Scott Woodward: From the history we’ve covered in this series so far, we know that the succession plan of having the most senior apostle become the next church president took time to develop and wasn’t fully fleshed out in Joseph Smith’s lifetime. In fact, it was during the decades of President Brigham Young’s presidency that this plan was ultimately finalized—well, mostly. It turns out that prior to President John Taylor’s death, there was one young apostle who challenged this plan of succession one last time. In today’s episode of Church History Matters, we walk through this history and talk about how Apostle Wilford Woodruff settled this issue once and for all. We’ll also talk about the pivotal sacred experience Lorenzo Snow had following Wilford Woodruff’s passing, which established the pattern we follow today of reorganizing the First Presidency immediately after a church president’s death. I’m Scott Woodward, and my co-host is Casey Griffiths, and today Casey and I dive into our sixth episode in this series about succession in the presidency. Hello, Casey. 

Casey Griffiths: Hello, once again, Scott. Here we are. 

Scott Woodward: We made it to yet another episode. 

Casey Griffiths: Yet another episode in a series that—this is my jam. Can I just say that? Like, I like church government. I’m kind of, like, a policy wonk when it comes to stuff like this. 

Scott Woodward: Is that a technical term? Policy wonk. 

Casey Griffiths: It’s a technical term. It’s like one of those nerdy guys who, you know, you see walking around the White House that’s like, “Actually, this is the historical precedent for this and this and this.” 

Scott Woodward: “Actually . . .” 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. So I just like this stuff. 

Scott Woodward: Your policy wonkiness is contagious. 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, and I want to point out here, too, that we are stealing from some of the best policy wonks in the history of the church. There’s a great book, if you can find it, by Reed Durham called Succession in the Presidency that’s just awesome. It’s, like, old school, but it’s really awesome. We’re also going from a guy named Ed Lyman, who wrote a great article called “Succession by Seniority.” It’s in the Journal of Mormon History. None of these are hard to find. Go ahead and look them up. We’re also going off our old friend Ron Walker. Ron Walker, before he passed away, he’s passed away now, was working on a biography of Heber J. Grant and got access to Heber J. Grant’s journals and wrote a really great book called Qualities that Count that talks a little bit about this. And the last one I want to mention is a little article that showed up a long, long time ago. It’s, like, almost 40 years old. 

Scott Woodward: Okay. 

Casey Griffiths: It’s by a guy named Stephen Heath, and I don’t know if Stephen’s still with us or not, but it’s just called “Notes on Apostolic Succession.” It was in Dialogue way, way back in, like, 1970, and it is awesome. Like, such a good article. Only goes up to Joseph Fielding Smith, because that’s where they were back then, so it’s fifty years old, but it is so comprehensive and written in a day and age when they didn’t have Google or the internet. It’s pretty impressive what these guys did, so . . . 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: We’re working off some of the greats here when we’re doing this.

Scott Woodward: Standing on the shoulders of giants here. 

Casey Griffiths: On the shoulders of giants, yes. 

Scott Woodward: Excellent. So let’s continue, then. 

Casey Griffiths: Okay. Just to introduce this a little bit, we’ve been through basically the Brigham Young succession after Joseph Smith’s death. We’ve been through the John Taylor succession, and both of these were a little bumpy, especially Brigham Young. Some of the most dramatic days in the history of the church, but these were important, right? They worked out a couple things, like when the president of the church dies, the senior apostle, the most senior apostle, takes over the church. It’s the whole Gordon B. Hinckley rule that you get made a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, you outlive everybody else.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: John Taylor and others follow up. John Taylor’s succession was a little bumpy, but less so than Brigham Young’s. It took him three years also to reorganize the First Presidency, but when John Taylor passes away, you think, “Okay, we’ve done this twice. We’re good to go,” but there’s still some bumpiness that happens.

Scott Woodward: Precedent should be set now. 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. And part of it comes from the fact that most of the apostles who knew Joseph Smith personally and served with him in church leadership positions have passed away. Wilford Woodruff is one of the last apostles ordained by Joseph Smith. Lorenzo Snow, who we’re also talking about today, knows Joseph Smith but isn’t an apostle, or isn’t called as an apostle by Joseph Smith, and then there’s this young generation of whippersnappers that comes up through the ranks that have all these questions about how succession’s supposed to work. And, eh, it’s such a generational “Why are we doing it this way? We could be doing it this way” that kind of happens. 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: And these young apostles, this next generation, does kind of raise some serious challenges to the process of succession, which had only been done twice at this point, but through a series of events, some of them which are very human and some which are very divine, the succession process is finalized in the church by—I’m going to say by Lorenzo Snow we pretty much have the smooth process that members of the church are familiar with today. Because if the current president of the church passed away, we’d have a little drama just saying goodbye to someone that we love, but there wouldn’t be a lot of drama over who’s going to be next, who’s going to be chosen. 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: The process would kick into motion, and within about two weeks we would have a new president of the church and a new First Presidency. So . . . 

Scott Woodward: Yep. 

Casey Griffiths: That’s a little bit different. 

Scott Woodward: Everybody knows what’s going to happen— 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. 

Scott Woodward: —after the president of the church dies. There’s no qualms about that anymore. 

Casey Griffiths: Nope. 

Scott Woodward: But this was not always so.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: And that’s what we have been talking about this entire series. In fact, let me just do a quick recap. We started out with the most major qualms that happened after the death of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, and we laid out in our first episode the eight different plausible paths of succession, which were based on the teachings, revelations, or actions of Joseph Smith, to one degree or another, and that was by far the most bumpy, the most rocky. 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. 

Scott Woodward: And our second episode we talked about the merits of Sidney Rigdon’s claims to the presidency versus that of Brigham Young and the Twelve. We did a little overview of Sidney’s life, how he started strong, but then his star began to fall. And as his star began to fall, that of the Twelve, led by Brigham Young, began to rise in the church. Crucial moments like the exodus out of Missouri, like the mission of the Twelve to England, and when it comes to this moment, this crisis moment of 1844, Sidney is not really trusted by Joseph. Joseph said that if Sidney led the church, he would drive it into the ground in less than five years. Meanwhile, we find out after the death of Joseph Smith, several of the Twelve begin to come forward with the strongest claim to succession of any of the contenders, I think, which is, earlier that spring, Joseph had conferred upon them the keys of the kingdom with an explicit charge to lead the church, should his enemies kill him. Like, that’s pretty good. 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. 

Scott Woodward: The problem with that is that it was a private meeting, right? This was not publicly known to the church until after Joseph’s death, and so that’s where there was still some wiggle room for some controversy. But that is, I think, the strongest claim. We have multiple people, multiple witnesses, not just the Twelve, but others who were there in the meeting, and we went through a lot of these in that episode talking about that claim of the Twelve Apostles. It’s not just the scripture in D&C 107 that says, the Twelve are equal with the First Presidency. It goes further than that to say, Joseph actually explicitly conferred upon them the keys and charged them to lead the church. So that’s pretty strong. That’s really strong. 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. 

Scott Woodward: And then, if that wasn’t enough to eliminate confusion on the issue, for the majority, at least, in our third episode we talked about the 8th of August, 1844 meeting, maybe one of the most consequential meetings in the history of the church, wouldn’t you say?

Casey Griffiths: Oh, yeah. 

