Were Joseph Smith and Brigham Young Initiated into Freemasonry Twice?

Jeffrey M. Bradshaw

On July 8, 1842, John C. Bennett, a former member of the First Presidency who had been excommunicated two months earlier, published the first of several letters to an Illinois newspaper accusing Joseph Smith, among other things, of having manipulated the minutes of the Nauvoo Masonic Lodge. Latter-day Saint scholar Brady G. Winslow has examined most of these claimed “irregularities” in detail to determine which of the accusations have some basis in evidence and which are groundless.

Among Bennett’s claims was that Joseph Smith and others violated Masonic regulations to be initiated into the Masonic Order prior to the Lodge’s formal installation in March 1842. Afterward, according to Bennett, four of the five who had been previously initiated, were initiated a second time, to make a public record that would silently “correct” the previous error. This research note aims to provide an interim report on new evidence that provides additional support for Bennett’s claim.

Previous Scholarship on the Question

Scholars have differed about whether Bennett’s claim was authentic or spurious. The problem of interpreting the historical record is made more complex by the fact that there are two extant sets of minutes for the Nauvoo Lodge. The first set, now called “Minute Book 1,” was kept by Bennett until his excommunication and expulsion from the Lodge. The second, now called “Minute Book 2,” contains material copied from “Minute Book 1” by William Clayton, as well as additional material added from the time of Bennett’s departure until the Saints left Nauvoo for the West. In addition, Mervin Hogan published extracts from Minute Book 1 under the title of “Founding Minutes of Nauvoo Lodge U.D.” Finally, John C. Bennett claimed that there was an additional, third version of the minutes.

After reviewing the minutes, Bennett’s biographer, Andrew F. Smith concluded that “the first set [of minutes] sustains the charge that Smith and Young were entered [i.e., initiated with the apprentice degree of Masonry] prior to the Nauvoo Lodge’s installation but does not indicate that anyone was passed [to the second or fellowcraft degree] and raised [to the third or Master Mason degree].”

However, in contrast to Smith, Winslow concluded that “neither Minute Book 1 nor Hogan’s Founding Minutes support the claim that Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, or anyone else was initiated prior to March 15, 1842.”

Though Bennett’s allegation continues to resist definitive proof, new evidence has emerged since Winslow completed his analysis. The evidence comes from two sources: the Nauvoo Lodge Minute Books and intriguing journal entries from Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. 

New Evidence Supporting Bennett’s Claim

Evidence from dittography. Significantly, the pages for what is known today as Minute Book 1 were torn out of the book in which they were originally bound. Thus, it is possible that this “first” draft of the minutes was actually a second draft of the minutes that had been altered to conceal evidence for the pre-March 15 initiation:

Figure 1. Dittography of “meeting” at the end of one line and the beginning of the next within the 16 March 1842 meeting minutes.

Figure 2. “Orphan” line ending the bylaws from 30 December 1841 entry.

Figure 3. Identically worded “orphan” line preceding bylaws signatures on a page following the record for 16 April 1842.

1. a dittography indicating the 16 March 1842 meeting minutes were a copy rather than an original (see figure 1); and

2. an “orphan” line repeated twice, indicating to Masonic historians Cheryl L. Bruno, Joe Steve Swick III, and Nicholas S. Literski that “the signature page may have been torn from another copy of the minutes” (see figures 2 and 3).

Circumstantial evidence from the journals of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Two other pieces of circumstantial evidence have been seen as suggesting a pre-March initiation date for Joseph and Brigham. In what appears to be an entry by Joseph Smith in his journal for January 6, 1842, the Prophet records jubilation about the prospects for the restoration of the “ancient ^order” within the Nauvoo Temple. There is no context given for the entry. Joseph writes:

The New Year

January— 1842 Thursday 6.—The New Year has been ushered in and continued thus far under the most favorable auspices. and the Saints seem to be influenced by a kind and indulgent Providence in their disposition & means; to rear the Temple of the most High God, anxiously looking forth to the completion thereof. as an event of the greatest importance to the Church & the world, Making the Saints in Zion to rejoice, and the Hypocrite & Sinner to tremble, Truly this is a day long to be remembered. by. the saints of the Last Days; A day in which the God of heaven has began to restore the ancient <order> of his Kingdom unto. his servants & his people: a day in which all things are concurring together to bring about the compl[e]tion of the fullness of the gospel, a fulness of the dispensation of Dispensations even the fulness of Times; a day in which God has began to make manifest & set in order in his church those things which have been, and those things, which the ancients prophets and wise men desired to see.— but deid [died] without beholding it. a day in which those things begin to be made manifest which have been hid from <before> the foundations of the world. & which Jehovah has promised should be made known in his own due time. unto his servants, to prepare. the earth for the return of his glory, even a celestial glory; and a kingdom of Priests & Kings to God & the Lamb forever. on Mount Zion.— or the hundred & forty & four thousand which whom John the Revelator. saw; which should come to pass. in the Restitution of all things, [17 lines blank]

Figure 4. Brigham Young’s journal for 6 January 1842, containing a Masonic cipher.

