The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1890-03-15
LATTER DAY SAINTS.
An Interesting Description Of the Sect


4
An Interesting Description of the Sect in
| Cecil County.
| A Baltimore daily in it's last Sunda,
edition contained an interesting descrip
ton of the Latter Day Saints, who, as
first stated in THE WING. are building
! chapel in this county at Baldwin's Sta
tion on the Philadelpha extension of the
| Baltimore and OHIO Railroad This is
the only colony of the kind in the State.
The new editice is a frame structure
eighteen by twenty-four feet. 1t is near
the Big Elk Creek and about three miles
west of the town of Newark, DEL, and
about the same distance north of Elkton.
The germs of the faith were implanted
in the minds of the parents and grand |
parents of the active members of the |
present congregation about half GEN.
fury ago by the emissares of Joseph |
Smith. 1t was when he was making |
things lively for the Gentiles in the vicin.
ity of Nauvoo, Ill. Just about fifty |
years ago two Mormon evangelists from
Nauvoo began preaching to the people |
in the neigh borhood of what was then |
known as the Elk Iron Works, which |
consisted of a rolling mill and other |
buildings on the big Elk Creek. mile |
or SO above where the chapel is now |
being built. Very few of the mill hands |
had had the benefit or early religious
training, and the same may be said of |
many of the other people of the neigh
| borhood, consequently large numbers |
of them flocked to hear the strange
doctrine which was expounded with |
much eloquence and great JUNCTION by |
the apostles of the new religion. Their |
earnestness and zeal brought forth fruit, |
| aud they soon had the pleasure of gather |
ing some fifteen or twenty converts of the |
Mormon faith. This was in the early |
days of Mormonism. before the licentious |
revelation IN regard toploygamy had been
made know to Joe Smith; and to do these |
early evangelists justice, 1t is probable
that they were honest and sincere in
verts were undoubtedly so, though
some of them lived lohg enough to be-
come heartily ashamed of their conuec
ton with the Mormon superstition, and
to repudiate in. This was notably the
case with one of the rolling mill hands,
who, afterwards joined the Methodist
Episcopal Churcn, became con
nected with the iron industry in
Cecil county, and died few years ago
possessed of fortune of SIS, 900. and
highly honored and respected by all who
knew him.
STORY OF BUNDLE OF SIN.
The early evangelists in this county
baptized by immersion and in accordance
with the usual formula of evangelical
denominations: that is to say, in the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Ghost, though 1t is said that
elsewhere they baptized Sin the name of
Joe Smith and the prophets"
A story is told by one Sam Ferguson,
long since dead, how one day, just sitter
u lot of Mormon converts had been bap
tized in the rolling mill dam, the water
wheel which drove the machinery i'll the
mill suddenly stopped, and he and fell
low workman were obliged TO use
stout crowd in freeing the water wheel
from a huge bundle of sin which had
lodged between it and the wood work of
the forebay.
In the midst of the popularity and pros
perity which followed the efforts of the
early Mormon evangelists aud just at the
time when many of their converts were
about to start for the New Jerusalem, as
they called Nauvoo, the startling intelli-
gence OF the shooting of Joe Smith was |
received. This occurred June 81, 1874, |
and was soon followed by the hegira to
Salt Lake. For period of about four |
years the congregation on the Big Elk |
was without any one to eXpound the |
mysteries of the book of Mormon, or to |
unravel the prophecies concerning the |
Nephites and Samanltes, which were |
written on the golden plates delivered by |
Mormon to his son Moroni. And SO the |
infant church languished, but continued |
TO live sickly sort of life until about |
1S47, when the Mormons having found
refuge in the sterile wilderness that sur
rounds Salt Luke, and the church having
to some extent regdined its exhausted |
energy, sent forth lot of fresh evan
gelists.
Some of evangelsts soon found the
congregation on the Big Elk, but. much |
to their chagrin, they were followed |
by the evangellsts of one Strang, who |
claimed that a short time after Joe |
Smiths death an angel appeared. and |
delivered to him silver plate full of
mysterious hleroglyphics, which. when |
translated into plain English (Which he |
was enabled by the power of the Holy |
Ghost to do), was commission authoriz
ing him to act as the only true and law
full successor of the murdered prophet.
The Strangites made no converts. |
Notwithstanding the warning of the |
enthusiastic Yankee, in the summer OF
1851, the heads of some five or six fami |
lies, including in the aggregate about
thirty persons, sold their farm and start |
ed for Salt Lake City. A majority of
those who started for Salt Lake heard |
such discouraging accounts of the evil |
deeds of their brethren at NauvOo that |
they concluded to stop short of the |
New Jerusalem and settled in Iowa and |
others of the Northwestern States. One |
of them, however, reached Salt Lake |
safely but is said to have left the faith, |
and is now living in Salt Lake, a well to
do and prosperous gentle.
| CREED OF THE CECIL COUNTY SECT.
| At L,moni, Decatur County, Iowa, a
new church Was established. aud its
doc Tines have spread all over the
county The word "Mormonism" was
condemned, as well as its ploygamous
features and its Endowment House oath. |
| The sect of Cecil county is branch of