After the Missouri troops forced the surrender of Far West on November 1, 1838, took Joseph Smith and other leaders into custody, and looted the town, the Mormons faced a difficult decision. Should the Saints try to leave the war zone in the winter or wait until spring? If they delayed their departure, they might face persecution from the troops bent on carrying out the governor’s order to drive them out of the state, or they might even face death. Historian William G. Hartley states, “It being so late in the year, those wanting to find housing and employment in urban centers had only two good options—St. Louis, Missouri, and Quincy, Illinois.”1 We find that Frederick G. Williams and his family departed Far West, Missouri, in late November 1838 and, with the majority of the Saints, chose Quincy as their destination.
As we’ve seen in Eliza R. Snow’s letter to Isaac Streator, dated February 22, 1839, she mentioned that the Governor of Illinois, Thomas Carlin, was sympathetic to the Mormons’ plight, and people were streaming into that state. “The Gov. of Illinois says our people may come there—they have been going all winter, and move very fast. A man just arrived from Ill. who said he counted 220 wagons between this and the Mississippi.”2 Quincy was a good choice for the beleaguered members of the Church. The 1,600 citizens3 of this growing city on the Mississippi River proved to be “Good Samaritans.” They were generous with their means and opened up their homes to take in the refugee Saints, who soon outnumbered them.
The list of other prominent Quincy citizens, both Whig and Democrat, who came out in support reads like a “Who’s Who” of Quincy, Illinois. . . . It includes such prominent names as Samuel and J. T. Holmes, merchants; I. N. Morris, attorney-at-law; J. W. Whitney; Thomas Carlin, governor of Illinois; Richard M. Young, U. S. Senator; Samuel Leech; Hiram Rogers, M.D.; Nicholas Wren, County Clerk; C. M. Woods; and John Wood, Quincy’s mayor and earliest citizen. By Thursday, 28 February [1839], Holmes, Whitney, and Wood had collected $73 from town leaders to donate to the Mormons.4
As much as $500 in aid was collected by the townspeople that February, according to Mormon refugee Israel Barlow. “The people of Quincy have contributed between $400 and $500 dollars. God has opened their hearts to receive us. May heaven’s blessings rest upon them. We are hungry, they fed us, naked, they clothed us. The citizens have assisted us beyond calculation.”5 A newspaper editorial helped rally the Illinois citizens to help the distressed Saints, who were destitute, according to the writer, because of the “oppressive people of Missouri.”
The Mormons—We hasten to invite the attention of the charitable and humane, to the destitute condition of some of this people. A large number of families are encamped on the opposite bank of the Mississippi, waiting for an opportunity to cross, who are, we understand, almost without common necessities of life. Having been robbed of their all in most instances, by their merciless oppressors in Missouri, they have been compelled to hurry out of the state. . . . They are certainly objects of charity and their privations and sufferings must call forth the sympathies of the humane and liberal. If they have been thrown upon our shores destitute, through the oppressive people of Missouri, common humanity must oblige us to aid and relieve them all in our power.6
As noted, the citizens of Quincy responded to the appeal, as did the state’s governor and other Illinois dignitaries.
The Williamses Journey to Illinois in November 1838
Burr Riggs, Dr. Williams’s son-in-law, affirmed in an affidavit sworn to before C. M. Woods, clerk of the Circuit Court, Adams County, in Quincy, Illinois, dated March 17, 1840, that he was compelled to leave Caldwell County due to Governor Boggs’s extermination order. “Some time after this I moved to Caldwell county, in said state, and purchased about two hundred acres of land, and a village lot, on which I erected a dwelling house, staked, and commenced improving my land, and had, at the time I was driven away, about forty acres of corn, vegetables, etc. and in the year 1838, in the month of November, was compelled to leave my house and possessions in consequence of Governor Boggs’ exterminating order, without means sufficient to bear my expense out of the state.”7
Burr Riggs and his brother-in-law Ezra G. Williams were in Richmond, Missouri, sometime beginning on November 12, 1838, where they gave their depositions in the court of inquiry before Judge Austin A. King regarding the Mormon troubles.8 We have posited that Dr. Williams accompanied his son and son-in-law to Richmond. It is likely that his daughter Lovina Susan Williams Riggs (Burr’s wife) and his own wife, Rebecca, and their seventeen-year-old daughter, Lucy Eliza Williams, accompanied them to Richmond as well, since the whole family would be leaving for Quincy soon. Most probably the Riggs and Williams families departed Missouri for Quincy, Illinois, soon after the depositions were given in November 1838, which would agree with the time frame Burr Riggs gave for leaving the county in his 1840 affidavit. From Richmond they could have either traveled by land (in a slightly northeastern direction) or taken a steamboat east on the Missouri River, then gone north on the Mississippi River to Quincy.
A letter on file at the Church History Library supports the contention that the Williams and Riggs families traveled to Quincy together. It was written on May 7, 1918, from Ogden, Utah, by Ezra Henry Granger Williams (1855–1929) to his sister Lucy Ellen Williams Godfrey (1848–1942) in answer to some specific questions she had raised. He states that he consulted their mother, Henrietta Elizabeth Crombie Williams (1827–1922), for the information. Henrietta was the wife of their father, Ezra Granger Williams (1823–1905), who gave the deposition on November 12, 1838, before Judge Austin A. King, and who was the son of Frederick G. Williams (1787–1842).
May 7th 1918
Dear Sister Lucy,
Your favor of the 4–30th at hand and in [an]swering it I had to go to Mother for my information. I will answer your questions first. Aunt Lucy Eliza Williams. Went to Quincy with her father (F. G. Wms. and her brother-in-law, Burr Riggs) at the time of the Far West mobbing when the Saints were driven out of Far West[.] Grandfather was not at home [at the time of the mobbing], and when he came back to Far West, Burr Riggs, took him and family to Quincy.9
If this information is accurate, then Frederick G. Williams and his extended family departed Missouri in late November 1838 at the beginning of the exodus across the state to Quincy, Illinois.
Excommunication
Thousands followed throughout the winter of 1838–39. Dr. Williams, however, did not remain with his family in Quincy. He left them and the main body of the Church in late February 1839 to return to Far West to complete the assignment of administering the estate of Algernon Sidney Gilbert, which would not be fully resolved until May 25, 1839. We know that Frederick G. Williams was back in Far West by March 1, 1839, which meant that if he were traveling by land (which is almost certain because there would have still been ice in the river which would have proscribed travel by boat), Williams would have passed hundreds of destitute Saints traveling in the opposite direction. Dr. Williams’s seeming abandonment of the Saints in their hour of need, as perceived by the eastbound travelers, likely weighed in the deliberations that took place at a conference held on March 17, 1839, at Quincy, Illinois. After the conference, which was presided over by recently arrived Apostle Brigham Young from Far West,10 a trial was held at which Frederick G. Williams was excommunicated in absentia (seven months after his rebaptism in Missouri) as one of several members said to have “left us in the time of our perils, persecutions and dangers, and were acting against the interests of the Church.”
After the conference had transacted various other business, Elder George W. Harris made some remarks relative to those who had left us in the time of our perils, persecutions and dangers, and were acting against the interests of the church; he said that the church could no longer hold them in fellowship unless they repented of their sins, and turned unto God.
After the conference had fully expressed their feelings upon the subject it was unanimously voted that the following persons be excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, viz.: George M. Hinkle, Sampson Avard, John Corrill, Reed Peck, William W. Phelps, Frederick G. Williams, Thomas B. Marsh, Burr Riggs, and several others.11
At the time of the trial, Joseph and Hyrum were still in Liberty Jail; they would not escape from their captors until April 15, 1839, and would not reach Quincy until April 22.12 It is possible that had either Frederick or the Prophet been at the trial they could have explained that Dr. Williams had not left his family and the Church in their destitute conditions in Illinois, to go off on his own back to Missouri. They could have explained that the Church was an interested party in the Gilbert estate, since Algernon Sidney Gilbert had been called to run the Church’s storehouse in Missouri and had been a partner, together with Newel K. Whitney, in the Church’s storehouse in Kirtland. The estate’s sale would conceivably benefit not only the widow, Elizabeth Gilbert, but the Church as a whole, whose members were in desperate need of help. Therefore, in the disposition of the Gilbert estate, rather than acting against the interests of the Church, Frederick was, in fact, on the Church’s errand.