More tellingly, the same day, Brigham Young wrote an entry in his journal using a variant of what seems to be a Masonic Royal Arch cipher, the only known ciphered text used in his journals. Latter-day Saint historians Ronald K. Esplin and Dean C. Jessee report that the cipher was decoded by Andrew F. Ehat to read:

I was taken into the lodge J Smith was Agneww [or, alternatively, J Smith was Agness]

Ehat interpreted the second line to mean that Joseph Smith was “w[edded]a[nd]s[ealed]” to Agnes Coolbrith Smith, the widow of Joseph’s brother Don Carlos. Esplin and Smith note problems with this conjectural interpretation of a sealing having taken place. But the first part of the phrase, which could be taken as suggesting that Joseph and Brigham were together on 6 January 1842, the day Brigham was apparently “taken into the lodge,” is generally accepted as correct.

Figure 5. Masonic “pigpen” cipher in the journal of Oliver B. Huntington on 21 January 1844.

Incidentally, a similar Masonic cipher was used in a journal entry by Nauvoo Latter-day Saint Oliver B. Huntington two years later. This not only confirms that Brigham’s cipher was correctly decoded, but also implies that Brigham’s use of such a cipher in Nauvoo was not unique to him.

Besides the circumstantial evidence in the journals of Joseph and Brigham, the initiation date of 6 January 1842 makes sense in the overall timeline of events, as we will see below.

Involvement of Abraham Jonas

Abraham Jonas, the Grand Master of Masonry in Illinois, was instrumental in the establishment of the Masonic Lodge in Nauvoo and in the initiation of Joseph Smith in Masonry. In addition, he defended the integrity of Lodge leaders and their records. It’s also possible that he advised the Lodge to take actions that would mitigate the effects of their previous errors.

Joseph Smith’s interest in bringing the institution of Freemasonry to Nauvoo likely commenced in November 1839 after his friendly encounter with Judge James Adams, a prominent politician and leader of Illinois Freemasonry who joined the Church soon afterward. However, the initial effort to establish the Nauvoo Lodge was undertaken somewhat later by John C. Bennett.

A recommendation from existing lodge was a requirement for forming a new lodge. Accordingly, Bennett wrote a petition to the Bodley Lodge in Quincy to ask for their sponsorship. In Reynolds’ account of the minutes of the Bodley Lodge for June 23, 1841 it was recorded that the request to recommend a group of Nauvoo Freemasons to the Grand Lodge was refused because “those persons were unknown to this Lodge as Masons,” and thus “it was thought prudent not to do so.” Since none of the members of the Nauvoo Lodge had ever visited the Bodley Lodge, their reply was understandable.

By that time, Jonas had become well acquainted with members of the Church and was favorable to the establishment of a lodge in Nauvoo. However—perhaps fearing rejection of the proposal by members attending the annual meeting of the Grand Lodge in October 1841 where a vote to proceed could have taken place—Jonas granted the authorization to the Nauvoo Lodge under “special dispensation” ten days afterward. Special dispensations to form lodges proliferated in Illinois during this period. Indeed, Nauvoo was one of eight dispensations for new lodges given by Jonas following the 1841 annual meeting.

In the written dispensation provided by Jonas on October 15, it was recorded that the Columbus Lodge, of which Grand Master Jonas was a member, “recommended and vouched” the Masons in the Nauvoo Lodge application as “worthy and fit Master Masons.” However, since there is no known record of an approval by the members of the Columbus Lodge, it is possible that the recommendation was issued solely at Jonas’ own personal discretion.

During an organizational meeting on 30 December 1841, fifty-seven petitions for initiation into the Nauvoo Masonic Lodge were recorded in Minute Book 1. However, in both Bennett’s Minute Book 1 and Clayton’s Minute Book 2, forty-four of the fifty-seven petitions were postdated to March 17, probably to conceal the fact that they had been illegitimately received prior to the installation of the lodge on March 15. Notably, Bennett failed to mention this serious irregularity in his own version of the minutes in his later accusations against lodge leaders.

Winslow, following a suggestion by Hogan, concluded that the postdating the petitions may have been done following the advice of Abraham Jonas, the Illinois Grand Master, who may have been concerned that these petitions would raise serious questions about the actions of the Nauvoo Lodge. According to Winslow’s summary:

Hogan continued to postulate, perhaps accurately, that during Jonas’s visit to Nauvoo in March 1842, the Grand Master must have reviewed the work that the lodge had performed up to that point and counseled the officers and brethren of Nauvoo Lodge to obtain a new minute book and recopy the record, changing it to make it appear as if no petitions had been received prior to the lodge’s March 17 meeting.

If Winslow is right in following Hogan’s supposition about Jonas having reviewed the Minutes and advising them to create a “corrected” copy to conceal their errors in prematurely accepting petitions, it is also possible that Jonas was made aware of the initiations of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young that seem to have taken place irregularly on January 6. In any case, no explicit record of their initiation appears in either of the two extant Minute Books.

On March 15, 1842, Grand Master Abraham Jonas provided a “special dispensation” authorizing the admission of Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon into the Lodge, provided they received the unanimous support of Lodge members. When special dispensations of this sort were made, it was often at the installation of a new lodge, as on this occasion.

