Nauvoo (Illinois)

Hancock County

17-51791

Nauvoo is a town in Hancock County in the western part of the U.S. state of Illinois on the east bank of the Mississippi River, which forms the border to Iowa. In 2000, Nauvoo had 1,063 inhabitants.

Settlement history

The area is populated by various Native American tribes since 12,000 years. In the 18th century, the tribes of the Sauk and Fox were forced to leave their residential areas in what is now New York State and to resettle here, taking the country made ​​the Illinois Indians who lived here previously in dispute.

In the treaty with France of 1804, the United States occupied the entire country to the Mississippi owned and set up trading stations, as well as in today's Nauvoo. In the further course of history the area was disputed between Indians and white settlers over again. After 1832 all indigenous people were forcibly relocated from there to reservations west of the Mississippi (see Trail of Tears ).

In addition to many others, German settled in what is now Nauvoo, and even today you can read to some houses German -language inscriptions. One of them, at the Joseph Cooledge Home, comes from a certain Georg Kaufmann and reads: This house is mine, and not mine. Who for Me Commt it gets to be that way. I have been here. Who will lessen who has also been here.

City of Mormon

Beginning of 1839 bought the Mormons who fled from Missouri because of the persecution of their religious community, parts of the area and began to settle there. Your Prophet Joseph Smith, who was in Missouri in prison followed by later. The place was originally called commerce before Smith gave the name of the settlement of Nauvoo, what a Hebrew word for beautiful place is phonetically close. The name comes from Isaiah 52:7.

Significant parts of the controversial Mormon doctrines such as the doctrine of Ungeschaffenheit the intelligence of the majority of the gods ( Plurality of Gods ), the eternal progress ( Eternal Progress), polygamy, the dead baptism, and the other temple rituals, won their final form only in Nauvoo.

But the prosecution also went here on, Joseph Smith was murdered in 1844 in the prison of the neighboring city of Carthage, and in 1845 decided the Mormons, under its new leader Brigham Young to move to the west and to leave the United States, which at that time ended at the Mississippi quite. ( see Mormon Trail and Salt Lake City).

The city was 1840-1845 Church headquarters. Here also the second temple of the church was built. The Nauvoo Illinois Temple was completed in 1848, after the withdrawal of members of the church, heavily damaged by an arsonist and later destroyed by a tornado and used the stones to build other buildings in Nauvoo. He was recently rebuilt and re-consecrated in June 2002.

The place as Icaria

Of the Mormons, a group of French settlers acquired by the early socialists Étienne Cabet the settlement, to found a communist ideal settlement. In about the first seven years of the experiment seemed to be succeeding. At this time the now called Icaria place had more than 500 inhabitants and had a kindergarten, an infirmary and a laundry, a pharmacy and others. A Sunday university, which was dedicated to cultural and scientific topics, allowing a cultural life in the colony. It failed after a few years of internal disputes and financial problems.

Nauvoo today

Even today, have the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Community of Christ some historical places and buildings in Nauvoo, not least the houses in which Joseph Smith and Brigham Young lived. Today's inhabitants, however, are mostly Catholics, although the Mormons share increased again since the beginning of Tempelneuaufbaus.

Important products of the place were recently wine and cheese. One of the most important employer for decades was the Nauvoo Blue Cheese Factory, which produced a nationally known blue cheese. In 2003, this factory was closed, however.