How Was the Nauvoo Temple Financed?

The original Nauvoo Temple was financed through the grassroots sacrifices of early Latter-day Saints, who paid tithing in property, goods, and labor to avoid the crushing debt that Joseph Smith and the Church incurred during the Kirtland era. Because cash was scarce, men donated one out of every ten days to physically work on the building, while women spearheaded independent initiatives like a penny fund for glass and nails. The massive undertaking even drew crucial, often-overlooked financial support from converts in Great Britain. In this interview, historian Elizabeth Kuehn explores the meticulous tithing records that drove the temple’s construction.

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Cover to the collection, Billions Shall Know Brother Joseph Again, which contains Elizabeth Kuehn’s essay on financing the Nauvoo Temple.

Financing the Temple

— Early Latter-day Saints financed the Nauvoo Temple through labor and property tithing to avoid crippling Kirtland-era debt.

What drew your attention to how Latter-day Saints financed the original Nauvoo Temple?

When I first started with the Joseph Smith Papers Project, one of my early assignments was researching and working to understand Joseph Smith’s financial records in Ohio. This led me to take a special interest in financial records, and in 2019 I got approval to create a new series within the JSP focused on financial records. So, this is the outgrowth of years of work focused on Joseph Smith and the Church’s early financial records.

The Nauvoo tithing records are some of the richest sources we have for the period. And, adding to that, the specific directions for funding the Nauvoo Temple were that it should be financed through tithing. So, the burden was placed on the Latter-day Saints. There had been earlier efforts with other Church projects to draw on the Saints’ combined resources, and some had succeeded while others failed. I think it is really a testament to the Saints of the 1840s that through tithing, donations, and labor on the Nauvoo Temple, they were able to complete it without the significant debts that had plagued them for the Kirtland Temple.

How did the financial strain of building the Kirtland Temple fundamentally reshape how Joseph Smith approached financing the Nauvoo Temple?

Joseph Smith and other church leaders were instructed through revelation not to go into debt as they started plans to build a temple in Far West, Missouri. The Far West revelation against debt appears to have carried over into Church leaders’ thinking and planning in Nauvoo. But the urgency to avoid debt was likely a direct result of the debts amassed for the Kirtland Temple.

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While Joseph Smith himself had few direct debts owed in 1837 as a result of the construction of the Kirtland Temple, that would change once the Latter-day Saints left Ohio. By 1839, Joseph Smith’s financial agent, Oliver Granger, consolidated debts and placed many of the debts related to the mercantile stores operated to fund the Kirtland Temple construction on Smith. It is unclear from the historical record whether this was at the insistence of Joseph Smith or the lawyers pursuing the repayment of debts. In either case, Smith took on these debts personally, leaving him deeply indebted, while relieving the Temple Committee and other church leaders of debts related to the Kirtland Temple. These Kirtland Temple debts were one of the reasons that Smith applied for bankruptcy in 1842.

How was “tithing” defined during the Nauvoo era, and how did “labor tithing” and “property tithing” differ from how Latter-day Saints view tithing today?

Tithing was defined as one-tenth of all that a person owned at the time construction efforts began on the Temple. So, one-tenth of land, goods, and money.

Labor tithing was a shorthand way to reference time volunteered to work on the Temple. At the October 1840 General Conference, the men of the Church voted to donate one day in ten to labor on the Temple. This was largely a result of the Saints’ poverty. They had little to offer monetarily, but they could work. Intriguingly, over time this changed, and labor tithing acquired a set monetary value of $31. This meant that those men who did not want to physically work on the Temple could simply pay the $31 rather than work. It also meant that those who did labor on the Temple were noted as performing labor valued at $31 for their work on the Temple.

Property tithing was a tithe on all the property a person owned and was often paid in-kind, meaning in goods rather than in money. Paying tithing in livestock, garden produce, or wagon parts may seem foreign to Latter-day Saints today, but everything was needed in Nauvoo, and the Temple Committee and Tithing Office could sell or repurpose donated goods.

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What was the Book of the Law of the Lord, and how did it change the way the Church kept tithing records for the Nauvoo Temple?

The Book of the Law of the Lord was initially a multi-use book that Joseph Smith’s scribes and secretaries used to record earlier revelations as well as to keep his journal. In December 1841, Willard Richards became the temple recorder, and Smith tasked him with recording tithing. Richards added tithing to the information recorded in the Book of the Law of the Lord.

Title page of the Book of the Law of the Lord, the historical ledger used to record Nauvoo Temple financing and tithing donations." — Title page of the tithing ledger used to track finances for the Nauvoo Temple.

Although it was originally a multi-purpose book, the tithing portion soon became the heart of the record. Joseph Smith intended something beyond ordinary record keeping with the tithing, donations, and consecrations recorded in the Book of the Law of the Lord. This volume became the spiritual testament to the Latter-day Saints’ sacrifice and devotion. Smith and his clerks, like William Clayton, soon associated this with worthiness to access the Nauvoo Temple, initially just the finished baptismal font, but looking forward to the completion of the Temple.

Women’s Contributions

— Women accelerated Nauvoo Temple construction by purchasing a crane, organizing a Penny Fund for materials, and donating essential in-kind tithing.

How did the women living in La Harpe and Macedonia in Illinois help speed up the temple construction?

In July 1844, weeks after the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, women living in La Harpe and Macedonia, Illinois, decided, independent of any church leaders’ influence or suggestion, that they wanted to see the work on the Nauvoo Temple go faster. This was at a difficult time when the future of the Church was uncertain, and it was not clear whether the Saints would be able to remain safe and finish the Temple. But determined to speed up the work, the women in La Harpe and Macedonia decided they would raise money to build another crane for temple workers to use in moving stone for the temple. Once they got approval for their plan, they raised nearly $200 in donated money and goods and gave that to William Clayton and the Temple Committee to buy the materials needed to build another crane.