Scott Woodward: This is the moment where Brigham Young was transfigured. As we have a bunch of sources, we talked about both the miracle of that and a little bit of the controversy behind that in terms of when that was recorded. So if you want to dig into that, go back to our episode three, but overwhelmingly, by the end of that meeting, after Brigham had spoken and there was some divine manifestation there that many saw, not everybody, but many saw, it was clear. The writing was on the wall. Brigham Young and the Twelve were to lead the church. About 10,000 of the saints in Nauvoo sustained them and are going to leave with them on the Exodus West. 

Casey Griffiths: And can I mention? 

Scott Woodward: Yes. 

Casey Griffiths: This is now a major motion picture. 

Scott Woodward: Oh, yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: The people that made the Witnesses movie on the three witnesses of the Book of Mormon a couple years ago have now made a movie about succession. It’s going to be called—I think it’s called Six Days in August, right? 

Scott Woodward: Six Days in August, yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. 

Scott Woodward: Days leading up to August 8th. That’s right. 

Casey Griffiths: Daniel Peterson’s involved in this. 

Scott Woodward: Yeah, Dan Peterson. 

Casey Griffiths: Dan’s a wonderful guy: just a super generous, kind guy. And so, yeah, you heard it here first, but go watch the movie. I mean, we haven’t seen the movie yet, so . . . 

Scott Woodward: The next major motion picture. 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. 

Scott Woodward: I look forward to it. In fact, I think I saw an ad for it, like, a day after we recorded our episode on that. I was like, hey! You don’t say. Daniel Peterson, good job on putting his thumb on the pulse of the most important early church history moments.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. 

Scott Woodward: Three witnesses, and now the six days in August. Way to go. 

Casey Griffiths: And we didn’t make this podcast in conjunction with the movie, but, I mean, I guess great minds think alike. So there we’re at. 

Scott Woodward: And so do ours. Now, we also talked about the aftermath with Sidney Rigdon. Things were intended to go smooth with Sidney from the Quorum of the Twelve’s perspective, but through a series of events, which we outlined in the next episode, Sidney was excommunicated just a month or so after that meeting in August, so that was sad. I don’t know what else to say about that. 

Casey Griffiths: We gave a very thorough account, but it’s sad. It’s sad. Sidney Rigdon was awesome, but . . . 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. But we also talked about the decision to reorganize the First Presidency after Brigham Young’s death and how he shuffled things around due to various circumstances in the lives of various apostles like Orson Hyde, Orson Pratt—we called it the Orson problem, but there were also a few other questions that were resolved regarding the question of seniority in the Twelve, and so a few really key things happened in Brigham Young’s administration relative to seniority in the Twelve, such as that the senior apostle becomes the president of the church, and the First Presidency could be reorganized at that point. 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. 

Scott Woodward: Also that seniority is determined by when a person is ordained and set apart in the quorum of the Twelve Apostles, not just ordained an apostle. That’s not normally a thing we need to worry about today, but there were in Brigham Young’s day what we called apostles at large, right? There were those who were apostles, but not members of the Twelve, and so that got sorted out in Brigham Young’s administration as well. It’s not when you become an apostle that marks your seniority, but when you enter the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, that’s the moment. That’s the mark of seniority. 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. 

Scott Woodward: And then that little nuance that solves the Orson problem was seniority is based on continuous service in the Quorum of the Twelve rather than just the day you came into the Quorum of the Twelve. So there’s, like, a nuance, and then there’s, like, a nuance of that nuance. But normally, again, those rules don’t really come into play much in our day, but it’s important as we’re looking at seniority. This isn’t without consequence, right, Casey? Because if Brigham doesn’t shuffle it, then John Taylor’s not the next prophet. 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. 

Scott Woodward: If he doesn’t shuffle it, Orson Hyde is, right? And then Orson Pratt would have been, and then John Taylor. And so this does affect who becomes president of the church, and who the president of the church is, we try to make a big point of this, actually matters in terms of what becomes of the church. 

Casey Griffiths: And I’ll add, it doesn’t seem like that was something that Brigham Young did in haste or because of conflict with the two Orsons. I think he loved and respected the two Orsons. 

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: But he did have a good—it seems like he thought about it for years. Other apostles had brought it up. And both Orsons went through a period of estrangement from the church. I mean . . . 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: If what had happened to them happened in the church today, they probably wouldn’t have been brought back into the Quorum of the Twelve— 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: —even if they had retained full membership in the church, so it must have been a huge bombshell at the time when he reorganized seniority, but looking back on it in hindsight, it’s surprising he didn’t do it sooner, and I think he was pretty well founded in taking that act. That’s all I’ll say. 

Scott Woodward: And neither of the Orsons put up any fuss— 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. 

Scott Woodward: —to what decision was made. They seemed to sustain it, and they moved on. We have no record of them really pushing back, so really interesting history, consequential history, a little bit nerdy, but we think it’s important nerdy. We think it’s nerdiness that matters, so . . . 

Casey Griffiths: Let’s embrace the nerdiness because this is really nerdy— 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: —but at the same time, too, I love these figures that we’re talking about. I just—Orson Pratt, man. Like, when I studied that, my feelings for him just deepened in that I was like, what an amazing guy. He had his problems, but— 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: —boy, he loved the gospel of Jesus Christ, and for that he should be commended.

Scott Woodward: A hundred percent. Yeah. These are—I think of Doctrine and Covenants 1, when the Lord says of his servants, including the apostles, he says that they are weak. That’s true. They are simple. Sometimes they even sin, and He rebukes them, and He says, yet it’s through them that I’m raising the warning voice to the world. God works with such people. So, yeah, as you study church history up close, you see this humanness kind of play out, but then the kind of the divine thread that kind of whispers underneath it all and brings things to the shape that we understand as our church history to get, for instance, John Taylor as president of the church, following Brigham Young, and then setting the precedent for all those who would become the president of the church thereafter.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. 

Scott Woodward: But today we want to talk about one more challenge by one more Apostle, actually a pair of Apostles, maybe a few Apostles here— 

Casey Griffiths: Maybe a few Apostles. 

Scott Woodward: —who want to challenge this. They want to challenge this just one more time, just testing the strength of this precedent that the senior Apostle becomes president of the church. 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. So let me set the scene here a little bit. John Taylor becomes president of the church during what is arguably the most turbulent period in the history of the church. 

Scott Woodward: Oh, yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: John Taylor becomes president of the church at a time when the battle between the saints and the United States government over the practice of plural marriage was reaching its climax, basically. So the United States government passed all this anti-polygamy legislation that forced the leaders of the church to go underground. That’s literally what happened. Like, John Taylor gets up in general conference and announces that he’s going underground, and for two years, the last two years of his presidency, he is in hiding.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: George Q. Cannon, a counselor in the First Presidency, gets chased by the feds and has to literally jump off a train. 

Scott Woodward: But they catch him anyways, right? 

Casey Griffiths: They catch him anyways, and they send him to jail. Joseph F. Smith has to leave the country. He goes to Hawaii, where he served his first mission. But this is a crazy time. Like, when people today say, ooh, the church is experiencing persecution, I’m like, we’re not experiencing a member of the First Presidency jumping off a train to get away from the feds levels of persecution. That was what was happening in John Taylor’s time. 