It could also be that George W. Harris, the brother who raised the matter of those “who had left us in the time of our perils, persecutions and dangers, and were acting against the interests of the Church,”13 was reacting to old information. Perhaps he was unaware that Frederick had been reconciled, rebaptized, and confirmed a member of the Church on Sunday, August 5, 1838.14 Or perhaps George W. Harris and those who discussed the case and unanimously voted to excommunicate were acting on information they had heard regarding Burr Riggs, and, by association, Frederick, his father-in-law, was implicated. In History of the Church, we read the following:
Friday, [November] 30, [1838].—About this time those of us who had been sentenced thereto, were conveyed to Liberty jail, put in close confinement, and all communication with our friends cut off.
During our trial William E. McLellin, accompanied by Burr Riggs and others, at times were busy in plundering and robbing the houses of Sidney Rigdon, George Morey, the widow Phebe Ann Patten, and others, under pretense or color of law, on an order from General Clark, as testified to by the members of the different families robbed.15
Additional information on the plundering is provided in a signed statement by witnesses, including Emma Smith, Joseph’s wife, regarding the plundering that took place in their home.
“William E. McLellin is guilty of entering the house of Joseph Smith, Jun., in the city of Far West, and plundering it. . . . Said McLellin was aided and assisted in the above transactions by Harvey Green, Burr Riggs and Harlow Redfield.”16 It is of particular interest to note that when, in 1854, the Deseret News was publishing the History of Joseph Smith in its pages and reprinted the above affidavit, Harlow Redfield wrote a letter to the editors objecting to the statement and said it was not accurate, and provided proof that those witnesses who had made and signed the statement were not acquainted with the facts. Furthermore, he explained that Joseph Smith and the Nauvoo High Council had, in a certificate, acquitted Redfield of wrongdoing. Redfield’s letter appeared in the Deseret News on March 16, 1854, along with the certificate that exonerated him.
To the Editor of The Deseret News:
Sir—In the History of Joseph Smith, published February 2, News No. 5, I find my name associated with others, as aiding McLellin and others in plundering the house of Joseph Smith while in prison. This is incorrect. The excitement of those times was sufficient reason for the rumor going abroad incorrectly.
I was at Hyrum Smith’s house, rather by accident than design, in company with McLellin and Burr Riggs, at a time when they took some books, etc., but was not with them when they went to Joseph’s. Soon after the rumor got afloat; I explained the matter before the Council in Missouri satisfactorily, as I supposed, but some time after, an enemy, in my absence, again agitated the subject before the Conference in Nauvoo, which led to an inquiry before the High Council in presence of Joseph and Hyrum, and the subject appearing in its true light, Joseph instructed the Council to give me a certificate of acquittal, that would close every man’s mouth.17
It is important to understand that even sincere people, whether members of the Church or not, can write and sign a sworn affidavit accusing people of wrongdoing when in fact they were mistaken, or as Harlow Redfield stated, they were caught up in “the excitement of those times.” It is not a question of the integrity of the person making the affidavit but, rather, how close to all the facts the witnesses were in order to make such statements in the first place. In the case of Harlow Redfield, the witnesses misrepresented him by not knowing the whole picture.
Joseph’s Letter from Liberty Jail Names the Dissenters
Closely linked to the excommunication action taken by the Quincy court is the letter the Prophet wrote from Liberty Jail in Missouri, dated December 16, 1838, a portion of which I have quoted. As we have seen, Joseph Smith identified several persons as dissenters, including George Hinckle, John Corrill, Reed Peck, W. W. Phelps, David Whitmer, Sampson Avard, John Whitmer, William E. Mclellin, Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, Thomas B. Marsh, and Orson Hyde. Again, it is significant that the Prophet did not include Frederick G. Williams among the dissenters. Toward the end of the letter, the Prophet again enumerated the names of the dissenters, together with his characterization of them.
We have waded through an ocean of tribulation, and mean abuse practiced upon us by the ill bred and ignorant such as Hinkle, Corrill, and Phelps, Avard, Reed Peck, Cleminson, and various others, who are so very ignorant that they cannot appear respectable in any decent and civilized society, and whose eyes are full of adultery and cannot cease from sin. Such characters as McLellin, John Whitmer, D. Whitmer, O. Cowdery, Martin Harris, who are too mean to mention and we had liked to have forgotten them. Marsh & Hyde whose hearts are full of corruption, whose cloak of hypocrisy was not sufficient to shield them or to hold them up in the hour of trouble, who after having escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of God and become again entangled and overcome the latter end is worse than the first.18
Was Frederick Guilty by Association?
LDS scholar Ronald K. Esplin explored the guilt-by-association possibility for Frederick G. William’s excommunication in his PhD dissertation, “The Emergence of Brigham Young and the Twelve to Mormon Leadership, 1830–1841.”
With the notable exception of Frederick G. Williams, the list [of those excommunicated] included mainly those whom Joseph Smith had written against in his December letter, including Thomas B. Marsh.
It is possible that Brigham Young mistakenly included Frederick G. Williams on this list of those to be voted out. While Williams was clearly a dissenter during the winter of 1837–1838, he rejoined the Church in the summer of 1838 and no evidence of later disloyalty has surfaced. Perhaps it was enough for Young that he had not been visibly present in Far West and acting in defense of the Saints “in the times of our perils.” In the important reorganization meeting on December 13 in Far West, Young stressed that he fellowshipped those who loved the Savior and the gospel “in act as well as word.” Perhaps in this Quincy conference Young was as prepared to cut off influential members who had failed to aid them as those who did them injury. With neither investigation nor testimony, the Quincy vote merely reflected the feelings of those present. Family tradition suggests that Williams was, in fact, absent on a mission given him by Joseph Smith when the difficulties erupted and that Young interpreted his absence as disloyalty. Whatever the reasons, when Williams was rebaptized a year later, he asked forgiveness for his conduct and expressed determination to do the will of God in the future. Young apparently bore no personal malice. When he learned of Williams’s return, he wrote to his wife that it gave him great comfort and that he longed to hear of more returning.19
If Frederick G. Williams was a notable addition to the list of those cut off on March 17, there were also two notable absences: Orson Hyde and William Smith.20
The Effect on Rebecca
As Dr. Williams was in Missouri tending to the Gilbert estate during the trial, he would not have received news of his excommunication from the Church for several days, perhaps weeks. Rebecca, his wife, however, would have learned of it immediately since she and her family lived in Quincy. We get a hint of the effect it had on her (and on Brigham Young, the presiding authority at her husband’s trial) from an exchange she had with Joseph’s successor in the leadership of the Church. Frederick died in 1842, two years before the Prophet’s death in 1844. It was common for the leading brethren to marry the widows (including plural wives) of deceased former leaders; Brigham Young married eight of Joseph Smith’s plural wives, including Eliza R. Snow, while Heber C. Kimball married nine.21 Family lore has Brigham Young asking Rebecca for her hand, but she refused him. Brigham is reported to have said, “Haven’t you forgiven me yet (for not standing up for Frederick; for allowing him to be excommunicated)?” And Rebecca was said to have answered, “Not in this life, Brigham,” and married his counselor, Heber C. Kimball, instead.22 The only published account of a similar exchange between Brigham and Rebecca, but again with no source given, is found in Nancy C. Williams’s 1951 biography of Frederick G. Williams.
The family had believed throughout the years, from historical accounts, that he [Frederick] and the Prophet Joseph had become alienated in their feelings toward each other, but I am very proud to state that I have found nothing but close companionship between the two and their families. Future chapters will prove Rebecca’s and Ezra’s devotion to duty in sustaining his successor, President Brigham Young. That it hurt Brother Brigham very deeply is attested by his frequent remarks to her: “Rebecca, when can I get rid of the thorn in my side?” and her answer: “In Eternity,” or “When you make amends.” But how could he make amends and Frederick dead?23
The exchange of words between the two friends was, perhaps, more in playful jest than in reproving earnestness, although I’m sure Rebecca truly wished someone had stood up for Frederick, and Brigham would have wished for a different outcome for his long-time companion and leader. That there were no real feelings of animosity between Rebecca or Ezra and Brother Brigham is shown by Ezra naming his seventh child Brigham Young Williams, a twin born on May 18, 1862 24 (died January 22, 1863). And just as there can be no question of Rebecca and Ezra’s loyalty to the new prophet (they took out their endowments in the Nauvoo Temple; they followed Brigham Young to Winter Quarters, Nebraska, and Kanesville, Iowa; and they sustained him as the new President of the Church), there can likewise be no question of Brigham Young’s trust and reliance on Ezra G. Williams (Brigham called Ezra to leave Kanesville and come to Salt Lake to practice medicine in 1849; he appointed him surgeon general in 1851, a doctor in the Nauvoo Legion in the 1857 Utah War; and sent him on several scouting and settlement missions over the years).
