, the day Joseph received the revelation about Iowa, his land title was challenged by a man named William Miller. He brought a constable with him who read a notice requiring Clayton to quit the land. Astonished, Clayton sought advice and even crossed the river to consult with Joseph Smith. Exactly what happened is unclear, but by April 2 Miller’s claim had been settled, and Clayton was seemingly free to pursue his farming.

But times of trouble were not over. Fences were broken by cattle, crops were destroyed, and Clayton frequently became so ill he could not work. To add to it all, he was attempting not only to work on the steamboat, but also to invest in it, and that investment failed. The faith of the disciple was being sorely tried.

At the same time Ruth’s third child was ready to be born, but even this happy event had minor problems. Time for delivery came on May 6, and Ruth wanted her mother to be there. Mother Moon, however, was on the other side of the river, in Nauvoo, so Clayton borrowed a skiff and rowed across “as hard as I could.” Two hours later he returned with his mother-in-law, but Ruth had already delivered a healthy baby girl, Henrietta. At least there was one bright moment for the family.

There were also moments of deep spiritual satisfaction, though not in Zarahemla itself. In April Clayton attended general conference in Nauvoo. He was a member of the Nauvoo high priest quorum and thus sat with that quorum in a special place at meetings. He watched with pleasure an elaborate parade of the Nauvoo Legion and the laying of the cornerstone for the magnificent Nauvoo Temple. Clayton frequently went to Nauvoo on Sundays to hear Joseph Smith preach, and on May 9, the Prophet expounded upon the doctrine of baptism for the dead.¹² Clayton had probably heard this doctrine before, but on that occasion he was so impressed that he and several others immediately went down to the river to act upon what they heard. It was a time of spiritual rejuvenation as many Saints renewed their own covenants through being voluntarily rebaptized, and then were baptized again in behalf of dead relatives. Clayton, too, rededicated himself to the service of God by being rebaptized, after which he was baptized in behalf of his grandfather Thomas Clayton, his two grandmothers, and an aunt.¹³ It was times such as these, learning at the feet of the Prophet and sharing spiritual experiences with the Saints, that helped keep Clayton’s faith alive as he struggled for success in Zarahemla.

At the April conference Clayton heard the revelation read that commanded the building of Zarahemla and heard Joseph Smith make a comment that must have helped him reconcile his troubles with the will of God. The Saints were told that God’s people were not immune from hardship, and the Prophet reminded one man of the massacre at Haun’s Mill, Missouri, as an example of what all of them might expect.¹⁴ This was little comfort in a physical sense, but at least it suggested that because they were the Lord’s people the Mormons should not expect always to have it easy. The difficulties were a demonstration of who the Saints really were as they tried to live apart from the world they were in. Such a thought actually provided a certain inner satisfaction for disciples like Clayton.

Sometime in August, Clayton was particularly gratified when Joseph Smith inquired about his circumstances. “I told him” he wrote, “that [we] had not a privilege of having many things which we greatly needed,” and soon after that he began receiving some welcome aid from the Church.¹⁵

But Clayton was also severely ill with the ague, a form of malaria that produced alternate chills and fevers. Epidemics of the ague were common in western frontier communities, and in 1839 the Saints huddled at Commerce were struck by a particularly severe outbreak. That year Joseph Smith went among them administering to the ill and several miraculous healings were reported. The following summer, however, the epidemic was worse, and in 1841 it reached calamitous proportions. So many died that on one occasion Sidney Rigdon was forced to preach a “general funeral sermon” for them all.¹⁶

One of the casualties that year was Alice Moon, Ruth’s aunt. Another, who died on August 17, was Henrietta Lucretia Patten Clayton—the baby girl who had been born to William and Ruth just three months earlier. She had been having chills for some time and suffered severely during the last two days. “When dead she was as pretty as I ever saw in my life,” wrote the grief-stricken father. But, like the ideal disciple he was striving so hard to become, he let his faith at least mellow his sorrow. “This was a grief to us,” he said, “but we afterwards saw the hand of God in it and saw it was best to be so during this time.”¹⁷ Very often during the remainder of his life, Clayton would find such submissiveness a necessary ingredient of his faith.

As the summer wore on and the Claytons continued working their Iowa farm some of the crops matured, but more illness and other unforeseen problems delayed their harvest. In September a frost destroyed half of their potatoes. Severely ill, William tried to dig the rest but was unable to finish. Ruth and her younger sister, Lydia, completed the job and also harvested an acre and a half of corn. On October 16, Wilford Woodruff (illus. 3-4) crossed the river to visit family and friends in Iowa, including Clayton. As he described it, he found the entire Clayton family “in a distressed situation with Sickness,” so he laid hands on William and gave him a blessing.¹⁸

Illus. 3-4. Wilford Woodruff had met William Clayton while serving a mission to England. At that time, Clayton had witnessed Woodruff’s gift of healing, and while living in Iowa, Clayton himself became a beneficiary. Courtesy Church Archives

Finally, in mid-November, Clayton went to Nauvoo, evidently to seek counsel from the Apostle who baptized him, Heber C. Kimball. Elder Kimball advised him to move his family to Nauvoo, and on December 14 he did so. He was still sick and “occasionally shaking,” but all he could find for his family to live in was a poorly built house in which they still suffered severely from the cold. So ended the English disciple’s first year in the promised land.