Scott Woodward: There’s not anti-LDS legislation in the U. S. Congress. Like . . . 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, that’s calling us out by name and seeking to seize church property. I mean, this was a crazy, crazy time. 

Scott Woodward: To grind us into oblivion, yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: Just to give you an example, during this time, General Conference was like Fight Club. Like, they would announce where general conference was going to be a couple hours beforehand, and then they’d show up. So general conference was held in, like, Colville and Provo and a number of different locations during this time, because the leaders of the church couldn’t publicly say, “We’re holding a general conference in Salt Lake at the tabernacle,” because if they showed up, they’d get arrested. So they’d hold general conference really quick, everybody would scatter, they’d get out of there before the feds caught them. 

Scott Woodward: So crazy. So crazy. 

Casey Griffiths: This crazy environment is what’s happening when John Taylor passes away. And so when John Taylor passes away, first of all, it takes a while just to regather everybody to even consider succession because all the apostles that practice plural marriage during this time are in hiding. They’re in various places. 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. And he dies in— 

Casey Griffiths: He dies in hiding. 

Scott Woodward: —in hiding, like, in Kaysville, Utah, right? Like . . . 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. It takes time for them to even get the word out that John Taylor has passed away. 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: And then to get everybody together. And the second thing is John Taylor’s passing leaves Wilford Woodruff as the senior apostle. Wilford Woodruff is kind of the last apostle that had been set apart, ordained while Joseph Smith was president of the church. There’s a whole new generation of apostles who are questioning the way things are done, and we teased this last time, but there’s one apostle in particular who wasn’t afraid to speak his mind, and one historian actually said this apostle presented, “perhaps the most serious known threat ever to the succession by seniority process.” 

Scott Woodward: Ooh! So one apostle, one apostle is threatening— 

Casey Griffiths: One man. 

Scott Woodward: —this succession by seniority process. Okay. 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. And the guy’s name, Scott, is . . . 

Scott Woodward: Heber Jeddy Grant. 

Casey Griffiths: Heber J. Grant! Can you believe that? Future president of the church, but he’s just a young whippersnapper that asks some tough questions and really presses his points here. And again, this is the assessment of Ed Lyman. Ed Lyman says it’s the most serious challenge to seniority by succession ever by an apostle in the church. So— 

Scott Woodward: Wow.

Casey Griffiths: —in order to move the next part of the story forward, we’ve got to know a little bit about Heber J. Grant. 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: So, Scott, give us some background on Heber J. Grant. 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. Let’s talk Heber J. Grant. So his experience in church leadership starts very, very young. I mean, he’s called as a stake president when he is 24 years old. I mean that’s so young. And then he also had this tendency to speak his mind as well. One episode in particular illustrates this. When he’s called as the president of the Tooele Stake, he overhears a man from the stake criticizing him because of his age. He also said, “It’s a pity that if the General Authorities have to send a man out here to preside, they couldn’t find one in Tooele County, and that they at least could have sent one with a sense enough to talk for at least ten minutes, and that they had to send a boy to preside over us.” Heber, who had just moved to Tooele at considerable personal expense to take this calling, he recalled thinking, “Well, that boy is the only one who has any right to complain,” he said. You think it’s hard for you guys? Think about me. His lack of experience was real. It was telling. It’s funny: when he would speak at stake conference, sometimes he’d run out of things to say after about seven minutes, which is awesome. Another fun story: while he’s eating lunch after he’d just become stake president, Joseph F. Smith, who was present there with John Taylor, who was then president of the church, he actually chastises Heber J. Grant because of something that he said in his stake conference. President Smith said, “Heber, you said you believe the gospel with all your heart and propose to live it, but you did not bear your testimony that you know it is true. Don’t you know absolutely that the gospel is true?” To which Heber J. Grant says, “I do not.” 

Casey Griffiths: This is one of my favorite stories. 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. Joseph F. Smith is, like, offended, at this. He turns to the prophet and says, “President Taylor, I am in favor of undoing this afternoon what we did this morning in making him the stake president.” He says, “I don’t think any man should preside over a stake who has not a perfect and abiding knowledge of the divinity of this work.” And then Heber says, “Well, I’m not going to complain.” Like, yeah, go ahead and undo it. That’d be fine. 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. Yeah. 

Scott Woodward: But when Heber recalls this story, he says that President Taylor had this habit of kind of shaking when he was laughing. His body started shaking and laughing, and he says to Joseph F. Smith, he says, “Joseph, Joseph, Joseph, Heber knows it just as well as you do. The only thing he does not know is that he does know it. You don’t need to worry.” So that’s pretty awesome. So you see the spunk in Heber J. Grant, right? Not many 24-year-olds would be willing to be like, yeah, go ahead and release me. I’m not going to complain. 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. 

Scott Woodward: And kind of, like, push back. Like, yeah, I don’t—I don’t know the gospel is true. I believe it with all my heart. I just don’t know it yet. But also some fun banter and interplay there with President Taylor as well, so . . . 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. It kills me that when Joseph F. Smith basically threatens him and says they’re going to remove him as stake president, his response is, “I’m not going to complain.”

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: Like, that just totally gets the, you know . . . 

Scott Woodward: The personality? Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. Yeah. 

Scott Woodward: So he’s stake president at 24, and then he’s called as an apostle at age 32, and he brings all of that spunk and forthrightness right along with him into the Quorum of the Twelve. 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. I should mention here that it’s not entirely unjustified what Heber J. Grant here does, so let me set the scene a little bit further. 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: When John Taylor dies, the federal government’s just passed all these laws, these draconian laws designed to strip the church of its property and rights. 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: And John Taylor’s underground, and honestly wasn’t seen publicly the last two years of his presidency, and the strain of living underground, of, you know, kind of being in hiding really took a toll on President Taylor’s health. 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: And because of this, many of the day-to-day operations of the church fell to one of President Taylor’s counselors, George Q. Cannon. And George Q. Cannon was also John Taylor’s nephew, and so there’s these charges that George Q. Cannon’s going too far, that he’s doing too much, and there’s suspicion among the members of the Twelve, including Heber J. Grant, that George Q. Cannon is kind of overstepping his boundaries here. Now, today, and we’ll talk a little bit about this in the next episode, it’s normal for when a president of the church starts to have declining health for a counselor to step up and do this. 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: But this had never really happened in the history of the church, and some of the apostles were just really sort of concerned that George Q. Cannon was taking too much control. And by the way, it’s not just Heber J. Grant: it seems like other people, like Francis Lyman, John Henry Smith, Moses Thatcher—these are all new apostles—some of them are sons of former apostles, like Francis Lyman, son of Amasa Lyman, John Henry Smith, the son of George A. Smith. But Moses Thatcher seems to be Heber’s wingman during this time—that were really, really concerned. They were really concerned. 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: And so, I mean, during this time, too, just to also set the scene further, only four church leaders could really appear in public. Lorenzo Snow and Franklin D. Richards could appear in public because they had already basically made their peace with the law by paying fines and serving jail sentences for practicing plural marriage. 

Scott Woodward: They’ve done their time. 

Casey Griffiths: They’ve done their time. Another was John W. Taylor, who was monogamous. He didn’t practice plural marriage, and Heber J. Grant, who everybody thought was monogamous, but he actually had entered into plural marriage, just not publicly during this time. So— 

Scott Woodward: Okay. 