Dr. William’s Medical Service in Quincy, Illinois
Dr. Williams, as we’ve seen, had a busy schedule in connection with the Algernon Sidney Gilbert estate, which included an attempt to visit Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail. Just as we can use the documents Williams prepared in connection with the administration of the Gilbert estate to follow his whereabouts in Missouri, we can use Dr. Williams’s medical service to help track his activities in Illinois. On Saturday, August 24, 1839, there appeared a newspaper notice announcing Dr. Williams’s medical practice in Quincy, Illinois.
F.G. WILLIAMS—Indian and German ROOT DOCTOR
WHO distinguishes disease by an examination of the urine. Office on Hampshire street, opposite the American Tavern.
Dr. W. would notify the citizens of this county, and the public at large, that he has located himself in the town of Quincy, Ill., and is now prepared to attend to all who may favor him with their patronage, by practicing on the Indian and German System of distinguishing disease by an examination of the urine, and that he will always apply vegetable medicine which are perfectly free from all those deleterious effects which are always the result from the use of mineral medicines. Dr. W’s medicines are procured from the field and the forest, carefully selected and prepared in such a manner that he can recommend them to the afflicted to operate in harmony with all the laws of animal life, removing disease by restoring all the execrations and secretions of the system, dislodging all the worn out matter which by its being retained in the system, produces disease and death His medicines are peculiarly calculated for the cure of liver complaints, dyspepsia, fever, fever and ague, affection of the lungs and kidneys, weakness of the stomach, loss of appetite, indigestion, costiveness, nervous affections, coughs and colds, rheumatism, impurities of the blood, fever sores, ulcers, white swellings, cancers, general female debility, and the whole train of diseases that effect the human frame. He will warrant a perfect cure in all cases of cancers, white swelling, fever sores, ulcers and scrofula, in all their various forms, together with every old sore of any kind whatever. His charges will always be moderate, and the terms for medicine cash or good notes, with approved security.
N.B. In all inward complaints patients are requested to bring or send some of their urine in a clear vial, taken immediately after rising in the morning.
Dr. W. has settled his present location on the Mississippi, that people living at a distance may be benefited by his remedies, which may be sent any distance on the river by water conveyance. All those living at any considerable distance from Quincy, who wish to try the virtue of Dr. William’s vegetable remedies can send any number of cases by one person, and save a vast expense and time. aug 24—6m25
We can assume that the doctor’s office on Hampshire Street was also the Williamses’ dwelling place inasmuch as doctors usually maintained their office in the same house in which they lived. Still today, Hampshire Street is one block north of and runs parallel with Main Street. Quincy’s town square, Washington Park, where the Saints camped after they fled from Missouri in 1839,26 is between Main and Hampshire Streets on North Fourth Street.
We can assume that when the Algernon Sidney Gilbert estate case was finally concluded on May 25, 1839, Dr. Williams left Missouri for Quincy, Illinois, to see to his family’s needs and the medical needs of Church members and of citizens of the larger community. By his own published account, from August 20, 1839, through approximately May 9, 1840, he treated 1,557 cases in Quincy before moving his family and practice up the Mississippi River to Commerce (Nauvoo), Illinois, as reported in the newspaper on Saturday, May 9, 1840.
NOTICE
Is hereby given to the citizens of Quincy and the public generally, that I have removed from Quincy and located in Commerce, Hancock county, Ill., where I expect to continue the practice of medicine as usual upon the principles of reason and philosophy, by distinguishing diseases, by an examination of the Urine, and the administration of vegetable medicines.
The citizens of Adams County have my grateful acknowledgement for their patronage—the past season having attendded since the 20th August last 1557 cases.
There are three months unaccounted for between the end of May 1839, when Dr. Williams left Missouri, and August 20, when he began his medical practice in Quincy. It may be that he chose not to advertise his practice immediately (he waited until September 7), either because there were plenty of patients who came to him by word of mouth or perhaps because he felt he was not physically able to handle the numbers he expected might come once he advertised. Those 1,557 cases he did see between August 20, 1839, and June 26, 1840, work out to be five and a quarter patients every day, seven days a week, for ten months. In addition to examining the patients, the doctor in that day would often have the added time-consuming responsibility of preparing his prescriptions from scratch, often beginning with the planting of the herbs.
Another possible explanation for Dr. Williams’s whereabouts during those three months is that he was house hunting. There is a persistent ambiguity that is found in the short narrative histories on Frederick G. Williams kept by the second and third generations, written either in the blank pages of Dr. Williams’s medical ledger or on separate single sheets. For example, the account written by Frederick G. Williams’s granddaughter Lucy Ellen Williams Godfrey (1848–1942)—which was written twice with essentially the same wording (once in the ledger on page 276, and once on a separate sheet)—has her father and grandfather going from Far West, Missouri, to Burlington, Iowa, then to Quincy, Illinois, then Nauvoo, Illinois, back to Burlington, back to Quincy, then on to St. Louis, Missouri. In Lucy’s ledger account, someone has struck a line through the first Burlington and again through Nauvoo, making the new order of moves: Far West, Quincy, Burlington, Quincy, St. Louis.28 In other accounts, someone has written “mistake” by Burlington or changed the order of the cities. From the newspaper notices, we know that Dr. Williams moved from Quincy to Nauvoo around May 9, 1840, and that he died in Quincy on October 10, 1842, so if there was a stopover in Burlington (or somewhere in Iowa), it would have been sometime immediately after he left Missouri. Nancy C. Williams says Dr. Williams went to Burlington after Quincy but did not give a Source: “His business settled in Far West, Frederick went to Quincy, Illinois, and took his family back with him to Burlington [Iowa] where he had provided a home for them.”29 However, the contemporary documents, including Dr. Williams’s own published statements in the newspaper, have the Williams family living not in Burlington, Iowa, but in Quincy, Illinois.
Isaac Galland
The references to both Iowa and Illinois as places of refuge for members of the Church in the narrative is not unique to Frederick G. Williams’s story, for both sides of the Mississippi River were designated as gathering places for the beleaguered Saints. While yet in Liberty Jail, Joseph had received a proposal to purchase lands on both sides of the river from Isaac Galland of Commerce, Illinois, who owned land in both Commerce (which he had platted and where he resided) and across the river in Iowa. Galland—a writer, linguist (he reportedly knew French, Hebrew, and the language of the Sac and Fox Indian tribe), merchant, land speculator, and doctor—who later joined the Church,30 proved to be instrumental in acquiring property for the Saints in both Illinois and Iowa. In the Prophet’s March 20, 1839, letter from Liberty Jail to Bishop Edward Partridge and the Saints, he urged acceptance of Isaac Galland’s offer of lands. “It still seams to bear heavily in our minds that the church would do well to secure to themselves the contract of the Land which is proposed to them by Mr Isaac Galland and to cultivate the friendly feelings of that gentleman in as much as he shall prove himself to be a man of honor and a friend to humanity.”31 Joseph Smith’s acceptance of Galland’s land offer meant that communities would be built in at least two counties on opposite sides of the Mississippi River. “On the east side, at a wide bend in the river would rise a city of peace echoing the pattern of the New Jerusalem. Across the river, in the Half Breed Tract recently vacated by Native Americans, the Prophet would soon envision a New Zarahemla, a city of hope.”32
Church land agent Vinson Knight, who soon became bishop of Nauvoo’s Lower Ward (the 1st Ward), acquired Galland’s 113,000-acre parcel in the Half Breed Tract for the Church, together with the town of Nashville in Iowa, for more than $39,000.33 Situated between the Mississippi and the Des Moines rivers, the Half Breed Tract had been a reservation set aside by the federal government for the surviving members of the Sac and Fox tribe, which consisted primarily of half-breeds, descendants of French fur trapping fathers who had married into the tribe. Isaac Galland, whose parents were French and who supposedly had graduated from William and Mary College in theology and later studied medicine, befriended the Sac and Fox half-breeds, offering his medical services for free and acting as their interpreter.34 Virginia Wilcox Ivins, a relative and a contemporary of Galland’s who said she met the last thirty “real” Sac and Fox half-breeds in 1841,35 wrote about Isaac Galland’s interaction with them. “The Doctor gained the friendship of the Sac and Fox Indians, learned their language and became quite familiar with their customs and traditions. He also spoke French fluently, and this brought him into intimate relation with the French traders and the Halfbreeds, for whom he frequently acted as interpreter in their business dealings.”36
Property in Lee County, Iowa
There are several extant documents that support the contention that Dr. Williams may have considered living in Iowa at different times. One is the land record showing that he purchased 320 acres of land across the Mississippi River from Nauvoo in Lee County, Iowa, from Isaac Galland on February 10, 1841, which was filed on October 13, 1841.37
A second document is a receipt on a slender piece of printed paper with the handwritten titled on the back of “Land scrip $490,” signed by Isaac Galland (that portion that has been filled in by hand appears in bold and italics).
