IN THE 19TH
                    CENTURY:
                    A GLIMPSE
                    OF EARLY
                 MORMONISM 

                                      THE SALT LAKE TABERNACLE— that                             grand  old dame of pioneer Utah— has a story                             to tell, if only we have enough curiosity to                             seek it. Set on a rolling slope at Church                             headquarters, during the nineteenth century                             it towered above the surrounding landscape,                             especially before the growth of trees and                             shrubs and other buildings closed off the view                             of it. Its presence was more than physical. The                             Tabernacle was, after all, the most important                             public building of the Church of Jesus Christ                             of Latter-day Saints in the last part of the                             nineteenth century. It was where the Saints                             came to worship each Sunday, weather                             permitting. It was also where thousands of                             outsiders came to see Mormons firsthand; and                             after their visits, they recorded details that                             Zion’s own men and women often failed to                             mention. In short, the Tabernacle was where                             early Mormonism revealed itself to                             contemporaries. . . .

                                       Before Joseph Smith’s death, he                              commissioned a “tabernacle” to be built just                              west of theNauvoo Temple. Smith envisioned                              a building perhaps 250 feet long and 125 feet

                                   by Ronald W. Walker

                                wide, and his followers took
                              steps toward a makeshift
                            version of the project a that
                          required 4,000 yards of canvas,
                       only to abandon their task when
                     they were forced to evacuate their
                   headquarters and move west.²
               However, the idea lingered. The
        Mormons . . . later used the name
“tabernacle,” shape and approximate size, and
layout (west of a temple) when building the
Salt Lake Tabernacle. . . .
           Makeshift [open-air] pavilions built on
Temple Square . . . were called bowers or
“boweries” for the evergreen branches placed
on poles to form a sort of roof. For seats, the
settlers used pine benches, some backed and
others unbacked, on which the better-off
worshippers put hair or “cornshuck” cushions.
Kerosene lamps furnished light. During the
pioneer period, the settlers constructed five of
these makeshift structures, including one
built at their initial fort. The largest and most
enduring, built in the early 1860s, may have
held more than 8,000 people.³ It had a
speaking rostrum that resembled the stage of
a “good-sized theatre.” A . . . table . . . served
as a podium, behind which Church leaders sat
in cane settees and chairs.⁴
           Another forerunner to the Tabernacle
was the “Old Tabernacle,” built in 1851–52.
The building occupied a location on Temple
Square’s southwest precinct, its longest side

running north and south. . . . They had hastily built the Old Tabernacle as a stopgap measure until something larger and more lasting could be built. Brigham Young himself called the 66-by-166 foot building “plain” and “simple. . . .”⁵ Perhaps in a bid to cut costs and to insulate against the extremes of the Great Basin’s weather, the Mormons designed much of the interior to be below ground level, including all of its seats. Thus, seen from the outside, the building had a squat appearance, its vertical rise disproportional to its length and width.
           Whatever its outward quality, the Old Tabernacle was a minor engineering success, particularly its freestanding ceiling. Rather than support the ceiling with internal columns, Church architect Truman O. Angell designed a system of arching beams that held the roof in place by an attached network of trusses. I “found it uncommon[ ly] strong,” Angell wrote in his diary after building a model to test his lattice truss design. It is “good to bear 8 or 10 times besides the weight of the roofing. . . .”⁶
           California emigrant Lucy Rutledge Cooke, corresponding with her sister in the East, described the Old Tabernacle as “a beautiful large building very plain and neat but a better one for accommodating an audience of 2500 I never saw. There are four large doors one at each corner which makes a good breeze through. There are no galleries but the seats are all raised from the front up where the speakers are. I have been once on a Sunday. The singing is so nice. It is led by an English band [choir] who sings good old English tunes. The place is always full.”⁷
           It was precisely this last fact that made Brigham Young speak of the need for a larger meeting hall almost as soon as the Old Tabernacle was dedicated. According to Young’s calculation, the building could hold only 2,260 adults (from 120 to 175 pounds each)—fewer than the many people who might wish to attend the city’s weekly Sabbath service and far fewer than the number who attended the Church’s general conference.⁸ Another flaw was the Old Tabernacle’s unbearable heat in the summer, if no breeze freshened the air. Because of these reasons, the Mormons continued to use their boweries in the middle 1850s and 1860s during the summers or for conferences. However, when conditions were wet or cooler, the Saints reverted to the Old Tabernacle.