Casey Griffiths: —Heber J. Grant’s married to two women, but it’s not publicly known. 

Scott Woodward: Okay. 

Casey Griffiths: And Heber basically was already sort of chafing a little bit, because he felt like there wasn’t a ton of communication among the members of the Quorum of the Twelve with the First Presidency.

Scott Woodward: Which, given the context of the times, makes sense. It’s understandable, but . . . 

Casey Griffiths: But it also seems like, according to Heber J. Grant, John Taylor was very reserved and sort of non-communicative. Like, Heber writes in his journal that he was worried if President Taylor was happy with his service, and I should mention that during this time, too, it was really different. Like, the Quorum of the Twelve sometimes didn’t meet regularly. The First Presidency did most of the things. A person like Wilford Woodruff could be sent to St. George to serve as president of the Temple there and not communicate with the First Presidency for several months. Them kind of getting suspicious that George Q. Cannon was overstepping his boundaries was understandable. It also seems like from some of the Apostles that kept journals during this time, George Q. Cannon sort of had a way about him that made them a little sort of not happy with him. 

Scott Woodward: A little sort of not happy. Okay. Like, what—yeah. Give us an example.

Casey Griffiths: Well, George Q. Cannon’s incredibly gifted. For example, one of the Apostles, John Henry Smith, wrote, “No man among us is as gifted as George Q. Cannon.”

Scott Woodward: Okay. 

Casey Griffiths: But another apostle, this is Brigham Young, Jr., this is Brigham Young’s son, said in his diary, “I do wish President Cannon would not impress me with my excessive littleness continually.”

Scott Woodward: Oh, geez. 

Casey Griffiths: He wrote, “While he is good and kind and his all is upon the altar, still he makes his brethren feel that he is too much their superior.” So they kind of felt like George Q. Cannon was kind of hoity toity, acted superior. Now, there’s other reasons, too. Like, George Q. Cannon has several kind of wayward sons. One of them, Frank Cannon, is later on going to leave the church and become an anti-Mormon. 

Scott Woodward: Oh, geez.

Casey Griffiths: But the one during this time that seemed like it was really bugging the apostles was John Q. Cannon. John Q. Cannon was a counselor in the presiding bishopric, but he also smoked, he drank, he gambled.

Scott Woodward: Okay. 

Casey Griffiths: Later was found out that he embezzled funds from the church. 

Scott Woodward: Gee. 

Casey Griffiths: And John Q. also got caught in an affair with a woman. Now, this happened because John Taylor just basically told George Q. that his son wasn’t worthy to enter into plural marriage. That’s John Q. 

Scott Woodward: Okay. 

Casey Griffiths: John Q. goes ahead anyway and has an affair— 

Scott Woodward: Oh. 

Casey Griffiths: —with this woman, gets her pregnant. 

Scott Woodward: Just, like, pretends to have a plural wife, but it’s not authorized. 

Casey Griffiths: Pretends to have a plural wife, but it’s not authorized. Gets her pregnant. and then publicly confesses over the pulpit in the Salt Lake Tabernacle. So— 

Scott Woodward: Why did he confess? 

Casey Griffiths: He was urged by his father. George Q. Cannon actually said, you did the wrong thing here. You need to publicly confess it, and he does, but in a very public setting, in a way that’s very, very embarrassing for the church. So George Q. has these sons that are out of control. I mean, he was dropped from the presiding bishopric, John Q. Cannon was, and excommunicated, and this raises concerns among the apostles, that, like, were these guys improperly placed into church leadership just because they were George Q.’s sons? Like these—is this nepotism?

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: Beyond that, there’s also some financial matters. There’s a financial affair on the Bullion Beck and Champion silver mine, which we could do a whole other episode on. It’s just a long story. 

Scott Woodward: The Bullion Beck and Champion silver mine. Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. Near present day Eureka. If you’ve ever been to Eureka, it’s an interesting place.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. Mining town, right? 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. Church leaders had urged a lot of people to invest in this, and it had major problems, and some people felt like when John Taylor passed, George Q. Cannon, who was John Taylor’s nephew, had improperly taken John Taylor’s shares in the mine. So there were financial issues that were really, really bugging these younger apostles, too. And Heber J. Grant is a finance guy. Like, he’s a businessman, and so money is one of the things that kind of involves him, and he felt like there was improper conduct that happened there. At the same time, because George Q. Cannon was pretty much President Taylor’s right hand man, and because he was high up in seniority as well, there were speculation that when John Taylor passed away, George Q. Cannon was going to try and seize leadership in the church. At the time, it was generally understood, we’d done it twice, the senior apostle would take over the leadership of the church, but it hadn’t been completely set in stone. And this and a number of other factors are why Heber J. Grant and this young generation of whippersnappers is kind of, like, pushing to say, hey, does the senior apostle have to become president of the church? And you get the feeling that it’s partly because they are suspicious of George Q. Cannon and they think that he’s making a bid to take over leadership of the church. So it seems like at this late point in time, which is 1887, succession wasn’t quite as settled as we sometimes act like it was, and the next person in line for succession, if we’re using the rule of seniority, which had been established at least a little bit by this time, is Wilford Woodruff. So some of the sparks fly when Heber J. Grant approaches Wilford Woodruff and starts asking him questions about succession. 

Scott Woodward: So there seems to be kind of concerns at two levels: so the first is, as you said, Heber J. Grant is wary of George Q. Cannon and his leadership style, and there’s some suspicions about some of the things that you outlined. His next concern, though, was Wilford Woodruff himself, not because of his integrity or anything like that, it’s just primarily his age. He’s 80 years old at this time, right? And so some of the younger apostles, like Heber J. Grant, appear to have been concerned about someone of that advanced age taking the reins of leadership of the church. And now 80, to you and me, Casey, that sounds young, right? Because President Nelson’s about to celebrate his 100th birthday. 

Casey Griffiths: 80 is just a kid, right? 

Scott Woodward: He’s just a pup. 

Casey Griffiths: 80 is young for us, yeah. 

Scott Woodward: But that was a concern, and you can understand that, right? So Heber, I mean, he shared the hope of many Latter-day Saints during this time as well that a member of the Smith family could again lead the church. And Heber J. Grant’s not the only one that hopes that a Smith leads the church again. In fact, after Brigham Young passes away, Daniel H. Wells, who was a counselor in the First Presidency, had actually spoken out very strongly in favor of Joseph F. Smith, son of Hyrum Smith, taking over leadership of the church. Wells had even said that he had received a revelation that Joseph F. would lead the church. Lorenzo Snow, Wilford Woodruff had also predicted that Joseph F. Smith would lead the church. Now, they all end up being right, but they may have meant immediately the next successor, or they may just have meant eventually, and the sources are a little unclear on that, but there’s kind of this hope that younger Joseph F. Smith would lead the church, right? And during those uncertain months leading up to John Taylor’s death, Heber actually travels to St. George, where Wilford Woodruff was hiding in the underground, and he actually seeks out Wilford Woodruff, who was his quorum president, and it appears from the record that he actually asked him directly if it was absolutely necessary for Wilford Woodruff to become church president, or might he help select another? I just imagine this moment, like, does it really need to be you? I’m not trying to, you know— 

Casey Griffiths: I know. I know. This is what kills me about Heber J. Grant. Like, to have the audacity to go up to the senior apostle who’s been serving for more than forty years and be like, do you necessarily have to be the leader of the church?