NAUVOO, August 11th 1840
Received of F. G. Williams lands lying in the State of Missouri amounting to $490 for which sum this receipt shall apply in the payment of lands in Lee County, Iowa Territory, or town lots in Nauvoo
Although both records establish that Dr. Williams had land dealings with Isaac Galland in Iowa, the dates of February 10, 1841, and August 11, 1840, do not correspond to the June 1839 time period under consideration for a visit to Burlington, Iowa.
There is a third document involving Dr. Williams and Dr. Galland, a receipt or promissory note, for $8.75 from Isaac Galland to Frederick G. Williams, whose handwritten title on the back is “Isaac Galland Account $8.25” (the .25 was a mistake as it should have read .75). On the front is written “Mr. Isaac Galland to F. G. Williams,” under which are listed the dates and amounts owed for lodging, meals, and payment to a “raftsman for boat.”
Unfortunately, no year is included with the days and months. However, it is most likely that it refers to 1839–40, rather than 1840–41 or 1841–42 (the only possible years to which the dates could refer), which we will consider presently.
A fourth record of Dr. Williams’s association with Isaac Galland appears in Williams’s medical ledger where, on page 7, there is recorded a total debt of $8.75 (for two P-entries: $5.25 and $3.50) dated July 30, 1840, but with the 1840 crossed out with backward slashes. The date of July 30 and the amount of $8.75 would seem to match the above “Isaac Galland Account” or promissory note.40
A fifth record involving Isaac Galland and Dr. Williams is a handwritten note by Isaac Galland to George W. Robinson dated February 6, 1841, from Nauvoo. In it Galland requests that $15 be paid to Dr. F. G. Williams from the money Robinson had made selling [medical?] instruments to Dr. [John F.?] Boynton. Apparently Isaac Galland owed Dr. Frederick G. Williams, and George W. Robinson owed Isaac Galland, or was acting on Galland’s behalf in the sale. Therefore, when some money came into Robinson’s hand (the sale of sundry instruments to Dr. Boynton), Galland asked Robinson to transfer the $15 he had received on the exchange to Dr. F. G. Williams.
Nauvoo Feb 6th 1841
Geo W. Robinson Esqr
Dr Sir
You will oblige me very much if it /is/ convenient for you to pay Dr. F. G. Williams fifteen dollars, the amt in your hands from the sale of a case of sundry instruments sold to Dr. Boynton by you,
The sixth and final document involving Isaac Galland, which was once in the Frederick G. Williams file at the Church History Library (numbered as document #6 by Nancy C. Williams and placed in the Historian’s Office in 1934 along with at least seventeen other documents), does not have Frederick G. Williams’s name on it. It is a printed certificate of shares in the Half-Breed Land Company, Iowa Territory, made out to Vinson Knight, dated May 1839 and signed by Isaac Galland.42 That Williams had this certificate of five shares of stock (which passed to his widow, Rebecca, then to his son Ezra G. Williams, then his grandson Frederick G. Williams II, and then to the latter’s widow, Nancy C. Williams, who turned all the documents over to the Church Historians Office in 1934) suggests that Vinson Knight had turned the certificate over to Dr. Williams, perhaps in lieu of a debt he owed him. Since it is dated May 1839, it is quite possible that Dr. Williams received the certificate from Vinson Knight soon after his return from Missouri. It should be remembered that Williams and Knight had been associates in various Church-related financial ventures, not the least of which was the publishing firm of F. G. Williams and Co. On Friday, December 4, 1835, Joseph Smith had recorded in his journal: “To day, in company with Vinson Knights, we drew, three hundred and fifty Dollars, out of Painsvill[e] Bank, on three months credit, for which we gave, the names of F G. Williams & Co N. K. Whitney John Johnson, & Vinson Knights.”43
Early Home in Quincy
There are two intriguing notations in Dr. Frederick G. Williams’s ledger under the name of patient Alvin C. Graves (b. 1791), dated December 8 and again December 27 but with no mention of a year. The first notation, December 8, accompanies the $11.38 amount Graves owed Dr. Williams, written in a small hand that appears to be Rebecca’s. It reads, “Moved into your shop.” The second notation, dated December 27, accompanies the paid or credited amount of $11.38 (a combination of cash, promissory note, and boarding fees). That notation, which is also in Rebecca’s hand, reads, “Occupied your house 2 months $4.00.” It would appear that the Williamses boarded for two months with the Alvin C. Graves family or rented their house until they could get situated. The question is where and in what year did this occur? Was it in Missouri? Iowa? Quincy? Nauvoo? It is probably safe to rule out Missouri, for although Brother Graves was living in Far West in 1838,44 the Williamses would most certainly have boarded with their daughter Lovina Williams Riggs, who had arrived in 1836, had they needed a place to stay in Missouri before they got their own home.
Since it seems clear that the Williams and Riggs families traveled together from Far West directly to Quincy and arrived there at the beginning of December 1838, we can rule out Iowa as the site of the two-month board. Nauvoo must also be ruled out, because, according to his own published statement in the newspaper, Dr. Williams moved there in May and not December. That leaves Quincy as the most likely place for the Williamses to board at the Graves house, which means that the dates of December 8 and 27 would correspond to the year 1838. If the Williams-Riggs party traveled the overland route from Missouri, the two-hundred-mile trek could have taken them up to two weeks.45 If they went by steamboat and made all their connections, they could have made it in a matter of days, which corresponds to the December 8 date.
With these notations and dates to guide us, I posit that when the Williams and Riggs families left Missouri at the end of November 1838, they traveled by boat to Quincy. In Quincy, the Williamses (and perhaps the Riggses) boarded at the Graves house for two months over the winter of 1838–39. Two months of boarding would bring us to the end of February, by which date Frederick would have left by land46 for Missouri to be present at Far West on March 1, 1839. His wife, Rebecca, and their children Lucy and Ezra would have moved out of the Graves home and likely moved in with Lovina and Burr Riggs, near the time Frederick left for Missouri. Their home, however, must have been a rental, since the earliest purchase date of any Quincy property for Frederick G. Williams is August 17, 1839.
Transfer of Ownership of Lot 7 in Block 30 of Quincy, Adams County, Illinois47
Various properties were rented and purchased in Quincy by the Riggses, Williamses, and Pinkhams. But one lot in particular was apparently favored above the others. Lot 7 in block 30 was purchased, transferred-in-family, sold, then purchased again after Frederick’s death.
#967540 Record of Deeds Adams Co., Ill. vol. O, p. 166
Grantor: Samuel W. Rogers & wife, Mary Jane, of Adams County, Illinois
Grantee: Burr Riggs of Adams County, Illinois
Date: August 17, 1839
Amount: $300
Place: Quincy, Adams County, Illinois
Description: Lot No. 7 in Block No. 30 in original Quincy, except for 10 feet off the West side, which has been deeded for an alley.
#967541 Adams County, Illinois Record of Deeds vol. Q, 1840–1841, pp. 156–57
Grantor: Burr Riggs & wife, Lovina S., of Hancock County, Illinois
Grantee: Frederick G. Williams of Hancock County, Illinois
Date: July 10, 1840
Amount: $500
Place: Quincy, Adams County, Illinois
Description: Lot No. 7 in Block No. 30 in original Quincy, except for 10 feet off the West side, which has been deeded for an alley. Note: Daniel H. Wells, J.P.
#967543 Record of Deeds Adams Co., Ill. vol. T, pp. 279–80
Grantor: Frederick G. Williams & wife, Rebecca Williams, of Adams County, Illinois
Grantee: John C. Wood of Adams County, Illinois
Date: November 6, 1841
Amount: $500
Place: Quincy, Adams County, Illinois
Description: Lot No. 7 in Block No. 30 in original Quincy, except for 10 feet off the West side, which has been deeded for an alley.