When Clayton gave up farming in Lee County, Iowa, he was only anticipating by a few months the failure of the Iowa adventure. The revelation that Clayton heard at the April conference anticipated even more settlements in Iowa, specifically naming the town of Nashville, not far from Zarahemla, as one of them. Joseph Smith had grand hopes not only for building Nauvoo (illus. 3-5), but also for creating a kind of Mormon empire to the West, with Zarahemla as Nauvoo’s sister city across the river. A stake was organized, and Clayton served first as a member of the high council and later as stake clerk.¹⁹ However, Clayton was only one of many Mormon settlers in Lee County to be hounded by conflicting land claimants or to have difficulty with other Saints. Trying to keep peace among brothers, the high council even voted to disfellowship anyone who took a brother before the law. The Iowa Saints also tried to keep the “law of consecration,” a system of economic sharing attempted by the Church in both Ohio and Missouri and based on the idea of selfless equality. But they were hardly perfect enough for that and the Prophet instructed them to stop. Ultimately only about thirty houses were built in Zarahemla, and the stake was finally discontinued in 1842. Later Joseph Smith tended to blame the failure on problems with dishonest land speculators and in a public address on April 6, 1843, declared: “There is a chance in that place for every abomination to be practiced on the innocent, if they go, and I ask forgiveness of all whom I advised to go there.”²⁰

Illus. 3-5. Originally a two-room log cabin that Joseph Smith bought upon settling in Nauvoo, the “Homestead” (as it was later known) includes the one-story addition built by Joseph, and the two-story wing added by his son Joseph III. Courtesy Church Archives

Clayton did not record his specific reaction to all this (or, if he did, it has not survived), but he was doubtless disappointed and dismayed. He was, after all, a witness to two distressing failures: his own efforts to become a self-sufficient farmer, and Joseph Smith’s prophecy concerning Iowa. At the same time these early Church members seemed to have a pragmatic attitude toward the fulfillment of such prophecy, and William Clayton shared it. It was an active, faithful pragmatism that compelled them to look at prophecy concerning their own future as a personal challenge. They were obligated to work to make the great things predicted by the Prophet actually happen. If such things did not happen, this was no sign that the Prophet was false. It was only a sign either that the Saints were not faithful and hardworking enough or, if they had done all they could, that the enemies of the Church had prevented them from fulfilling their obligations. “Verily, verily, I say unto you,” the Lord had told them through Joseph Smith in January 1841,

that when I give a commandment to any of the sons of men to do a work unto my name, and those sons of men go with all their might and with all they have to perform that work, and cease not their diligence, and their enemies come upon them and hinder them from performing that work, behold, it behooveth me to require that work no more at the hands of those sons of men, but to accept of their offerings.”²¹

William and Ruth had worked with “all their might” and with all they had, and it was probably with such thoughts filling their minds that they crossed the Mississippi again on that bleak day in December. If Zarahemla failed it would not have been their fault, and if the prophecy failed it was not because they had not tried to bring it to fulfillment.

If this was all simply another test of Clayton’s discipleship, he rationalized the failures and still viewed Joseph Smith as the exemplar rather than a scapegoat. Though he was caught up in the personality of the Prophet, his faith also went beyond the man himself. Trial, sorrows, and failures were part of the process of building the Kingdom, for the devil was also at work and he often won some battles. Clayton’s friends warned him of this before he went to Iowa, and his experiences there proved it to him. But he had inexorable faith in the ultimate victory of the Kingdom, and seemingly no amount of failure or disappointment could shake that.

Some may have called it stubbornness, doggedness, simple bullheadedness, or even fanaticism. But whatever it was, for Clayton there was no choice but to take the setbacks philosophically and go on to the next challenge. Joseph Smith was the example, and when he was languishing in prison in 1839 the Lord had responded to his prayers for deliverance only by reminding him “Thou art not yet as Job!” He also reminded the Prophet of even greater tribulations to come, but assured him that “if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way, and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience and shall be for thy good.”²² It was exactly this philosophy that Clayton would cling to throughout his life: no matter what the trials or disappointments, in the long run they were for his benefit, and God would overrule all to that end.

Besides the fact that the devil was at work across the river, the Zarahemla experience proved something else: farming was not for William Clayton. When he moved back to Nauvoo he would engage himself in more familiar pursuits: clerking, writing, recordkeeping—the skills in which he knew he had great competence. It was a new beginning in an old direction, therefore, when Heber C. Kimball came to him on the morning of February 10, 1842, and told him he must report to Joseph Smith’s office.²³ Willard Richards, Clayton’s friend and colleague from the British Mission, had been appointed recorder for the Nauvoo Temple on December 13, but his workload was so heavy that he needed an assistant. William Clayton received that assignment, which meant that he would be working regularly in the counting room of Joseph Smith’s new brick store on Water Street. In June Willard Richards had to travel to the East, so on the twenty-ninth he turned over all the work of Joseph Smith’s office to Clayton.²⁴ Finally, on the evening of September 3 the Prophet called Clayton to him and said, “Brother Clayton, I want you to take care of the records and papers, and from this time I appoint you Temple Recorder, and when I have any revelations to write, you shall write them.”²⁵ Nothing could be more satisfying to this well-trained clerk and scribe: he would be doing the work he was prepared for, and he would be in the constant company of Joseph Smith. Perhaps this time he had found his real home.