Scott Woodward: Is there any other way? 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. Two of the historians we’re drawing from here, Ed Lyman and Ron Walker, both make the statement that if he had done this with Brigham Young or John Taylor, he would have been smacked down, ecclesiastically. 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: But Wilford Woodruff is a very sweet guy. He’s very patient. 

Scott Woodward: Humble. Yeah. But it does appear, like, that Elder Woodruff was startled by Heber’s directness, frankness here. 

Casey Griffiths: Surprised. 

Scott Woodward: He actually declines to give an immediate response, but he says, I promise to write a letter. Give me some time to think about this, and I’ll write a letter explaining my position, which was very thoughtful to do. Rather than be reactionary, let’s gather our thoughts and explain ourselves clearly, so good job there. So he actually writes two letters on succession that become quite important, actually, in setting the precedents, kind of cementing the succession process. The first letter was written later on that very day that they talked, which was March 20, 1887. His reply is gentle, self-effacing, but it’s also pretty resolute, pretty determined. Let me quote a little bit: he started out by saying, “I do not expect to outlive the president of the church,” who was John Taylor at the time, but he insisted that if he did become the senior apostle, he would not step aside. He also told Heber that church succession involved, “plain truths as everlasting, unchangeable, and immovable as the pillars of heaven.” Wilford felt like the procedures for succession would not be altered until “the coming of the Son of Man.” He felt that since Joseph Smith had given the Twelve the keys of authority, it therefore followed that upon the death of any church president, the senior apostle was the president of the church and would therefore become the designated leader of the church. Now, apparently there had been some rumblings that the president of the Quorum of the Twelve and the president of the church could be two separate men, and so Wilford also offers this really gentle correction to Heber. He wrote, “I have full confidence to believe that the Twelve Apostles have had experience and light enough to shun any path pointed out to gratify the private interest of any man or set of men against the interest of the church.” So, I think we have enough light and experience to do the right thing collectively here, right, that will not harm the church. Well, so Heber shares that first letter with two other junior apostles, John Henry Smith and Francis M. Lyman, who both expressed full agreement with Elder Woodruff, but Heber J. Grant himself remained unpersuaded, interestingly. In fact, in his diary, he wrote that he was willing to sustain Wilford Woodruff as the leader of the church, but he did not yet believe that “the president of the apostles would automatically be made the president of the church.” Willing to go along with this, but I just don’t think this has to be this way, right? But then he starts to fraternize with Moses Thatcher, another younger apostle, and those two together, Casey, those two emerge believing that George Q. Cannon wanted the presidency. They became convinced that George Q. Cannon was angling at the presidency of the church, and so when word arrived that President Taylor had passed away, they believe that George Q. Cannon became even more determined, and then Heber J. Grant also learns new details about George Q. Cannon’s handling of his son John Q.’s affair that made his distrust in him grow. He even begins to feel resentment that Joseph F. Smith was sent to exile in Hawaii. I just have to say, if you’re going to be sent to exile anywhere, like, Hawaii sounds like a pretty nice place to be exiled.

Casey Griffiths: Not a bad place to be exiled, yeah. 

Scott Woodward: But Heber J. Grant starts to think that that was an unfair treatment of Joseph F. Smith. In fact, he’s so troubled about all this, he couldn’t sleep at night. He wrote in his journal, “President Cannon thinks I’m the most ambitious man in Utah,” but he says, “I think there’s no limit to his ambition.” Ah, shoot. So you kind of see a little window into the soul here of Heber J. Grant. He’s unsettled during this time. So over the next few weeks, Heber J. Grant actually meets with Wilford Woodruff four different times, one of those times with Moses Thatcher right there by his side, and he even becomes hopeful that Wilford Woodruff had no desire for the presidency, and so he might grant it to Joseph F. Smith if the quorum wanted that to happen, but historically, it doesn’t seem like President Woodruff offered him any encouragement in that direction, and he had, “no idea that such a thing would be done.” It seems like the major concern here appears to be his fears about George Q. Cannon, that he’s going to remain in the First Presidency and he’s going to start to exert, undue influence on President Woodruff, right? 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. 

Scott Woodward: So the Quorum of the Twelve meets in early August 1887 to formally sustain Wilford Woodruff as president of the church. At the same meeting, members of the Quorum asked some pretty hard questions about George Q. Cannon and his conduct, especially regarding his son John Q.’s affair. George Q. Cannon’s answers satisfied most people in the quorum, but Heber later wrote, “I am almost ashamed of myself that I did not stand in opposition to Cannon until I was satisfied.” I wish I wouldn’t have held back so much because I still have issues with him. But sensing that the Quorum of the Twelve remained unsettled on this issue, President Woodruff basically elected to not immediately reorganize the First Presidency at that time. He starts holding several meetings of the quorum in the months following, but he continues to be discouraged by the lack of unity. For instance, at one quorum meeting in October, President Woodruff reminded the apostles that all the leaders of the church have human qualities and that he at times had a differing opinion with President Taylor, but then he also warned that “If we did not feel to forgive and become united, the Spirit of the Lord would not be with us.” On some occasions those meetings became so intense that President Woodruff’s secretary, who’s named L. John Nuttall, he was stunned by what he heard. He wrote, “I never attended such a meeting.” Even Heber is surprised at what he saw in those meetings, observing that Moses Thatcher and George Q. Cannon engaged in an exchange, “not calculated to bring them any nearer together.” So there’s some strong feelings being expressed during this time— 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. 

Scott Woodward: —which is showing kind of a fracturing rather than a unifying happening in the quorum, which President Woodruff senses this, and so he chooses not to press the issue of reorganizing the First Presidency at that time. Instead, he actually waits nearly six months, until March 1888, when he then starts to convene several meetings of the Quorum of the Twelve, and in those meetings, President Woodruff announces his desire to reorganize the First Presidency, but there’s still deep divisions in the quorum. When they vote on Wilford Woodruff’s plan, on the one hand we have Lorenzo Snow; Franklin D. Richards; Brigham Young, Jr.; John W. Taylor; and Daniel H. Wells who vote in favor, but on the other hand, we have Erastus Snow, Moses Thatcher, Francis Lyman, John Henry Smith, and Heber J. Grant voting in opposition. Notice how the split is mostly between senior apostles and junior apostles here, right? 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. So it’s clear that the split is generational, other than Erastus Snow. These are all the junior apostles in the quorum, like, the bottom number in seniority, and they’re the ones that are really going after George Q. and feel really uncomfortable with his role, so— 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: —we’ve gone over some of the reasons, but do the minutes of this meeting say anything else about what they were so bothered about with George Q. Cannon? 

