PROVO, UTAH

Courtesy Church History Library

For the entire seven years of his presidency, 1880-87, President John Taylor served with President
George Q. Cannon, left, first counselor, and President Joseph F. Smith, second counselor.

Courtesy Church History Library

President John Taylor was the second successor to the Prophet Joseph Smith, whom he championed. The Church leader was noted for his literary talent.

Photo by R. Scott Lloyd

Mark H. Taylor gives presentation at BYU Church History Symposium on John Taylor. His focus was President Taylor's detailed eyewitness account of the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith.

In commemoration of the 200th birthday anniversary of John Taylor, third president of the Church, nearly a score of scholars presented papers at the third annual Church History Symposium at BYU hosted Oct. 10 by the Religious Studies Center, Division of Continuing Education and Mormon Historic Sites Foundation.

The symposium covered the life, administration and teachings of President Taylor, who was born Nov. 1, 1808. Here are highlight summaries of a few of the presentations.

Papers from this and the two previous symposia — covering Oliver Cowdery and Wilford Woodruff — will be compiled and published later by BYU.

Kenneth Mays: "A Pictorial Essay of John Taylor"

Brother Mays, a member of the faculty at the LDS Institute adjacent to the University of Utah who has spent 29 years photographing Church history sites, presented historic images as well as several photos he has taken of sites associated with the life of President Taylor.

Speaking in the keynote session, he displayed numerous images projected on a screen, including one of a cabin in Arizona, where President Wilford Woodruff received a revelation he recorded in his journal on Jan. 26, 1880:

"I the Lord have raised up unto you my servant John Taylor to preside over you and to be a lawgiver unto my Church. He has mingled his blood with that of the martyred prophets. Nevertheless, while I have taken my servants Joseph and Hyrum Smith unto myself, I have preserved my servant John Taylor for a wise purpose in me."

Jeffrey Walker: "Behind 'Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief"'

Millions of Latter-day Saints cherish "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" (Hymns, No. 29) as the hymn that John Taylor sang to comfort Joseph and Hyrum Smith in Carthage Jail prior to their martyrdom on June 27, 1844.

But perhaps few realize that the melody in today's hymnal is not the same as the one that Elder Taylor sang at Carthage.

Jeffrey Walker, adjunct professor at BYU Law School and manager of the Legal and Business Series of the Joseph Smith Papers Project in the Church Historical Department, has researched that original melody by John Taylor.

In his symposium presentation, Brother Walker said Elder Taylor brought the hymn with him from England, where he served a mission as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve in 1840.

The words, originally written as a poem by James Montgomery, had been put to music titled "Duane Street" by George Coles and published in a hymnal called Sacred Harp; John Taylor adapted that tune to his own melody, Brother Walker recounted. It was that adaptation, that Elder Taylor sang in Carthage Jail when requested by Hyrum Smith.

Much later, as president of the Church, President Taylor called Tabernacle Choir director Ebenezer Beesley to make the melody more elegant, slow and fitting for inclusion in a new hymnal for the Church that was being prepared. But President Taylor sang his earlier melody to Brother Beesley and asked him to write down the musical notation for it. This, Brother Beesley did, writing the notation in the back of his choir manual. Thus, John Taylor's original tune has been preserved.

Brother Walker, who is a musician by avocation, arranged and scored President Taylor's earlier melody as a four-part hymn. During the symposium presentation, his returned-missionary son Chase sang it along with some former missionary companions. Then, Brother Walker distributed the sheet music to those attending the seminar session.

A copy of that sheet music can be downloaded from this Web page: mormontimes.com/APoorWayfaringMan.pdf

The earlier melody is livelier than today's hymn version, more in the style of a folk song. But both are reverent settings for the message of the hymn, an application of Matthew 25:40 which, in retrospect, seems so appropriate for that day when the Prophet and his brother sealed their testimonies with their lives.

President Taylor would later write his own hymn in homage to the Prophet, "O Give Me Back My Prophet Dear." The symposium presentation closed with a performance of that hymn.

