The Nauvoo Temple Bell

During the construction of the Mormon Nauvoo (Illinois)

Temple in the nineteenth century, British Saints wished to

contribute to the place of worship and donated a beautiful bell.

Sent to the United States in the care of Wilford Woodruff, the

bell hung for only a short time in the temple.

Pressure from the church’s enemies forced the Mormons to

flee Nauvoo, leaving the bell behind. Following the evacuation

of the city, the bell was taken from the temple and stored in a

local protestant church.

Shortly before the Lamoreaux family left Nauvoo, they

managed to recover the bell. On a particularly stormy night, the

men of the family pulled, without horses, a wagon to the church

where the bell was stored. Pushing and dragging the wagon by

hand to the edge of the Mississippi River, they carefully

concealed it in the water. Andrew and David Lamoreaux, brothers,

brought the bell to Utah, hiding it in their wagon beneath their

supplies.

While the pioneers journeyed to Utah, they used the bell to

awaken the men caring for the cattle, to call the travelers for

morning prayer, to begin the day’s march, and to ring during the

night watches to let the Indians know that the sentry was at his

post.

In Salt Lake City, the bell was put to use many times over.

Again, herdsmen employed it to announce when the cattle should be

taken out. It was also used at the first bowery and in President

Brigham Young’s schoolhouse.

In 1862 President Young prophesied, “Right west of the

temple … we shall build a tower and put a bell on it …. This

plan was shown to me in a vision when I first came onto the

ground.”

In the next century that prophesy was fulfilled when, in

1942, the bell was placed in a bell tower on Temple Square to

celebrate the one hundredth birthday of the Relief Society, the

women’s organization of the Mormon church.

Nearly twenty years later, in 1961, Mormon President David

O. McKay presided at ceremonies at KSL-TV where the bell provided

a signal for both the television and radio stations. During that

program, President McKay said, “In its own way, the Nauvoo bell

is a symbol of religious freedom in our land … Hourly, the

sound of the bell should serve to remind us that religious

freedom and liberty are as much at stake in the present difficult

world situation as political and economic freedom ….”

Today, the Nauvoo bell continues to herald its message of

freedom and hope.