Shortly after Joseph moved to Far West, Missouri, in March 1838, the Lord commanded him that “other places should be appointed for stakes in the regions round about” (see section 115). Anticipating that large numbers of Saints would gather to the area from Ohio, Canada, and elsewhere, Joseph and other leaders set off to explore Daviess County “for the purpose of . . . making Locations & laying claims for the gathering of the Saints for the benefit of the poor.”1 Near Lyman Wight’s home, Joseph revealed section 116.
Orson Pratt inserted the words “Spring Hill is named by the Lord Adam-ondi-Ahman” when he included this statement in the 1876 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants. The original entry in Joseph’s journal, made by his secretary George Robinson, reads: “Spring Hill a name appropriated by the bretheren present, But afterwards named by the mouth of [the] Lord and was called Adam Ondi Awmen, because said he it is the place where Adam shall come to visit his people, or the Ancient of days shall sit as spoken of by Daniel the Prophet.”2
Section 116 links the past with the future, sacred history with prophecy. Adam-ondi-Ahman is a place Adam and Eve went after being expelled from Eden’s garden. They offered sacrifices and blessed their posterity there. Joseph learned by revelation in 1831 that Adam, prior to his death, gathered his posterity in a valley called Adam-ondi-Ahman and blessed them and they blessed him. The Lord appeared to them and promised Adam that he would preside over a multitude of nations. Adam rose and, though aged, prophesied what would happen to his posterity (D&C 78:15–16 and 107:53–56).
Section 116 identifies the specific site of that impressive occasion and says that the site will host a future meeting. Adam, or the Ancient of Days, as Daniel called him, will again gather his righteous posterity there, possibly for the sacrament and stewardship meeting prophesied in section 27.
Approximately fifteen hundred Latter-day Saints settled at Adam-ondi-Ahman in 1838. They planned a temple. They laid out a stake in obedience to section 115. They obeyed the law of consecration in obedience to section 119.3 They were driven from the land later that year when Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs issued an executive “extermination” order that effectively enabled Missourians to steal the land by preventing the Saints from asserting their preemption rights. Even so, because of section 116, the Church has quietly acquired and preserved the sacred site.
1. “Journal, March–September 1838,” p. 42, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed December 2, 2020.
2. See Daniel chapter 7.
3. Robert J. Matthews, Adam-ondi-Ahman,” BYU Studies 13:1 (1972): 27–35; Leland H. Gentry, “Adam-ondi-Ahman: A Brief Historical Survey,” BYU Studies 13:4 (1973): 553–76.
From Doctrine and Covenants Minute
In spring 1838, more and more Latter-day Saints continued to stream into Caldwell County in Northwest Missouri, the new gathering place for the Church. During this time Church leaders identified between “forty and fifty locations” north of the Church headquarters at Far West for possible settlement.1 About a year earlier, Lyman Wight had traveled about twenty-five miles to the north of Far West, Missouri. Wight built a cabin and established a ferry near the Grand River in Daviess County at a place called Spring Hill. In mid-May of 1838, Joseph Smith traveled with a company of Church leaders to Wight’s settlement at Spring Hill, where they laid out a plan for a city.
Doctrine and Covenants 116 is an excerpt from Joseph Smith’s journal, recorded on May 19, 1838. The entire entry for the day reads as follows:
<19 sat> The next morning we struck our tents, and marched [and] crossed Grand river at the mouth of Honey Creek at a place called Nelsons ferry, Grand River is a large[,] beautiful[,] deep[,] and rapid stream and will undoubtedly admit of steamboat and other water craft navigation, and at the mouth of honey creek is a splendid harbor for the safety of such crafts, and also for landing freight[.] We next kept up the river mostly in the timber for ten miles, until we came to Col. Lyman Wight’s, who lives at the foot of Tower Hill, a name appropriated by President Smith, in consequence of the remains of an old Nephitish Altar an[d] Tower, where we camped for the sabbath, In the after part of the day, Presidents Smith and Rigdon and myself, went to Wights. Ferry about a half mile from this place up the river, for the purpose of selecting and laying claims to [a] city plot near said Ferry, in Davis [Daviess] County Township 60, Range 27 & 28, and Sections 25, 36, 31, 30, which was called Spring Hill[,] a name appropriated by the brethren present, But after wards named by the mouth of [the] Lord and was called Adam Ondi Awmen [Adam-ondi-Ahman], because said he[,] it is the place where Adam shall come to visit his people, or the Ancient of days shall sit as spoken of by Daniel the Prophet.2
The journal excerpt, which includes Doctrine and Covenants 116, was printed as part of the multivolume History of the Church. Acting under the direction of Brigham Young, Orson Pratt extracted the revelatory part of the journal excerpt and included it in the 1876 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants.3
See “Historical Introduction,” Journal, March–September 1838, pp. 43–44, JSP.
1. Lyndon W. Cook, The Revelations of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 1985, 228.
2. JS Journal, March–September 1838, pp. 43–44, JSP.
3. Robert J. Woodford, Historical Development of the Doctrine and Covenants, 1974, 1518.
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