           In 1863 work was begun on a new tabernacle, which in time simply became known as the Tabernacle. . . . Once more, Young wanted no view-obstructing poles; and for a time, an Old Tabernacle-like pitched or peaked roof was considered, with three octagonal domes or ventilators. Church architect William H. Folsom drew the plans, although Young served in a general way as his own architect, as he reportedly claimed. “The form of the building was the design of President Brigham Young,” wrote a newspaper correspondent, who inquired when the building was nearly finished. Young “was desirous that the lattice work principle should be introduced into the construction of this large edifice.”⁹
           It soon became apparent that the roof designed by Folsom would not easily work for a building so wide and low as the contemplated new hall. As a result, Church leaders decided on an innovative, self-supporting oval dome for the Tabernacle—essentially a rounded top placed upon a bowery. . . . Fortunately, Utah had a man for such a job. Prior to coming west, Henry Grow had built bridges in Pennsylvania. . . .¹⁰ Grow superintended the construction of the new roof and other parts of the building as well. . . .
           At first the Mormons covered the exterior with slatecolored wooden shingles, perhaps as many as 350,000.¹¹

           These shingles were stained with a solution of lime, lamp black, tallow, and salt, which gave the building a dark aspect.¹² However, after the Tabernacle was nearly ignited by an 1883 explosion in a nearby wagon yard and, in 1887, by a spark from a fireworks display, the shingles were replaced by tin sheeting and still later by a series of metal roofs.¹³
           Church leaders hoped to make short work of the building’s construction. But the piers had to settle, and seasoned lumber for the huge beams was not easy to come by. It was therefore not until 1867 that the Saints met in their new building, and then it was unfinished. Its eastern

Another forerunner to the Tabernacle was the “Old Tabernacle,” built in 1851–52. The building occupied a location on Temple Square’s southwest precinct, its longest side running north and south. Early construction site of Tabernacle pictured below.



end doors still required work, and the congregation apparently did not have the comfort of new benches. The need to finish the building’s exterior and interior, including a sweeping gallery built in 1870, and perhaps most importantly, to complete the mammoth organ put off the dedication until 1875, when Elder John Taylor gave one of the Mormons’ hallowing, down-tothe- last detail prayers, which defined the building’s use.“We. . . dedicate and consecrate this house unto thee,”Taylor intoned, “as a place of worship for thy Saints, wherein thy people may assemble from time to time, . . . to observe thy holy Sabbath, to partake of thy holy Sacrament of the Lord’s supper, and wherein they may associate for the purpose of prayer, praise and thanksgiving, . . . and whatsoever purpose thy people shall assemble in thy name.”¹⁴ Twenty years had gone into the planning and construction, although most of the work had taken place during 1864–70.

