Mormons in New York City

While LDS Church members are usually very familiar with the travails of those who took part in the pioneer trek, starting in 1846, few are familiar with the attempts to get non-Mormon help to alleviate the suffering of those on the trek. Seeing the need, many LDS leaders and missionaries spread across the U.S. seeking donations to help the destitute cross the plains starting in the winter of 1846-47. But their efforts found significant success only when they found an important and influential friend: Thomas L. Kane. And it is clearly through Kane’s efforts that then New York City Mayor William V. Brady.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the latter half of the 19th century, the principle role that New York City filled for Mormonism was as a transit point—more than 75,000 Mormon converts entered the United States through New York City during those years while several thousand missionaries sailed for Europe from New York’s port. But beginning with the Page Act in 1875 and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the U.S. began restricting immigration, beginning with Chinese and also including convicts, lunatics, and “others unable to care for themselves.” And in the late 1880s, attention on polygamy prosecution in Utah led to a provision of the Geary Act of 1892 which prohibited entry by polygamists. If you were restricted from immigrating, you were sent back.

Read the rest of this entry »

"The Nauvoo Temple"
by C.C.A. Christensen
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On Christmas Day, 1845, the New York Tribune encouraged its readers to visit a “Model of New Haven,” which opened that day in the Granite Building, on the corner of Broadway and Chambers street. The exhibition, which cost 25 cents to see, also included models of a number of public buildings and “the Mormon Temple at Nauvoo.”

Read the rest of this entry »

When I worked on a student newspaper at BYU, we were embarrassed one issue when the headline of our leading article read: “America’s Facination with Fame.” You’d be surprised how easy it is to make that kind of mistake.

Of course, the journalists of the 1840s made mistakes too, and one, in the New York Gazette in early November 1845 was at the expense of Mormon immigrants:

There were a large number of convicts to Mormonism on board the steamboat Rochester, at Albany, recently, on the way for Nauvoo, most of whom were from Lowell, Mass.

Horace Greeley, editor of the competing, New York Tribune, caught the error, and on the 5th of November, responded:

Rather a curious mistake, Mr. Gazette! Or did you mean it?

Of course, LDS Church members have been told to show the courage of their convictions, but somehow I don’t think that’s what the Gazette had in mind.

nycldshistory.com has moved!

I’ve moved servers and in the process changed the addresses for this blog and for the nycldshistory wiki. Instead of the www.nycldshistory.com address for these sites, they are now at:

• blogs.nycldshistory.com/nycldshistory/ — for this blog
• wiki.nycldshistory.com/w/ — for the wiki

I’m sorry if the change has led to confusion. I’m trying to get the old addresses to forward to the new ones.

The next meeting of the New York New York Stake History Committee will be held on February 1st at 6:30pm at Glen Nelson’s home, 457 West 57th St #601. As always, we request that those attending bring a dish of food. We will make the agenda for the meeting available ahead of time, as usual.

Our New York City LDS History Committee met the evening of January 11th for our normal monthly meeting. Good food and fun conversation helped us get through our agenda and make plans for the next few months. We discussed the status of our upcoming newsletter issue, the banners we have placed in the LDS buildings around the city, our walking tours, and upcoming newsletter issues and events. The principal decisions made include the following:

Read the rest of this entry »

The next meeting of the New York New York Stake History Committee will be held on December 7th at 6:30pm at Glen Nelson’s home, 457 West 57th St #601. As always, we request that those attending bring a dish of food. We will make the agenda for the meeting available ahead of time, as usual.

Our New York City LDS History Committee met the evening of November 2nd for our normal monthly meeting. Good food and fun conversation helped us get through our agenda and make plans for the next few months. We discussed the status of our upcoming newsletter issue, the banners we have placed in the LDS buildings around the city, our walking tours, and upcoming newsletter issues and events. The principal decisions made include the following:

Read the rest of this entry »

The Fall 2008 BYU Magazine has an article on Harleman Halls, the building on West 111th Street that has managed to fill nearly half its apartments with LDS Church members. The article not only tells how the building gained such a preponderance of Church members, but also gives a sense of the community in the building that developed as a result.

Read the rest of this entry »