#967545 Record of Deeds Adams Co., Ill. vol. X, pp. 415–16
Grantor: John C. Wood of Adams County, Illinois
Grantee: Ezra G. Williams of Adams County, Illinois
Date: May 30, 1845
Amount: $500
Place: Quincy, Adams County, Illinois
Description: Lot No. 7 in Block No. 30 in original Quincy, except for 10 feet off the West side, which has been deeded for an alley.
#967545 Record of Deeds Adams Co., Ill. vol. Y, 1845–1846, p. 151
Grantor: Ezra G. Williams of Adams County, Illinois
Grantee: John Schell, Sen. of Adams County, Illinois
Date: November 24, 1845
Amount: $100
Place: Quincy, Adams County, Illinois
Description: Lot No. 7 in Block No. 30 in Quincy (original, now city), except for 10 feet off the West side, which has been deeded for an alley. Note: Ezra G. Williams lost $400 on the sale.
Summary
It may well be that after finishing with the Gilbert estate, Frederick, upon his return alone from Missouri at the end of May or beginning of June 1839, visited in Iowa, possibly Burlington, a few miles north of Commerce on the Mississippi River, to see about establishing a home and medical practice there. It may be it was at that time he made contact with Isaac Galland about trading his property in Missouri for property in the Half-Breed Tract in Iowa. It is also likely that it was during this time that Williams obtained Vinson Knight’s stock certificate, possibly in lieu of debt. Certainly all the above Isaac Galland–related documents suggest that Dr. Williams had seriously considered living in Iowa in 1839, 1840, and again in 1841 (the dates of the documents), although purchasing property and actually living on it are obviously not the same thing. The thirty-eight acres of public lands Frederick G. Williams purchased in Far West, Caldwell County, Missouri, may have been used as collateral.48 What is certain, according to the medical announcement printed in the Quincy Whig, is that Frederick chose to establish himself in Quincy by August 20, 1839, the city of refuge to which the bulk of the Saints had fled.
Dr. Williams’s Quincy Patients for 1839
Dr. Williams’s medical ledger contains the names of only twenty-nine patients with dates in 1839 and 1840; hence, we can corroborate only a fraction of the 1,557 patients he said he treated during his ten-month sojourn in Quincy before moving to Nauvoo. Those patients noted in the ledger with dates are as follows (in chronological order):
Galland, Isaac
30 July [1839]
Note: year 1840 is crossed out
Bachelor’s Delight
[Paid 1 Aug 1839]
Cuddy, Michael
20 Aug 1839
Green, John
24 Aug 1839
Paid same day “one barrel of flour 8.00”
Bosley, Edmond
26 Aug 1839
Paid 27 Oct 1839
Babbit, Almon
26 Aug 1839
Stanley, Harvey
28 Aug 1839
Lani, S. F.
29 Aug 1839
Lawrence, S. K.
29 Aug 1839
Paid 14 Oct 1839
Ewman, Miss
31 Aug 1839
Iler, Jacob
9 Sept 1839
Clark, Ebenezer
28 Sept 1839
Paid 1 Oct 1839
Cahoon, Reynolds
7 Oct 1839
Smith, Joseph, Jr.
18 Oct 1839
Smith, Hyrum
18 Oct 1839
“received at Far West 14.31”
Kingsbury, Joseph
17 Nov 1839
Shumaker, Jacob
9 Dec 1839
Mikesell
10 Dec 1839
Kingsbury, Ira
16 Dec 1839
Aldridge, William
22 Dec 1839
Pea, John
23 Dec 1839
Dibble, Philo
23 Dec 1839
Paid 11 Oct 1839
(In alphabetical order)
Aldridge, William
22 Dec 1839
Babbit, Almon
26 Aug 1839
Bachelor’s Delight
[Paid 1 Aug 1839]
Bosley, Edmond
26 Aug 1839
Paid 27 Oct 1839
Cahoon, Reynolds
7 Oct 1839
Clark, Ebenezer
28 Sept 1839
Paid 1 Oct 1839
Cuddy, Michael
20 Aug 1839
Dibble, Philo
23 Dec 1839
Paid 11 Oct 1839
Ewman, Miss
31 Aug 1839
Galland, Isaac
30 July 1839
Note: year 1840 is crossed out
Green, John
24 Aug 1839
Paid same day “one barrel of flour 8.00”
Iler, Jacob
9 Sept 1839
Kingsbury, Ira
16 Dec 1839
Kingsbury, Joseph
17 Nov 1839
Lani, S. F.
29 Aug 1839
Lawrence, S. K.
29 Aug 1839
Paid 14 Oct 1839
Mikesell
10 Dec 1839
Pea, John
23 Dec 1839
Shumaker, Jacob
9 Dec 1839
Smith, Hyrum
18 Oct 1839
“received at Far West 14.31”
Smith, Joseph, Jr.
18 Oct 1839
Stanley, Harvey
28 Aug 1839
Dr. Williams’s patients in Quincy through May 9, 1840
(In chronological order)
Keller, John
27 Jan 1840
Bowles, Augustus
9 Feb 1840
Paid 9 Sept 1840
Flora, Capt
2 Mar 1840
Baun, John
20 Mar 1840
[nonmember]
Daley, John
19 Apr 1840
Paid same day “by wheat”
Billings, Titus
8 May 1840
Dimmick, Miss
1840
Quincy, Illinois
(In alphabetical order)
Baun, John
20 March 1840
[nonmember]
Billings, Titus
8 May 1840
Bowles, Augustus
9 Feb 1840
Paid 9 Sept 1840
Daley, John
19 Apr 1840
Paid same day “by wheat”
Dimmick, Miss
1840
Quincy, Illinois
Flora, Capt
2 Mar 1840
Keller, John
27 Jan 1840
Dr. Williams treated Joseph Smith or members of his family on October 18, 1839, while he still had his home in Quincy, which meant that the doctor traveled to Nauvoo or Joseph came to Quincy to be treated. It would be a relatively easy trip by boat up and back on the Mississippi River. In fact Dr. Williams had made it a point to settle in Quincy because of the easy access to cities along the river, which he noted in his Quincy Whig medical announcement.
Dr. W. has settled his present location on the Mississippi, that people living at a distance may be benefited by his remedies, which may be sent any distance on the river by water conveyance. All those living at any considerable distance from Quincy, who wish to try the virtue of Dr. William’s vegetable remedies can send any number of cases by one person, and save a vast expense and time. aug 24—6m49
Affidavit of Missouri Losses
On March 17, 1840, seven months after arriving in Quincy, Dr. Williams swore out an affidavit regarding the persecution and losses he suffered in Missouri before C. M. Wood, the county clerk of Adams County, Illinois.50 Many hundreds of these affidavits were collected by the leaders of the Church to be used in their appeal for redress. Frederick G. Williams’s original handwritten statement was once found in the Williams file at the Church Historians Office but has subsequently been moved. At one end on the back side of the paper, Williams wrote: “FG Williams affidavit.” At the other end on the back side and in a different hand is written “Williams, F. G. March 17, 1840 affidavit of F. G. Williams. 1838 driven from Far West.” Dr. Williams wrote the following in his own hand in the affidavit:
I hereby certify that I was a resident of Caldwell County in the State of Missouri in the year of our Lord 1838, and owned Land to a considerable amount building lots &c in the village of Far West, and in consequence of Mobocracy together with Governor Boggs exterminating order was compelled to Leave the State under great Sacrifice of real and personal property which has reduced and Left myself and family in a state of poverty with a delicate state of health in an advanced Stage of life
Futhermore this deponent saith not Given under my hand at Quincy Illinois March 17th AD 1840 (signed) F. G. Williams
Sworn to before me this 17th day of March 1840 C M Woods Clerk Adams Co Illi[nois]
Home Life
The Williams household in Quincy, Illinois, likely functioned as it had in Kirtland and in Far West, with Rebecca caring for the children (including their school lessons and seeing that they all got to church), taking charge of the home and all the domestic duties: keeping a garden, preparing meals, keeping the lamps in good repair, sewing, mending and washing clothes, and cleaning. She would have also continued to assist her husband with his medical practice by keeping his office clean and uncluttered, by conversing with the waiting patients and putting them at ease, by helping with the preparation of the herbal medicines, and by keeping the account ledger. There would have been church services and church duties to perform,51 dinners to host, and socials to attend. She would also have had to care for and worry about her young grandchildren from time to time (Lovina and Burr’s children), and perhaps she would have also taken in boarders, as the Williams had often done. Hence Rebecca was as busy as ever. What was different now was that she no longer had the care of their invalid eldest son Joseph (born 1819), who had died in Missouri in 1838; also, the two children still living at home, Lucy Eliza (born 1821) and Ezra Granger (born 1823), were now older teenagers who could help much more with the chores.