                             The completed Tabernacle was 250 feet                    long, 150 feet wide, and 80 feet high at its                    apex and had a seating capacity much larger                    than the Old Tabernacle.¹⁵ While estimates                    varied from 6,000 to 15,000, the Tabernacle’s                    actual capacity depended on how numbers were                    tallied. Did figures include infants and children,                    usually a majority of the congregation? And did                    they include the people who packed the aisles and                    doors on special occasions? Even conceding that                    pioneer men and women were smaller than their                    modem counterparts and that women and not                    larger-framed men dominated early                    congregations, the Tabernacle’s “comfortable”                    and“regular” seating capacity likely did not go                    much beyond 10,000. . . .¹⁶
                              Everyone agreed that the building was big,                    especially for its time. Travelers to Salt Lake City                    used such words as “huge,” “extraordinary,”                    “immense,” and a“monster in size” to voice their                    awe.¹⁷ Another visitor believed that the                    Tabernacle’s dome was “the largest self-supporting                    roof in the world,” although others held out New                    York City’s train depot or the military drill shed in                    St. Petersburg, Russia, as rivals and possible                    superiors to the title.¹⁸ Nelson A. Miles,                    Commanding General, U.S. Army (1895–1903),                    saw the building’s vastness on his own terms; it                    seemed ”sufficient to permit the drilling of a                    regiment of men. . . .”¹⁹ It was, in fact, one of the                    largest auditoriums in America when it was first                    built and certainly was the largest without                    interior, supporting columns.²⁰
                              Admiration for the building’s engineering                    and size did not necessarily translate into praise                    for its design. Those traveling to Utah in the late                    nineteenth century often were men and women of                    means and culture. They therefore were devoted                    to the reigning ideals of Victorian neo-Gothic                    architecture, with its detail and soaring mass. As                    a result, the Tabernacle’s unadorned practicality                    and nonconformity were upsetting, even                    offensive. Lady Mary McDowell Duffus Hardy,                    wife of Canada’s Governor-General, made no effort                    to restrain her scorn. “This far-famed structure                    strikes one as a huge monstrosity,” she wrote, “a                    tumour of bricks and mortar rising on the face of                    the earth. It is a perfectly plain egg-shaped                    building, studded with heavy entrance doors all                    around; there is not the slightest attempt at

ornamentation of any kind; it is a mass of
ugliness. . . .”²¹
           The building’s functional doors, positioned
around the oval of the building, brought more
favorable comment, mainly because of their
usefulness but also, perhaps, because their
uniqueness was still another element in the
Tabernacle’s eccentricity.“Twenty-two double doors
afford ample means of ingress and egress,” said the
Wisconsin excursionist William Ross. “The time taken
in getting out by a congregation of 6,000, on an
ordinary occasion, was six seconds less than three
minutes. . . .”²²
           It was one thing to stand outside the Tabernacle
and observe its oddity; it was another to enter its
sanctum. It was here that visitors could better see
that the Tabernacle did its tasks well. It was
“admirablyarranged” and “useful,”²³ and it provided
seats for the large Mormon congregation to see and
hear. The trussbuilt, arching ceiling allowed
unobstructed views, at least until the completion of
the gallery, which required supporting columns. It
was here, too, that the vastness of the building was
best seen, which to nineteenth-century eyes seemed
almost overwhelming. Isabella Dinsmore, a Unitarian
publicist, had “mingled feelings of solemnity, awe, and admiration” as she stepped into the expanse. . . .²⁴
           Today the Tabernacle is praised as a building
beyond its times—an early, stunning expression of
modern architecture requiring that function
determine form. Equally, the emotional and
sometimes hardy religious activity that once filled the
oddly shaped Turtle of Deseret has flowered to become
something quite beyond any expectation of its early
detractors.
           Excerpts taken from Ronald W. Walker, “The Salt
Lake Tabernacle in the Nineteeth Century: A Glimpse of
Early Mormonism,” Journal of Mormon History 31.3
(Fall 2005): 198–240. Walker is a member of the History
Department at Brigham Young University and a past
president of the Mormon History Association.

N o t e s
1 H. Buss, Wanderings in the West, During the Year
1870 (London: Printed by Thomas Danks, 1871), 160.
2 Elden J. Watson, “The Nauvoo Tabernacle,” BYU
Studies 19 (Spring 1979): 416–21.