Scott Woodward: Yes. We have the reactions of several about just this disunity, and then, yeah, then we have some details about the George Q. Cannon concern. Because that seems to be what’s at the heart of it here, is that President Woodruff wants to have George Q. Cannon as the first counselor in the First Presidency, and there are several apostles who don’t feel comfortable with that. So, on the one hand, the senior apostle Brigham Young, Jr., he wrote that, “much valuable time is wasted in these comparatively groundless charges” against George Q. Cannon “and their generally successful refutation. I tremble for the future if we continue these unrighteous proceedings,” he said. And then President Woodruff also writes in his journal, “I called upon the quorum to bring to light all the accusations they had against Brother Cannon,” like, what’s the problem here, guys? “as the younger brethren, including Erastus Snow, was filled with jealousy against him.” But then President Woodruff says, “But he,” George Q. Cannon, “proved every accusation against him to be false. He was accused of using church money for his sons, John Q., for embezzling church money. He proved this to be false. Then he’s accused of paying large sums of church money in the iron mine, and that he also proved to be false. Also in dealing with the Beck mine, that was proved to be false.” I’m still quoting from President Woodruff. “And every other accusation was proved false.” And then he just concludes, “It was another painful day.” 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. And let me just add really quick Wilford Woodruff’s journal during this whole ordeal, especially these four days when they’re discussing this, is so revealing, that he just—he wants the quorum to be unified, and he doesn’t want to reorganize the First Presidency until everybody’s on board, but this is painful stuff. 

Scott Woodward: Brutal. 

Casey Griffiths: By the way, shout out to the Wilford Woodruff Papers, who have put President Woodruff’s journal entirely online. That’s where we’re getting these quotes from. You can go back and read his journal entries during this and kind of get his own perspective on it, where the disunity is painful, but he kind of feels like, they’ve got to have it out, or they’ll never be unified, essentially. 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: So this goes on for, like, four days, doesn’t it? 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. And President Woodruff can’t sleep during this time, and he laments. In fact, here’s another one: an entry from March 23, 1888. He says, “the more we tried to get together, the wider apart we were,” and then he gets specific, says, “Erastus Snow’s accusations against George Q. Cannon were bitter and false. Here we have spent four days in listening to the accusations of five apostles against George Q. Cannon, and six apostles sustained him. I never saw as much bitterness manifest against one good man by five apostles since the days of the apostate Twelve against the prophet Joseph in Kirtland, and all through jealousy.” Ooh. 

Casey Griffiths: Ooh, so that is rough. 

Scott Woodward: He’s likening this to the Kirtland apostasy. Wow. 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, and he’s there in Kirtland. This is when four apostles were excommunicated, and he’s comparing it to that, meaning this is pretty bad. Like, Wilford Woodruff is saying this is the worst it’s been since Kirtland. So yowch. 

Scott Woodward: And to his credit, he, after those four days of accusation and denial and et cetera, he actually withdraws his proposal to reorganize the First Presidency. Like, that’s it. He says, okay, we’re not doing this yet. And as it’s telling in George Q. Cannon’s journal, he recalled, “never in my life have I suffered such an ordeal.” Brigham Young, Jr. one of, again, one of the senior apostles, he seemed to have Heber J. Grant and Moses Thatcher in mind when he complained about “the useless talk engaged in by some of the younger members,” noting, “It does seem the less we know, the more we have to say.” 

Casey Griffiths: So this is rough. 

Scott Woodward: It’s rough. 

Casey Griffiths: This is rough. 

Scott Woodward: There’s not a resolution here. 

Casey Griffiths: They’re not questioning Wilford Woodruff’s leadership. In fact, it seems like most of them really liked Wilford Woodruff, but they don’t like George Q. Cannon, and they don’t want George Q. Cannon to be in the First Presidency, and during this time, Wilford Woodruff and George Q. Cannon are becoming close. Like, Wilford Woodruff is seeing, hey, George Q. Cannon knows everything that’s going on. I’m going to have to rely on him if I’m going to run the church. But, again, the split being between the senior apostles and the junior apostles has one exception, and that’s Erastus Snow. Erastus Snow is one of the more senior apostles, and it seems like he’s the leader of the opposition. He’s the one that is most forceful, and it seems like it’s because he was really bothered by John Q. Cannon, who you recall was in the presiding bishopric and had embezzled funds from the church, and so he’s leading the charge, but it seems like the two pit bulls that are serving under him are Heber J. Grant and Moses Thatcher. 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: To the point, we’ve already quoted this guy, but John Nuttall, who is Wilford Woodruff’s secretary, actually becomes really concerned over these two junior apostles, Heber J. Grant and Moses Thatcher. He writes, “I went to bed having fears in my own mind as to Moses Thatcher’s integrity for the welfare of the church and kingdom, in that financial matters have more weight with him and brother Heber J. Grant than the things of the kingdom.” 

Scott Woodward: Ooh. 

Casey Griffiths: So this venerable secretary of the First Presidency is basically saying, I don’t know if these guys are going to be okay. It seems like they’re so concerned with money, the things happening with the Bullion Beck mine and the things happening with John Q. and his financial handling of church materials that he’s worried these two are going to apostatize also. So after those really, really harsh meetings, those harsh four days where President Woodruff is like, man, this is the worst it’s been since the Kirtland apostasy, things do start to change, and it seems like Erastus Snow turns a corner after those meetings. 

Scott Woodward: And you’ll recall in the Kirtland apostasy, at the heart of much of the troubles was financial matters, right?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. 

Scott Woodward: That was at the heart of it. There were some apostles, actually, that were seeking after the things of this world more than the things of the kingdom. There were apostles who were being dishonest with money. And, of course, the Kirtland bank failure, on the other hand, there were people that were ticked because money had been lost that they had invested honestly, right? And anyway, so finances fractured the quorum significantly in Kirtland, and now it’s straining the quorum significantly in this episode here. 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. In those four days of meeting where President Woodruff just practically despairs, Erastus Snow afterwards appears to have realized, I might’ve gone too far when I did this. And he becomes especially worried that his behavior was leading two younger apostles, Heber J. Grant and Moses Thatcher, to go too far as well, so in the months between that meeting and the next time the quorum meets, he writes letters to Heber J. Grant and Moses Thatcher and says, I’m really sorry about how I acted, and I’m really concerned about both of you. In fact, the word he uses in one of the letters is that he felt the two of them were on a “spiritual precipice.” That’s the wording he uses. 

Scott Woodward: Yikes. 

Casey Griffiths: You guys are standing on the edge of the cliff, and he said, you’ve pressed your views a little too strongly, and if you continued in your present course, you might lose your place in the quorum. 

Scott Woodward: Wow. 

Casey Griffiths: And Heber J. Grant kept a pretty good journal, but during this time period, it’s a little sporadic, but it seems like what Erastus Snow had to say really affected him. He refers to it later on as a turning point in his life. In fact, a couple years later, in a private meeting, he says, “From that moment, I avoided Moses Thatcher as contagion, and when I got away from his influence, I could see that he was fast losing the Spirit, and that the course he was pursuing, which was the course I was pursuing also, until I was delivered from him, was right in opposition to the wishes of President Woodruff, Cannon, and Smith,” meaning Joseph F. Smith, “and it meant his downfall unless he repented.” So Heber J. Grant kind of has a moment where he comes to himself, where he realizes what he’s doing is spiritually dangerous. Unfortunately, Moses Thatcher doesn’t. 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: Moses Thatcher actually continues and does something that shocks everybody in the quorum, which is in late 1888, he actually threatens to sue George Q. Cannon over the Bullion Beck mine, and this horrifies the other members of the Quorum of the Twelve. 

Scott Woodward: Wow. 

Casey Griffiths: Like, imagine in our day if one apostle sued a member of the First Presidency— 

Scott Woodward: Right? 