Dr. Williams would have been busy counseling with and treating patients (1,557 in ten months) who came to see him at the office on Hampshire Street or those he would have called on at their homes with his horse and buggy, often with his son Ezra Granger assisting with the compounding of the medicines.52 What was different now was that Frederick no longer had the heavy weight he had carried as a counselor in the First Presidency. He no longer had the added responsibility of writing for Joseph as his scribe, nor did he have to carry the weight of holding court, rendering judgment, and performing his other duties as a justice of the peace, as he had in Kirtland when the children were younger. He was also now free of the burdens of preparing for and attending court while administering the estate of Algernon Sidney Gilbert, which had taken up so much of his time in Missouri.
Although he may have felt relief at no longer having to shoulder those heavy Church-related responsibilities, Frederick, I’m sure, missed the special sustaining influence of the Holy Spirit as he and his brethren in the Presidency had struggled to meet the needs of the growing Church. Most of all, however, I think Frederick missed the close association he had had with the Prophet, his friend and confidant. Williams would have felt not only a great void in his life but a sick feeling that he was no longer worthy of Joseph’s trust. He had given his all to the Church, his time and his means, and now he had had his membership withdrawn from him. If, beyond that, he had also lost his friendship with the Prophet, that would have been too much. Williams must have felt his life was a failure and could have become deeply depressed. Who was he now? How was his life defined? Gratefully, he had his practice to fall back on, and he threw himself into his work; for although Frederick and Rebecca had lost all their property in Far West, “which has reduced and left myself and family in a state of poverty, with a delicate state of health, in an advanced stage of life,” as he stated in his March 17, 1840, affidavit,53 as a doctor, Frederick would have always had a way to provide for his family; that is, if he had the health and strength to practice, and if his patients were in a position to pay for his services, which was not always the case.
Williams Brought Back into Church Fellowship
It is interesting to point out that the request for the affidavit came while Frederick G. Williams had not yet been reinstated in the Church. That came three weeks later at a conference held at Nauvoo on April 8, 1840, where Williams asked for forgiveness and was received back into Church fellowship. Curiously, there is no mention of being rebaptized.
Frederick G. Williams presented himself on the stand, and humbly asked forgiveness for his conduct, [while in Missouri], and expressed his determination to do the will of God in the future. His case was presented to the Conference by President Hyrum Smith, when it was unanimously
Resolved,
That Frederick G. Williams be forgiven, and be received into the fellowship of the Church.54
Perhaps, as noted earlier, Williams’s March 1839 excommunication was based on outdated information (after all, he had already been rebaptized) or was motivated by a perceived association with those who had apostatized, such as Burr Riggs, his son-in law; Thomas B. Marsh; Sampson Avard; Reed Peck; and others, none of whom ever returned to the Church, except Marsh, much later in life, in 1857.
Irony: Those Who Judged Are Later Judged Themselves
Frederick G. Williams, as we have seen, was accused of some degree of wrongdoing at four different Church forums in three states: Kirtland, Ohio (May 1837), where no decision was rendered; Far West, Missouri (November 1837), where, in absentia, he was dropped from the First Presidency; Far West, Missouri (July 1838), where the Lord revealed that Frederick had transgressed, which led to his rebaptism in August 1838; and Quincy, Illinois (March 1839), where Frederick was excommunicated in absentia.
In the first case, the Kirtland High Council met at the temple on May 29, 1837, where a complaint was lodged against Presidents Frederick G. Williams and David Whitmer, Apostles Parley P. Pratt and Lyman Johnson, and Elder Warren Parrish, with President Sidney Rigdon presiding. The accusation read: “We, the undersigned, feeling ourselves aggrieved with the conduct of [the above], believing that their course for some time past has been injurious to the Church of God, in which they are high officers, we therefore desire that the High Council should be assembled, and we should have an investigation of their behavior, believing it to be unworthy of their high calling.”55 Although Presidents Williams and Whitmer were “discharged” by the high council without any decision or action, still President Rigdon, after some discussion with President Williams, insisted and “gave his decision that President Williams should be tried before the present Council”; he was overruled, however, by the council.56
Six months later, at a conference held at Far West on November 7, 1837, Apostle Thomas B. Marsh and Elder Lyman Wight objected to the nomination of Frederick G. Williams as Second Counselor in the First Presidency. The complaint was expressed “in a few remarks referring to a certain letter written to this place by the said Frederick G. Williams.” Bishop Edward Partridge, however, said “he seconded President Williams’s nomination and should vote for him; and as to said letter, he had heard it and saw nothing so criminal in it.” President Sidney Rigdon, however, nominated Hyrum Smith to take President Williams’s place, which was voted on affirmatively by the conference.57
There are no records of Frederick G. Williams’s disfellowshipment or excommunication from the Church in 1838, only a revelation to Joseph Smith dated July 8, 1838, in which the Lord stated that Williams and W. W. Phelps had lost their previous standing because of transgression, and a further reference to Williams being confirmed a member of the Church on August 5, 1838.58
At the trial held after the conference on March 17, 1839, at Quincy, Illinois, Thomas B. Marsh, who a little more than a year before had objected to President Williams as Second Counselor, was himself excommunicated, along with Frederick G. Williams and several others. Sidney Rigdon, the most active voice against Frederick G. Williams in the first two forums, was likewise disfellowshiped on August 13, 1843,59 and excommunicated on September 8, 1844.60 At a conference held in Nauvoo on October 6, 1843, Joseph expressed “his dissatisfaction with Elder Sidney Rigdon as a Counselor, not having received any material benefit from his labors or counsels since their escape from Missouri.”61At the end of the conference, President Rigdon was nevertheless sustained again as the Prophet’s counselor. “President Joseph Smith arose and said, ‘I have thrown him off my shoulders, and you have again put him on me. You may carry him, but I will not.’”62
Wilford Woodruff, after reading the proceedings of the trial in the Times and Seasons, published his own testimony in the Millennial Star (Liverpool) addressed “to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” corroborating Joseph Smith’s assessment of Sidney Rigdon and sustaining Brigham Young’s decision to excommunicate him. He asked, where has Sidney been over the last five years? Woodruff wrote:
I will commence by asking where has Elder Rigdon been since . . . [the days of] . . . Far West. . . . Has he stood by the side of the Prophet and Patriarch as a true friend, to assist in carrying them through their trials, tribulations, and persecutions? Has he walked up into his place as a man of God, and stood beside the Prophet as his counselor? Has he in any way been a pillar or support to the Church from that day until this? Has he sustained the cause, and used an influence to spread the work abroad since the persecution in Far West? Has he in any way sustained the priesthood with dignity and honor for the last five years of his life. Or has the Prophet, in any point of view, leaned upon him as a counselor, a staff, or support, for the last five years? Or has the Prophet Joseph found Elder Rigdon in his councils, when he organized the Quorum of the Twelve a few months before his death to prepare them for the endowment? And when they received their endowment, and actually received the keys of the Kingdom of God, and oracles of God—key to revelation—and the pattern of heavenly things; and when he declared to the Twelve, “Upon your shoulders the Kingdom rests, and you must round up your shoulders and bear it, for I have had to do it until now” I say, this has been the case with Elder Rigdon in anywise? No, no, verily no; but the reverse, until he had become like a millstone upon the back of Joseph Smith, the prophet, seer, and revelator. And I hereby bear my testimony that I heard Joseph Smith declare that Elder Rigdon had become like a millstone upon his back—a dead weight—and he had carried him long enough, and must throw him off; and in my hearing requested one of the Quorum of the Twelve to bring him up before the Church, that he might be dealt with according to the law of the Church, that he might be cut off as a dead branch, and no longer encumber the tree, as there was sufficient testimony against him. But through the pleadings of Brother Hyrum Smith and others he was spared.63
The Prophet’s Two Counselors: Comparing Joseph’s Character Sketches
Although some have cast Williams in the role of apostate, there is no record that he ever fought against Joseph Smith or acted against the interests of the Church and its leaders, as happened with Oliver Cowdery,64 David Whitmer,65 Thomas B. Marsh,66 W. W. Phelps,67 and many others. I believe it is more accurate to portray Frederick G. Williams as a peacemaker among the offended parties, one who tried to be a friend to those on all sides, regardless of their church standing. This would be in harmony with his professional ethics as a doctor who treated all comers and with his personal character traits of love and brotherly kindness, as well as his friendship and loyalty to the Prophet, as Joseph Smith himself had declared.68 It is hard not to compare the character sketches made by Joseph Smith of his two counselors, Sidney Rigdon and Frederick G. Williams, on November 19, 1833, toward the end of the first year of their presidency. It is remarkable how prophetic Joseph was with both of them in terms of defining their personalities and looking ahead to their posterities.