Susan Easton Black: "John Taylor's Influence on Joseph Smith's Presidential Bid"

In 1844, disappointed in the lack of inclination by U.S. presidential candidates to right the wrongs suffered by the Latter-day Saints in Missouri, the Prophet Joseph Smith launched his own candidacy. That bid was cut short when he was martyred in June of that year.

Susan Easton Black, professor of Church history, asserted in her symposium presentation that John Taylor played a role in Joseph's candidacy comparable to a campaign manager and that Elder Taylor's role up to now has been unjustifiably obscure in history.

"There can be no doubt that John Taylor was the man who jump-started the campaign of Joseph Smith, and he took Joseph Smith out from being just a dark-horse candidate to a recognized third-party presidential candidate," she said.

She made these points:

• John Taylor first printed in his newspapers (the Times and Seasons and the Nauvoo Neighbor) the question of for whom the Latter-day Saints should vote.

• Elder Taylor attended a January meeting of leading brethren when Joseph was first put forward as a candidate.

• Elder Taylor saw to it that 1,500 copies of the Prophet's platform, or "Views on the Presidency of the United States," were sent throughout the nation.

• Elder Taylor managed some 300 men sent out on a sort of political mission to advance the Prophet's candidacy. He bolstered them in their efforts when their courage flagged.

• Elder Taylor directed the efforts of the political missionaries to reprint copies of the platform in several locales.

Sister Black said that when Joseph was killed, Elder Taylor, who had been so involved in the political process, lost heart for it, and, in his mind, there was no longer a viable candidate.

She said it is interesting that of the five major candidates that presidential year, none was supported by the Latter-day Saints; instead, they generally voted for James K. Polk and, in Illinois, influenced the election so that he was victorious in that state.

Mark H. Taylor: John Taylor: Witness to the Martyrdom of Joseph Smith

Being severely wounded at Carthage Jail when Joseph and Hyrum Smith were murdered by a mob "earned him a moral authority and not only changed his life but changed the way people looked at him, both inside and outside the Church," said Mark H. Taylor in his symposium presentation.

That moral authority paved the way for John Taylor to optimize his literary talents in exposing the public to the teachings of the Church, "because people were willing to listen to him because he had been through thick and thin there in Carthage, almost losing his own life," Mark Taylor said.

Brother Taylor is a direct descendant of John Taylor. His book, Witness to the Martyrdom: John Taylor's Personal Account of the Last Days of the Prophet Joseph Smith, was published in 1999.

Though two apostles — John Taylor and Willard Richards — were with Joseph and Hyrum when they were martyred, it was 12 years before an eyewitness account was written down, Mark Taylor said.

At the time of his death in 1854, Elder Richards, who was Church Historian, had not finished documenting the last days of Joseph Smith. The task fell to his successor, apostle George A. Smith, who found the task long, tedious and difficult, partly because of conflicting sources. Occupied by other duties, Elder Smith passed the assignment to assistant Church historian, Elder Wilford Woodruff of the Quorum of the Twelve.

Elder Woodruff immediately contacted Elder Taylor, who was in New York City at the time, publishing a Church newspaper. Elder Woodruff wrote of the burden they were under in recording the history "which renders it necessary for me to call in the aid of an eye-and-ear witness to enable me to do justice to it. You are the only person on earth who can render me this assistance. I want you to describe the scenes in the jail with great care and minuteness. For as I said before, you're the only man on earth who can do it."

Elder Taylor performed the task with literary power and style, Mark Taylor said. "His account became the yardstick for measuring the accuracy of the various other sources and served as the basis for finishing off that history of Joseph Smith's last days."

Elder Taylor's manuscript was first published publicly in City of the Saints by Richard Burton, a British author who visited Salt Lake City in 1860 and then published his book. It received wide distribution in England and the United States. "Many had a chance to read about Carthage through the eyes of John Taylor in a non-Mormon book."

Elder Taylor's account is preserved today in volume 7 of History of the Church compiled by B. H. Roberts.

Because of his survival of the Carthage violence and the moral authority it earned him, John Taylor attracted the curiosity of the non-Mormon public. "It let him get the Church's story out to everyone, not just the few that he would come in contact with on a one-on-one basis," Mark Taylor said.

E-mail to: rscott@desnews.com