Casey Griffiths: —what dysfunction that would represent. The other apostles are like, how did we get to this point? How did we go this far? And so during this time, Heber J. Grant actually goes to Moses Thatcher and tries to warn him also, and then he goes to George Q. Cannon and warns him that Moses Thatcher is coming after him. So he makes this complete 180 to where he’s going after George Q. Cannon just as much as Moses Thatcher, but now he’s worried about Moses Thatcher. He warns George Q. Cannon what Thatcher is planning to do. And this is kind of when it all comes together. This is when it all starts to fall into place. 

Scott Woodward: And credit needs to be given to President Woodruff during this time, who is allowing every person to have their say, right? And he’s waiting patiently for the quorum to achieve unity. As Ron Walker noted, he said, “A less patient man might have forced a greater confrontation and brought an open rupture. As you mentioned, Ed Lyman said that if Heber J. Grant had acted the way he did under the leadership of President Brigham Young or John Taylor, he might have been removed from his position in the Twelve, but— 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. 

Scott Woodward: —but Wilford Woodruff’s approach here is gentle, it’s patient, and he’s waiting for unity to coalesce, right? So a key moment is in January of 1889, where he calls once again to reorganize the First Presidency. He never wavered in his belief that the senior apostle should lead the church, and he never backs down in his support of having George Q. Cannon as his counselor. In fact, he even meets with Cannon and Moses Thatcher together. He asked them to resolve their differences, which is a great approach, but unfortunately it doesn’t work here. The two apostles do not resolve their issues fully, but Thatcher does, to his credit, back down from his threat to sue George Q. Cannon here. Then, fast forward on April 5, 1889, the quorum meets again, and the motion to reorganize the First Presidency passes unanimously, and when George Q. Cannon is nominated to serve as first counselor, he asks if he should be excused from serving, but President Woodruff says, no, I have prayed, and I’ve received the mind and will of the Lord that you should serve as first counselor and Joseph F. Smith as second counselor. Most members of the quorum expressed feelings of goodwill, congratulations, et cetera, except Moses Thatcher. He only grudgingly offered his approval. He said, “There has been some matters of Cannon’s former administration which have not been approved by the Saints, but I will let that pass.” But then he adds, “When I vote for him, I shall do so freely, and I will try and sustain him with all my might.” I’ll try to sustain him, he said. Afterwards, George Q. Cannon goes and speaks to each member of the Twelve personally and asked them for forgiveness if he’s offended them in any way or hurt them. So in the wake of this conflict, Casey, Heber J. Grant, we see him soften. We see him reform here. We see him seeking out George Q. Cannon and making peace with him. We see him confessing to members of the quorum that he had gone too far, and he starts seeking forgiveness from other members of the quorum. On the other hand, Moses Thatcher continues to become more and more alienated from the quorum. At times, he even publicly criticizes the leadership of the church. And so we see these two paths diverging here, right? They used to be united in their concerns. Heber J. Grant chooses the path of humility and forgiveness. Moses Thatcher continues to dig in deeper and chooses resentment, etc., and that’s going to lead him out of the Quorum of the Twelve, Casey, right?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. 

Scott Woodward: In 1896, he’s not excommunicated, but he is removed from the Quorum of the Twelve, and intriguingly, he’s allowed to retain his status as an apostle, since that’s actually an office in the priesthood. He retains his status as apostle, but is asked to step down from the acting quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Heber J. Grant even played a role in bringing the charges and acting as a witness against Thatcher there, so . . . 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. 

Scott Woodward: By the way, here, I mean, I think all of our listeners know, but Heber J. Grant becomes president of the church later on. 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. 

Scott Woodward: This is pivotal for him to come to some humility and harmony with the president of the church, with the First Presidency, and with his fellow members in the Twelve, and that’s going to lead him to being continually useful in the Quorum of the Twelve and eventually becoming president of the church. 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, and Moses Thatcher is another figure that, boy, we should spend some time on later on down the road. He’s dropped from the quorum because they issue what’s called the political manifesto, which is basically that leaders of the church won’t run for political office, and Thatcher wants to run for, I think, U. S. Senate, and publicly criticizes the leadership of the church, saying, you don’t have any right to tell me what to do, and he’s an apostle. And so they—it’s a signature of Wilford Woodruff’s leadership that, you know what, you can’t have this guy criticizing the church, so they remove him from the Quorum of the Twelve, but they don’t excommunicate him. He’s still faithful, and they keep him on as an apostle. And like I said, it’s a whole other saga, what goes on with Moses Thatcher, who’s an interesting, interesting character.

Scott Woodward: So he’s dropped from the Quorum not solely because of his umbrage at George Q. Cannon becoming a member of the First Presidency. It’s—this is a totally separate issue. 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. This is, like, six years after. It seems like from the records we have the quorum was really united in saying Moses Thatcher’s got to go. And I will point out that all of this was really painful, but this is the First Presidency and the Twelve that less than a year later issue the manifesto. They end plural marriage in the church. And so all of this kerfuffle and all of this effort to create unity was probably the Lord preparing them to make one of the most difficult moves in the history of the church, which is to end plural marriage, which is still controversial today. That’s the other big fracture point in church history. 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: So it’s clear Wilford Woodruff sees that the Quorum of the Twelve is not united. 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: And recognizing that and all the painful discussions it took to get them into a good place, early on in his presidency, he actually takes aside Lorenzo Snow, who’s serving as quorum president, George Q. Cannon I think was around, but he’s in the First Presidency, and he says, hey, I want you to work to unify the quorum, and you work on that, and he starts having the Quorum meet regularly. Lorenzo Snow has this—he follows Wilford Woodruff’s example in that he lets everybody have their say and makes sure that they’re listened to, that they have buy in, that they’re part of the discussions. That becomes valuable. 

Scott Woodward: And he’s the next senior apostle, right? He’s next in line to become the president of the church, Lorenzo Snow is. 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. So it seems like Wilford Woodruff is kind of saying, let’s take care of this now so that when you become president of the church, you’re not going to have to go through what I went through. Some amazing things happen. For instance, Wilford Woodruff instructs Lorenzo Snow several times to not delay. Again, we had a three-year delay with Brigham Young, three-year delay with John Taylor, two-year delay with Wilford Woodruff, but just go ahead and reorganize the First Presidency right away. And in 1898, when Wilford Woodruff does pass away, Lorenzo Snow has that instruction kind of weighing on him. Nobody’s done it before. 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: It’s taken no less than two to three years to reorganize the First Presidency. He’s kind of overwhelmed. And this is one of the coolest stories that I just think is really underappreciated when it comes to succession. So this is according to Lorenzo Snow’s son, LeRoi Snow, he’s the one that tells this story, and also, his granddaughter, Allison, is involved in this, too. He said that Lorenzo Snow dressed in his temple clothes, he goes to the Salt Lake Temple, he goes into the Holy of Holies, he kneels at the altar, he reminds the Lord that he had prayed for Wilford Woodruff to live. He didn’t want to lead the church. I prayed for President Woodruff to live, but now he’s gone, and that he never sought the burdens now placed on his shoulders. And then, according to LeRoi Snow, his prayer was, “Thy will be done. I now present myself before thee for thy guidance and instruction. I ask that thou wilt show me what thou wouldst have me do.” And then his son LeRoi writes, “After finishing his prayer, he expected a reply, some special manifestation from the Lord, so he waited and waited. There was no reply, no voice, no visitation, no manifestation. He left the altar and the room in great disappointment. He passed through the celestial room out into the large corridor leading to his own room, and then something happens, and this is kind of unique because the source here is Allison Snow, Allie Young Pond, who is his granddaughter, and she tells this story: she said, “One evening, while I was visiting Grandpa Snow in his room in the Salt Lake Temple, I remained until the doorkeepers had gone, and the night watchman had not yet come in, so Grandpa said he would take me to the main front entrance and let me out that way. He got his bunch of keys from his dresser. After we left his room, and while we were in the large corridor leading into the celestial room, I was walking several steps ahead of Grandpa when he stopped me and said, ‘Wait a moment, Allie. I want to tell you something. It was right here that the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to me at the time of the death of President Woodruff. He instructed me to go right ahead and reorganize the First Presidency at once and not wait, as had been done after the death of previous presidents, and that I was to succeed President Woodruff.’” So the Savior appears to him, and if I was Lorenzo Snow, I would have immediately called the apostles together and said, we got to do this because the Savior told me to do it. That’s not what he does, surprisingly. 