Of Sidney Rigdon, the Prophet noted such shortcoming as his inability to love his benefactors, his selfishness and pride, and his independence of mind. But he also noted that Sidney was a great and good man, a man who had the power of words to draw hearers to him quickly, a man whom Joseph loved and the Lord would uphold, if he remained faithful.
Brother Sidney is a man whom I love, but he is not capable of that pure and steadfast love for those who are his benefactors that should characterize a President of the Church of Christ. This, with some other little things, such as selfishness and independence of mind, which too often manifested destroy the confidence of those who would lay down their lives for him—these are his faults. But notwithstanding these things, he is a very great and good man; a man of great power of words, and can gain the friendship of his hearers very quickly. He is a man whom God will uphold, if he will continue faithful to his calling. O God, grant that he may, for the Lord’s sake. Amen.
And again, blessed be Brother Sidney: notwithstanding he shall be high and lifted up, yet he shall bow down under the yoke like unto an ass that croucheth beneath his burthen, that learneth his master’s will by the stroke of the rod; thus saith the Lord: yet, the Lord will have mercy on him, and he shall bring forth much fruit, even as the vine of the choice grape, when her clusters are ripe, before the time of the gleaning of the vintage; and the Lord shall make his heart merry as with sweet wine, because of Him who putteth forth His hand, and lifteth him up out of deep mire, and pointeth him out the way, and guideth his feet when he stumbles, and humbleth him in his pride. Blessed are his generations: nevertheless one shall hunt after them as a man hunteth after an ass that has strayed in the wilderness, and straightway findeth him and bringeth him into the fold. Thus shall the Lord watch over his generation, that they may be saved. Even so. Amen.69
Of Frederick G. Williams, the Prophet recorded only one shortcoming: the lack of confidence in himself. Among his qualities and virtues, Joseph noted that Frederick was full of love and brotherly kindness and would never want for friends.
Brother Frederick G. Williams is one of those men in whom I place the greatest confidence and trust, for I have found him ever full of love and brotherly kindness. He is not a man of many words, but is ever winning, because of his constant mind. He shall ever have place in my heart, and is ever entitled to my confidence. He is perfectly honest and upright, and seeks with all his heart to magnify his Presidency in the Church of Christ, but fails in many instances, in consequence of a want of confidence in himself. God grant that he may overcome all evil. Blessed be Brother Frederick, for he shall never want a friend, and his generation after him shall flourish. The Lord hath appointed him an inheritance upon the land of Zion: yea, and his head shall blossom, and he shall be as an olive branch that is bowed down with fruit. Even so. Amen.70
The contrast between Sidney’s being “high and lifted up” and Frederick’s “want of confidence in himself” could not be more diametrically opposed. Yet both men were chosen by God to be counselors to the Prophet. Since Frederick was eighteen years older than Joseph Smith, he was more of a father figure to him and was never in competition with the Prophet, as was often the case with competitive leaders closer to Joseph’s age. In remarks by Joseph Smith before the Relief Society in Nauvoo, given on April 28, 1842, Eliza R. Snow recorded the following concerning the Prophet’s long-standing problem with “aspiring men.”
President Smith continued by speaking of the difficulties he had to surmount ever since the commencement of the work, in consequence of aspiring men. “Great big Elders,” as he called them, who had caused him much trouble; to whom he had taught the things of the kingdom in private councils, they would then go forth into the world and proclaim the things he had taught them, as their own revelations; said the same aspiring disposition will be in this Society, and must be guarded against; that every person should stand, and act in the place appointed, and thus sanctify the Society and get it pure. He said he had been trampled under foot by aspiring Elders, for all were infected with that spirit.71
It is true that Frederick G. Williams was excommunicated (in absentia while Joseph was in Liberty Jail). But being excommunicated from the Church and being an apostate who fights against the Church are not necessarily the same thing. In any event, Frederick G. Williams swallowed his pride, asked for forgiveness, and sought to be reunited with the Church at the first conference held in Nauvoo, just a year after he had been excommunicated.
Notes
1. William G. Hartley, “Missouri’s 1838 Extermination Order and the Mormons’ Forced Removal to Illinois,” in A City of Refuge: Quincy, Illinois, ed. Susan Easton Black and Richard E. Bennett (Salt Lake City: Millennial Press, 2000), 8.
2. Letter reproduced in Carol Y. Williams, “Conditions Prior to Missouri Exodus: A Letter by Eliza R. Snow,” The Carpenter: Reflections of Mormon Life 1, no. 3 (1970): 47.
3. Richard E. Bennett states that the 1839 population of Quincy was 1,600 in “‘Quincy, the Home of Our Adoption’: A Study of the Mormons in Quincy, Illinois, 1838–1840,” in Black and Bennett, City of Refuge, 86.
5. Israel Barlow to his wife, Elizabeth, February 24, 1839, quoted in Black and Bennett, City of Refuge, 91.
6.Quincy (Illinois) Whig, March 2, 1839, quoted in Black and Bennett, City of Refuge, 83.
7. Joseph Smith Jr., History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ed. B. H. Roberts, 2d ed., rev., 7 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1971), 4:67 (hereafter cited as History of the Church). The affidavit was sworn to before C. M. Woods, clerk of the Circuit Court, Adams County, Illinois, one of several requested and collected by the leadership of the Church with a view to present before the federal authorities in Washington, D.C. Frederick G. Williams made his affidavit before the same officer on the same day. History of the Church, 4:69.
8. Document Containing the Correspondence, Orders, Document Containing the Correspondence, Orders, &c in Relation to the Disturbances with the Mormons; and the Evidence, Given before the Hon. Austin A. King, Judge of the Fifth Judicial Circuit of the State of Missouri, at the Court-House in Richmond, in a Criminal Court of Inquiry, Begun November 12, 1838, on the Trial of Joseph Smith, Jr., and Others, for High Treason and Other Crimes against the Stateamp;c in Relation to the Disturbances with the Mormons; and the Evidence, Given before the Hon. Austin A. King, Judge of the Fifth Judicial Circuit of the State of Missouri, at the Court-House in Richmond, in a Criminal Court of Inquiry, Begun November 12, 1838, on the Trial of Joseph Smith, Jr., and Others, for High Treason and Other Crimes against the State, published by Order of the General Assembly (Fayette, Mo.: Boon’s Lick Democrat, 1842), 134. A portion of the proceedings were published February 15, 1841, as Senate Document 189.
9. The letter is typed on Ezra H. G. Williams Music Co. letterhead and signed “your brother Ezra H. G. Williams.”
10.“Thursday, February 14 [1839].—The persecution was so bitter against Elder Brigham Young (on whom devolved the presidency of the Twelve by age, Thomas B. Marsh having apostatized) and his life was so diligently sought for, that he was compelled to flee; and he left Far West on this day for Illinois.” History of the Church, 3:261.
15.History of the Church, 3:215. Although in History of the Church this passage is in the voice of Joseph Smith, no such entry is found in either his journals or letters. It is likely a composite made by the editors from other accounts, some of which are included below.
18. Dean C. Jessee, comp. and ed., The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, rev. ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2002), 421.
19. For Williams’s comments on returning, see Times and Seasons 1 (April 1840): 95. For Young’s response, Brigham Young to Mary Ann Young, June 11, 1840, Philip T. Blair Family Papers, Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City.
20. Ronald K. Esplin, “The Emergence of Brigham Young and the Twelve to Mormon Leadership, 1830–1841” (diss., Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, 1981), 375–76.
21. Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), 4–9.