3 Melvin L. Bashore, “Historic Temple Block Buildings,” unpublished LDS Historical Department memorandum, May 24, 1999. The 8,000 estimate for the capacity of the 1861 bowery is found in John Hyde, “Salt Lake and Its Rulers,” Harper’s Weekly 1 (July 11, 1857): 442. See “Fourth of July, 1855,” Deseret News, July 4, 1855, Journal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (chronology of typed entries and newspaper clippings, 1830–present), LDS Church Archives.
4 Bashore, “Historic Temple Block Buildings.” Also see Hyde, “Salt Lake and Its Rulers,” 442; and “Fourth of July,” Deseret News, “Journal History,” July 4, 1855.
5 Brigham Young, Sermon, October 7, 1852, unpublished manuscript, General Church Minutes, LDS Church Archives. For the building’s dimensions, see Brigham Young, Letter to John Murdock, April 2, 1852, Draft Letterbook, Brigham Young Papers, LDS Church Archives. The smaller dimension of 60 by 120 feet is suggested in Brigham Young, Office Journal, December 16, 1851, LDS Church Archives, and in a notice published in the Deseret News, May 17, 1851, 261. During the building’s construction, the dimensions were evidently modified and enlarged.
6 Truman O. Angell, Diary, December 15, 1851, LDS Church Archives.
7 Lucy Rutledge Cooke, Letter to unnamed sister, June 18, 1852, California Historical Society, Sacramento, Calif.
8 Young, Sermon, April 7, 1852.
9 Salt Lake Daily Telegraph, April 6, 1867, 1; Brigham Young, Office Journal, December 2, 1861, LDS Church Archives; Journal History, June 3, 1863, 1; and Paul L. Anderson, “William Harrison Folsom: Pioneer Architeet,” Utah Historical Quarterly 43 (Summer 1975): 248.
10 Stewart L. Grow, A Tabernacle in the Desert (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1958), 36.
11 Salt Lake Daily Telegraph, October 6, 1867, 2; Levi Edgar Young, Conference Report, October 8, 1922.
   12 Salt Lake Daily Telegraph,May 23, 1867, 3.
      13 Wilford Woodruff, Diary, June 21, 1883, LDS                  Church Archives; Deseret Evening News, October 21,       1890, 204.

14 “Semi-Annual Conference-Fourth Day,” Deseret Evening News, October 9, 1875, 2.
15 Brigham Young, Letter to John Young, June 13, 1863, Brigham Young Letterbooks, LDS Church Archives.
16 Mormons consistently put the building’s capacity higher. One calculation shortly after the building’s completion estimated that it could hold about 12,000, with another 2,000 to 3,000 able to stand in the outer aisles and doorways; “Fortieth Annual Conference,” Deseret News, April 5, 1870, 2. Grow put the figure at 14,452, which included an estimate of 3,750 seats in the gallery that was completed in 1870. Journal History, September 4, 1877, 4.
17 For “huge” and “extraordinary,” see Karl Baedeker, ed., The U.S. with an Excursion into Mexico (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1893), 426; “immense,” M. V. Moore, “The Great Salt Lake and Mormondom,” Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly 39 (March 1895): 286; and “monster in size,” Raymond Hoyt Seeley, “The Mormons and Their Religion,” Scribners 3 (1872): 398.
18 Samuel Phillips Day, Life and Society in America (London: Newman and Company, 1880), 244; William Wilson Ross, 10,000 Miles by Land and Sea (Toronto: James Campbell& Son, 1876), 66–67.
19 Nelson A. Miles, Personal Recollections and Observations of General Nelson A. Miles (Chicago: Werner Company, 1897), 368.
20 Moore, 286.
21 Mary McDowell Duffus Hardy, Through Cities and Prairie Lands (New York: R. Worthington, 1881), 120.
22 Ross, 67.
23 Charles Nordhoff, California: For Health,
Pleasure, and Residence (New York: Harper
& Brothers, Publishers, 1873), 41;William
Morrison Bell, Other Countries (London:
Chapman and Hall, 1872), 246.
24 Isabella Kimball Dinsmore, Trips and
Travel: Letters to the Unitarian Alliance
(Belfast, MA: N. p., 1929), 98.