Joseph and Rigdon went through the regular degree ceremonies and were initiated Entered Apprentice Masons in the evening. If Joseph had indeed been previously initiated as an Entered Apprentice on January 6, this would have been a second, repeated initiation. After additional ceremonies, Smith and Rigdon were passed as Fellow Craft Masons and raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason the next day. On March 15, 1842, Willard Richards recorded the following in Joseph’s journal:

Tuesday 15 Officiated as grand Chaplin. at the Installation of the Nauvoo Lodge. of Free Masons, on At the Grove. near the Temple. Grand Master [Abraham] Jonas being present.— A Large number of people assembled on the occasion, the day was exceedingly fine, all things were done in order, and universal satisfaction manifested. Admitted a me[m]ber of the Lodge in the evening.

The Bodley Lodge later complained of irregularities in the initiation of Joseph and Rigdon. Other Illinois lodges were disturbed about the number and quality of candidates initiated into the Nauvoo lodge generally. Indeed, the rate of growth of the Nauvoo Lodge was unusually rapid. Because there were so many individuals desiring admission, the Lodge began meeting almost daily beginning April 8, 1842:

Ordered that the lodge meet from day to day until the press of business is disposed of

The lodge met 103 times between April 7 and August 11, with up to nine degree advancements (three candidates for each of the three degrees) per day (exceptionally, on April 13, ten advancements were made).

Though evidence for the number of candidates advanced is indisputable, general allegations about the quality of candidates, except in the case of John C. Bennett, do not receive specific support from the historic record. Historian James Bilderback suggested that such claims were due to “public prejudice” against the Latter-day Saints in Nauvoo:

It is not to be assumed that the irregularities committed by other lodges were as grave or as persistent as those committed at Nauvoo, but consistency would certainly demand that the offending lodges should receive some form of punishment or at least be condemned for irregular practices. One might readily conclude that the Grand Lodge was exceedingly lenient with its constituent lodges except in the case where public prejudice influenced all reason.

In the end, the Nauvoo Freemasons’ apparent decision alter the Minute Books and, later, to withhold access to them by the Grand Lodge due to their fears of their irregularities further stoking the prejudices of other lodges “backfired.” Winslow summarizes as follows:

[John C.] Bennett tried to use the minute books to damage the reputation of the Mormons, while [William] Clayton and the Mormons attempted to maintain their relationship with Freemasonry by concealing their records. …

By altering their minute book and refusing to present their records before the Grand Lodge of Illinois in 1842 and 1843, the brethren of Nauvoo Lodge implicitly acknowledged irregularities that had occurred within their lodge and validated Bennett’s general concerns if not his specific claims. …

The failure of the Mormon Masons to comply with the demands of the Grand Lodge of Illinois in October 1842, and again in October 1843, implicitly confirmed the fears of many Illinois Masons that Mormon participation was detrimental to their organization. While the Masons had been the target of antimasonic hatred and scorn in the 1820s and 1830s, they now joined with other Americans in directing animosity toward the Mormons, who proved worthy, in their minds, of suspicion and mistrust.

A Grand Lodge injunction against the Nauvoo Masonic Lodge was lifted on 2 November 1842 since “irregularities … proceeded from an error in judgment rather than of intention.” According to retrospective accounts by Nauvoo Freemasons Lucius N. Scovil and H. G. Sherwood, Illinois Grand Master Abraham Jonas himself

made a flaming speech in behalf of the N[auvoo] L[odge] saying they were the fairest books and papers that he had ever saw brought from any Lodge and found the people as peaceable quiet and genteel as any people he was ever among in his life, and he verily beleived [sic] if they were not Mormons, that Lodge would stand the highest of any Lodge that had come to that Grand Lodge.

However, the dispensation of the Nauvoo Lodge, as well as other nearby Latter-day Saint Lodges, was revoked a second time on 4 October 1843. Due to the refusal of the Nauvoo Lodge to discontinue their activities in hopes that a “higher tribunal” would eventually reverse the perceived injustices of the Illinois Grand Lodge, on 5 April 1844 the Grand Lodge definitively withdrew fellowship from the Latter-day Saint Lodges.

Conclusions

Were Joseph Smith and Brigham Young initiated twice into Freemasonry? In this research note, we report on availability of new findings suggesting that they were. Evidence of tampering within the extant Nauvoo Lodge Minute Books combined with suggestive entries in Joseph and Brigham’s journals make it look increasingly likely that both of them received at least the first degree of Freemasonry on January 6, 1842, more than two months before the installation of the Nauvoo Lodge.

It is possible that Abraham Jonas, the Illinois Grand Master at the time of the Nauvoo Lodge installation, advised the concealment of this and other irregularities in the Minute Books in order to reduce the risk of further inflaming the prejudices of surrounding lodges. Whether there is any truth to this supposition, the present study reaffirms Winslow’s conclusions that the plan to alter and copy the minute books to conceal the errors made by Latter-day Saint Masons as they began to form plans for their lodge backfired. 

Acknowledgments

Sincere appreciation to Don Bradley for leads and suggestions on this article. Thanks also to Stephen O. Smoot for his review.

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