22. Five minutes after being sealed by Brigham Young for eternity to her deceased husband, Frederick G. Williams, in the Nauvoo Temple on February 7, 1846, Rebecca was married for time by Brigham Young to Heber C. Kimball. “Nauvoo Sealing & Adoptions 1846–1857,” microfilm #183374, Special Collections, Family History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City. See also Orson F. Whitney, Life of Heber C. Kimball: An Apostle (Salt Lake City: Kimball Family, 1888), 424.
23. Nancy Clement Williams, After 100 Years (Independence, Mo.: Zion’s Printing and Publishing, 1951), 128. On December 5, 1968, Lucy Louck, my aunt and the daughter of Nancy C. Williams, sent me a number of documents that had belonged to her mother, together with a lengthy letter explaining the contents of each. Regarding the source of the exchanges between Rebecca Williams and Brigham Young, Lucy wrote: “The actual words that Grandmother Rebecca used to say to old-family-friend-from-the-first, Brigham Young, whenever he was in the area of Smithfield (her final home) [he] would always stop in to visit and talk over the old days of the church and friends with her, were as follows: (Many of the older family members [now mostly gone]—had heard these conversations with their own ears, more than once—and in different families they passed this on with their own lips—all recalling it the same—to their children, such as Anna [Rebecca Williams]). . . . Mother mentioned those events in [the] book, but played it all down.”
24. A case could be made that Ezra waited until after his mother’s death to name a son Brigham Young; Rebecca Swain Williams died on September 25, 1861.
25.Quincy (Illinois) Whig, August 24, 1839, 3. The 401 words in 54 lines of advertising appeared 25 times in succession in the newspaper, from August 24, 1839, to February 8, 1840, with no variations except that it moved from the third page to the fourth and changed location on the page.
26. Donald Q. Cannon and Keith W. Perkins, Sacred Places: A Comprehensive Guide to Early LDS Historical Sites, vol. 3, Ohio and Illinois, ed. LaMar C. Berrett (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2001), 227.
27.Quincy Whig, May 9, 1840, 3. The 94 words in the 17 lines of the notice appeared 8 times from May 9, 1840, to June 27, 1840, always on the third page with no variations except that it changed location on the page.
28. Dr. Frederick G. Williams’s medical ledger is found in the Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City. The single-sheet account by Lucy Ellen Williams Godfrey titled “Sketch of the Life of Dr. E G Williams” is in my possession.
30. There is also evidence that Galland was a charlatan with a shady, made-up past using another name, prompting historian Susan Easton Black to posit he may have had a split personality. See Susan Easton Black “Isaac Galland: Both Sides of the River,” Nauvoo Journal 8, no. 2 (1996): 3–9.
31. Jessee, Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, 439.
32. Glen M. Leonard, Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, a People of Promise (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2002), 42.
37. “Lot and Grantor Index 1836–1850 for Lee Co., Iowa,” book 3, p. 95, microfilm #959231, Family History Library. The description of the property is listed as “SW ¼ S 3 + NW ¼ S 10 Tp 1.5.5.” The pages of the index are not numbered, but the entry appears on the third page of the grantors whose name begins with the letter G. Others to whom Isaac Galland sold Iowa property include Mormons Oliver Granger, Vinson Knight, and Hiram [sic] Smith, plus Nathan Pinkham, who would marry Frederick G. Williams’s daughter Lucy Eliza Williams on September 18, 1842. Nathan was from Quincy and appears as one of Dr. Williams’s patients in Frederick G. Williams, Medical ledger, 3, dated June 28, 1840.
38. Found in the Frederick G. Williams file, Church History Library.
42. A photograph of the certificate appears in Glen M. Leonard, Nauvoo, 60.
43. Jessee, Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, 125.
44. Alvin C. Graves voted to receive “a new license as a Teacher” at the July 6, 1838, conference at Far West. See Donald Q. Cannon and Lyndon W. Cook, Far West Record (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1983), 200. Brother Graves published a notice dated April 10, 1841, regarding his hides and tanning business in Zarahemla, Iowa. Times and Seasons 2 (May 1, 1841): 406.
46. The Mississippi River was frozen in February 1839. Reference to Emma and her children walking across the ice to Quincy was captured in a drawing that appears in the Melchizedek Priesthood and Relief Society manual Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, 370. Emma arrived with her children at the Mississippi River opposite Quincy on February 15, 1839. History of the Church, 3:262.
47. Record of Deeds, Adams County, Illinois, on microfilms #967540, #967541, #967543, and #967545, Family History Library.
48. U.S. Land Office certificate no. 11940, issued to Frederick G. Williams and signed on behalf of President Martin Van Buren in Washington, D.C., September 20, 1839. The description is as follows: “The NorthWest quarter of the South West quarter of Section Seven in Township fifty six, of Range twenty eight, in the District of lands Subject to sale at Lexington Missouri, containing thirty eight acres and ten hundredths of an acre.”
49. The announcement appeared each week for six months in the Quincy Whig, beginning on August 24, 1839.
51. A notice in the Quincy Whig, September 19, 1840, p. 3, col. 5, indicated there was a boarding house “on the corner of fourth and jersey street opposite the Mormon meeting house.”
52. On August 16, 1904, almost a year before he died (August 1, 1905), Ezra G. Williams sent a telegram to his son Frederick G. Williams (1853–1918), who was living in Mexico, asking him to come see him in Ogden, Utah. Frederick obliged and stayed some five months (see “Journal of Nancy A. Clement Williams,” 88, Church History Library). During their time together, Ezra gave his son his father’s papers (Dr. F. G. Williams), had him write letters to his kinsmen for him, and dictated some personal history. A record of what his son wrote is found in what is called the “Journal of Frederick G. Williams II,” which is a calendar notebook for 1902. I have a copy of the “Journal” which was obtained from Gwenivere Richards of Pleasant Grove, Utah, February 1966. On the page for May 4–10, 1902, of the calendar, the following is written regarding Ezra’s medical apprenticeship with his father and brother-in-law, which came in answer to the query, “Did Burr Riggs own the drugstore when Father began practice?”
“Father was 18 y 10 m 16 day when his Father died He was running a job wagon doing well, making from 4 to 6 dollars a day. But the work was hard on him and Burr Riggs made him a proposition to put their medicines in together and father do the compounding and take care of the shop or store and Burr Riggs do the riding. They did so when grandfather died, he left quite a stock of herbs and medicine such as he used in his own practice. Burr Riggs studied with Grandfather and practiced with him so that their stock of medicines were similar. Riggs built up a good practice, but he took to drink, which broke him up. Father was not with Burr long, he don’t remember why, but it was proposed that he and a man by the name of Bibins on the same terms as he and Burr went in together so he did the compounding for Bibins a short time and then began visiting the sick. He can’t remember how long he was with either of them, they kept no medicines for sale farther their own compounding not a regular drugstore as we have them today.” Spelling and punctuation standardized.
60.History of the Church, 7:268–69. The trial of President Sidney Rigdon was published in Times and Seasons 5 (September 15, 1844): 647–55; (October 1, 1844): 660–67; (October 15, 1844): 685–87. Several of those who gave testimony indicated that Elder Rigdon had been out of harmony with the Prophet and the Church for some five years.
63.Millennial Star 7 (December 1844): 109, reproduced in Matthias F. Cowley, Wilford Woodruff: A History of His Life and Labors as Recorded in His Daily Journals, 2d ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1916), 652–53.
64. Under date of April 11, 1838, we read that Oliver Cowdery was excommunicated from the Church. Charge number two read, “For seeking to destroy the character of President Joseph Smith, Jun., by falsely insinuating that he was guilty of adultery.” History of the Church, 3:16.
65. Under date of April 13, 1838, we read that David Whitmer was excommunicated from the Church. Charge number three against him reads: “In writing letters to the dissenters in Kirtland unfavorable to the cause, and to the character of Joseph Smith, Jun.” History of the Church, 3:18–19.
66. Under date of October 24, 1838, we read: “Thomas B. Marsh, formerly president of the Twelve, having apostatized, repaired to Richmond and made affidavit before Henry Jacobs, justice of the peace, to all the vilest slanders, aspersions, lies and calumnies towards myself and the Church, that his wicked heart could invent.” History of the Church, 3:166–67.
67. In November 1838, at the hearing before Judge Austin A. King at Richmond, Missouri, Phelps testified against Joseph Smith. His testimony helped establish the case that committed the Mormon leaders to prison. Jessee, Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, 508.
