Monday and We're Movin' on Down the Road...

Monday found our intrepid trio checking out of the Holiday Inn and finding the red Buick covered in bugs!!! Yep, little bugs galore. And there were multitudinous birds trying to have a feast on the little bugs. We had this happen once in Louisville. We came out the Science Center with Andie, Hayden and Bailey and where we parked Andie's van under I-64 was just full of these same kinds of bugs. When I showed my pictures to my sister and her hubby last week, they told me they are called May Flies. I managed to get a picture of one of them before it flew away from me.

We made our way through the infestation without getting any of the little guys in the car. Then Claude pointed the red Buick east to Carthage, Illinois.

Why Carthage you may ask?? On June 27th, 1844 Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum Smith were martyred in the Carthage Jail. The desire of the persons doing the killing was to stop the work of the Church. They figured with Joseph gone the Church would dwindle and perish. This has not been the case. So we were off to visit Carthage before heading home.

Carthage is a quiet little town. What we saw was clean and well maintained. The old Carthage Jail now has a nice Visitor's Center sitting next to it and some nice landscaping around it. There are a couple homes next door that are used by the senior missionary couples that serve at the Visitor's Center and Carthage Jail.

We were there before they opened and observed the beginning of the day for these good missionaries. They came in their period costumes from their homes and the first chore of the day for one couple was to pick up any tree branches or twigs that fell during the night and then sweep the walks and water the plants and flowers. The other couple went into the Visitor's Center to prepare it for the days visitors. A young set of sister missionaries also came down the street to help visitors and give tours.

We got out of our car and walked through the memorial garden of plaques and statues before entering the Visitor's Center. Turns out you can take the acorns that have fallen from the trees, put them in your freezer to kill any worms that might be in them (24 hours in the freezer), then you put a screw in jewelry hook on the acorn and string them on a chain to make a necklace or bracelet. Katelyn and I found ourselves collecting a supply of acorns for that purpose. As of today's date they are still in my freezer. I'm sure some day I'll find that little bag of acorns and remember this trip and time spent with Katelyn and be amused.

There were two quotes by Joseph Smith on these memorial plaques that I really loved. They are:

• Patience is heavenly. Obedience is noble. Forgiveness is merciful. And exaltation is Godly. And he that holds out faithful to the end shall in no wise lose his reward, a good man will endure all things to honor Christ, and even dispose of the whole world, and all in it, to save his soul.
• When a man has offered in sacrifice all that he has for the truth's sake, not even withholding his life, and believing before God that he has been called to make this sacrifice because he seeks to do his will, he does know, most assuredly, that God does and will accept his sacrifice and offering, and that he has not, nor will not seek his face in vain.

We headed into the Visitor's Center which was now open. Others had arrived to visit as well. We walked the two rooms with paintings and artifacts in them. Here a some of the pictures and things we saw:  Paintings of Joseph & Hyrum Smith with a bust of the Savior in front, painting of the building of the Nauvoo Temple, little busts of Joseph & Emma Smith, painting of Joseph teaching the people, painting of the Saints leaving Nauvoo, and a painting of Joseph watching two young boys playing 'stick pulling' (a popular game of the day).

Then we viewed a movie about Joseph Smith and after our tour guide took us on our tour.

You begin right outside the Visitor's Center under a porch of the Visitor's Center. Your view is of the side of the Carthage Jail. There is a window on the first floor of this wall but there are only slits in the wall on the 2nd floor of the jail. Amazingly, I did not keep a picture of that side of the jail.

Then we entered the back of the jail and went into the kitchen first. The jailers wife would have prepared all the meals for the prisoners in addition to her family.

 

From the kitchen we entered the living room.

The well outside of this living room window is where Joseph Smith's body landed when he fell, mortally wounded from the 2nd story window above.

There was a ring of jail keys on the wall by the front door. I'm not sure why but I love this style of old keys. They were called 'skeleton keys'. The home I grew up in on Herndon Ave. in Shreveport, Louisiana had keys like that to unlock the doors. Albeit not quite as big as jail keys but the same style. Maybe that is why I like them so much. I have a bunch hanging on a hook in my kitchen...just 'cause.

The next room to visit was the jail cell on the main level. The cell is known as the 'debtors cell'. Joseph and the people incarcerated with him were placed here first. Then, as the mob gathered, the jailor moved them upstairs where he felt they were safer from possible gun fire. The niceness of this cell (it has a window on two sides) was the cross breeze which made them much more comfortable. This is Katelyn behind the door to the debtor's cell.

Next we climbed the stairs to the 2nd floor. There were only two rooms up there that we entered. The first was called the 'dungeon cell'. this room had no real windows. It only had slits in it. It would have been very hot and little air to circulate. Joseph and his associates were moved to this room to protect them from possible gun shots from the mob. The cell is on the two walls that are interior walls and there are iron bars on the other two sides of the cell.

It appears the jailor was not in on the plot to murder Joseph Smith. He did give them some reprieve by moving them from this dungeon cell to the master bedroom on the back side of the jail. It would be in this room that Joseph and Hyrum Smith were martyred. John Taylor would be wounded but not mortally. Willard Richards would move John Taylor's wounded body from the bedroom and hide him under that straw mattresses in the dungeon cell. There are still bullet holes from the mob in the door to this master bedroom where they charged up the stairs and fired into the bedroom through the door. Katelyn is sitting in the window that Joseph fell from. Note the thickness of the window. That is how thick the walls are in the Carthage Jail. The last picture is from the window that Joseph fell out of looking down at the well. I do not know who the lady is in the picture.

This concluded our tour of the interior of the Carthage Jail. It was very quiet as we all pondered what happened here. Whether one believes in the gospel as taught in the LDS Church or not, to murder innocent people is difficult to grasp. For one who does believe in the gospel as taught in the LDS Church, this is a tender place to visit. There is the quiet sense of loss but there is also the assurance that the gospel is true and because it is the Church did not wither and die as many thought it would with the death of Joseph Smith. It is not Joseph Smith's church it the the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is Jesus Church and it will continue to grow.

We exited through the front door of the Carthage Jail and I was able to walk across the street and get a picture of the front. The debtors cell would have been on the 1st floor at the back left corner of the jail. The dungeon cell would have been directly above the debtor's cell but along the back wall. The master bedroom with the window Joseph Smith fell from was on the 2nd floor right front corner of the jail.

In front of the jail and on the walkway leading to the street was a piece of rock from the original Nauvoo Temple.

Then we walked around the back of the Carthage Jail to the well and the window. I was able to get a picture after everyone else left the area.

While Katelyn and I were waiting for Claude at one point, she shared with me that she asked Grampa if I was finished taking pictures. She said Claude's reply was, "No, there is a trash can she missed." To that end I submit the final two pictures from this wonderful road trip.