Mercy Fielding Thompson organized a “penny fund” to buy glass and nails. How did this drive operate?

The penny fund that Mercy Fielding Thompson started was a subscription for a penny a week or fifty-two cents a year to buy supplies, like glass and nails, for the Nauvoo Temple to help with the construction effort. It started in Nauvoo and was very successful, with hundreds of women taking part and promising to pay their small individual subscriptions.

It was very successful, with hundreds of women taking part and promising to pay their small individual subscriptions.

Thompson and her sister, Mary Fielding Smith, oversaw the collection of funds and the recording of the names of the women who contributed. Their work was overseen by Hyrum Smith, who supported the fund and in some instances has historically been credited with the penny fund idea and execution.

While the penny subscription fund started in Nauvoo, it spread from there to other areas in the United States and overseas to women in the UK.

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Beyond monetary donations, what were some other creative or hands-on ways women contributed to the temple’s construction?

Women contributed in many different ways to the construction of the Nauvoo Temple. Many offered their tithing and consecrations to fund the building. This included tithing and donations in-kind, such as clothing, linens, quilts, as well as the necessary resources to produce clothing like sewing patterns, flax, and buttons. Those with very few resources often made mittens or socks and donated those. Others donated their garden produce, the baskets they wove, or other handmade goods. Lacking the ability to give their work, they might offer things that they felt had value – like jewelry or watches.

Women also did most of the less documented work that was necessary to support the men working on the temple, boarding workers, feeding workers, and mending and replacing their clothing.

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Latter-day Saints Contributing from Afar

— The Nauvoo Temple relied heavily on underappreciated financial donations and tithing from British converts and regional branches.

We often think of Nauvoo as a local effort, but how did Saints living at a distance—particularly in Great Britain—support the project, and why has their contribution been underappreciated?

While the Saints in Nauvoo contributed significantly to the construction effort, especially as workers and those supporting the workers, the Church received hundreds of dollars of donations from Saints living outside of Nauvoo. Saints living in other Illinois communities often drove livestock to Nauvoo to be donated. One branch collectively made thousands of wood shingles for the roof of the Temple. Saints in the Eastern United States, especially New York, sent money and donations.

Members tend to not recognize the significant number of converts in Britain at this time.

By far the largest group of donations that has been underappreciated is those from Saints in Great Britain. I think on a broad level members tend to not recognize the significant number of converts in Britain at this time. There seems to be a greater tendency to remember and represent those who make the trek to join the Saints in Nauvoo, but otherwise the British Saints don’t garner as much attention.

Additionally, I think the records where their donations are recorded have been underappreciated and understudied. This is partly an issue of accessibility, but I think we often too readily dismiss financial records as boring and unimportant. The Book of the Law of the Lord and the loose tithing and donation records in the Nauvoo tithing office from members in Great Britain are a rich resource that deserves more recognition and scholarly attention.

What Happened to the Nauvoo Bell?

What were the logistics of getting those international donations—whether cash or goods—safely delivered to Nauvoo?

The majority of donated goods and funds were brought by missionaries serving in Britain or by designated Church agents, like Amos Fielding, who was appointed to help charter ships to take groups of Latter-day Saints across the Atlantic Ocean to the United States. Sometimes missionaries used the funds given to them for their subsistence, so the donations might not all make it back to Nauvoo. In other instances, they might be forgotten or misplaced. Elder John Snyder served a mission in Great Britain in 1841, but forgot to give the tithing and donations he received from British Saints to the Tithing Office until months after he had returned to Nauvoo. When he remembered them, he gave them to the recorder, and the donations were recorded in the Book of the Law of the Lord along with an explanation of where they had come from and why the recording was delayed.

Now that the Joseph Smith Papers Project is complete, what new avenues of research are open for future historians interested in the history of the Nauvoo Temple and early Church finance?

The print publications for the Joseph Smith Papers Project were completed with the publication of Volume 15 of the Documents Series. However, there is a subset of the Project still hard at work to complete the Joseph Smith Papers website and all of our planned online content.

The Nauvoo tithing records are rich resources for investigating the history of Nauvoo, the construction of the Nauvoo Temple, and early Church history more broadly. I hope that those interested in economic history and material culture will engage with the financial records related to the Nauvoo Temple and the Tithing Office.

The Financial series is a wealth of information.

But there are additional ways that these records can be relevant. Those with ties or interests in either their family history or the early years of the Church will find that there are hundreds of names of less well-documented and even marginalized individuals in the tithing and financial records of the Church. Whether a member searching for an ancestor with connections to the Church in the 1840s or a scholar interested in poverty or textiles in the nineteenth century, the Financial series is a wealth of information.

Watch to hear more from the authors of Billions Shall Know Brother Joseph Again.

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About the Scholar

Elizabeth A. Kuehn is a documentary editor and historian who has worked with the Church History Department since 2013. Her academic research focuses heavily on nineteenth-century economic history, early Latter-day Saint community building, and women’s history. As a key contributor to the Joseph Smith Papers Project, she served as the lead historian and editor for the Financial Records series, as well as lead editor for Documents, Volume 10, which covers critical months of the Nauvoo era. She holds a master’s degree in history from Purdue University and is a PhD candidate at the University of California, Irvine, bringing rigorous academic training to her archival work. This unique intersection of financial expertise and documentary editing allows her to provide unparalleled insight into Nauvoo temple financing and the grassroots sacrifices that made its construction possible.