Scott Woodward: Now, by the way, is there any other source besides Allie Young on this? Because this seems to be really important. Do we have anyone else talking about this visitation? Did he ever tell anyone else? 

Casey Griffiths: Yes. Yes, he does. But let me explain the circumstances, okay? 

Scott Woodward: Yes, please. 

Casey Griffiths: So he does call together the Quorum of the Twelve, but he’s kind of cognizant of all the challenges in reorganizing the First Presidency with Brigham Young and John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff, and he’s really, really concerned about unity. Like, Wilford Woodruff told him to build unity. So he actually brings the apostles together. They meet in his office, and Francis M. Lyman, who’s one of these younger apostles who was kind of so feisty when they were reorganized in the First Presidency, says, “I feel impressed, although I am one of the younger members of the quorum, to say that I believe it would be pleasing in the sight of the Lord if the First Presidency of the Church was reorganized right here and right now. If I am in error regarding this impression, President Snow and the senior members of the Council can correct me.” So you can already see a huge shift in tone, right? 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: President Snow’s work to unify the quorum has made a huge difference. That evening President Snow gathers them together again, and he encourages them all to express themselves and how they feel about it, and if they should have the presidency reorganized. And then Heber J. Grant is the one that records this: he said, “When we had finished, then and not until then did Brother Snow tell us that he was instructed of the Lord in the temple the night after President Woodruff died to reorganize the First Presidency at once.” And so it’s only eleven days after Wilford Woodruff’s death that the First Presidency is reorganized, which is the pattern we still follow today. And this is huge to me because we’ve kind of been going through this saying, yeah, it’s sort of in the Doctrine and Covenants, but a lot of it’s precedent. They sort of stumbled with things like seniority and reorganizing the First Presidency. At times there wasn’t a ton of unity, but Wilford Woodruff really does the work to get everybody unified and then leads Lorenzo Snow to do it, and once they’re super unified, that’s when the Savior appears to Lorenzo Snow, and this, to me, is Jesus Christ endorsing the succession process: him saying, yeah, this is the right way to do it, and Lorenzo Snow is wise enough to not use that as a hammer against the other apostles. Instead, he guides them and says, how do you guys feel? And once they’ve achieved unity, that’s when he says, I’m glad you feel this way because the Savior feels this way, too. The Savior instructed me to do this, which this is huge, but for some reason, it doesn’t get talked about a lot when we discuss succession, because we tend to do so in an academic, secular context, and we don’t want to say things like “Jesus Christ appeared to the prophet,” but that’s what Lorenzo Snow, that’s what all the apostles are saying happened in this particular case. This is so huge that I’d be okay if we put this in the Doctrine and Covenants, but that’s not my job. 

Scott Woodward: Not your job. Yeah. What would we put in the Doctrine and Covenants? Would it be Allie Young Pond’s account, or . . . ? 

Casey Griffiths: I don’t know what we’d put—I mean, there’s sections of the Doctrine and Covenants that are experiences. They’re just usually by apostles and prophets. Maybe the minutes? I mean, section 102 are minutes of a meeting. 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: Maybe the minutes from this meeting where President Snow actually says, yeah, the Savior appeared to me and instructed me to do this, could kind of be a nice capstone on, and this is why we do succession the way we do it: Jesus Christ literally appeared and said, yeah, do it this way, and go ahead and reorganize the First Presidency right away, which pretty cool in my mind. 

Scott Woodward: Very cool. 

Casey Griffiths: So let’s try and put this all together. A lot of strands here. 

Scott Woodward: All right. So pulling this all together, then, maybe we could try to say it this way: that all those questions that have been swirling around about succession that church leaders had struggled with for more than, like, a half a century seem to be finally resolved in this episode, right? Especially, as you’re saying, the appearance of the Savior to Lorenzo Snow in 1898 seems to be a fitting capstone on the development of the succession process that takes place from 1844 all the way now to 1898. We have a divine manifestation in 1844 to get the Twelve as the proper successors of Joseph Smith here, and now we have another divine manifestation in 1898 to sort of round out this process. This doesn’t mean this is an end to adjustments and minor controversies regarding apostolic seniority in the process of succession, but it does seem to end the period of more volatile succession questions in church leadership. Is that a fair way to say it? 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. I think this resolves a lot of the major issues. There’s still some fine tuning and some really interesting stuff that happens after this, but it seems like this is the last major time that there was a lot of volatility among the leaders of the church about who the new leaders should be.

Scott Woodward: Yeah, so now instead of taking years to resolve the question about reorganizing the First Presidency, now it’s just going to take days. From this point forward, from Lorenzo Snow’s administration forward, the First Presidency will be reorganized within days or weeks. 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. 

Scott Woodward: And the other cool part of this whole story is that young apostle Heber J. Grant, who would have derailed the whole process of succession by senior apostle, ironically becomes church president later on in 1918, after Joseph F. Smith passes away, and he actually serves until 1945, Casey. Right? That’s longer than any other person had been president of the church except for Brigham Young.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, that’s right. And I also love that he takes over for the guy who rebuked him, that, like, basically said, you shouldn’t be a stake president if you don’t have a testimony. This is the guy who hands the reins of leadership to Heber J. Grant. So Heber J. Grant has an amazing journey here. 

Scott Woodward: Yeah. 

Casey Griffiths: He actually, this is a really special experience in Heber J. Grant’s life: so he shares this in General Conference, but he says, “The last words uttered by President Joseph F. Smith were to the effect, when he shook hands with me—he died that night—the Lord bless you, my boy. The Lord bless you. You have got a great responsibility. Always remember that this is the Lord’s work and not man’s. The Lord is greater than any man. He knows whom he wants to lead his church and never makes any mistake. The Lord bless you.” 

Scott Woodward: So from, I propose that this young 24-year-old is released from being a stake president to the Lord never makes a mistake about who he wants to lead this church: Heber J. Grant. 

Casey Griffiths: Yep. 

Scott Woodward: That’s a fun narrative arc right there. 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. 

Scott Woodward: Now, that being said, Casey, we do have the major questions of succession settled by the time of President Snow’s administration. However— 

Casey Griffiths: However. 

Scott Woodward: However, there are still a few twists and turns that we need to discuss next time as we talk about succession into the 20th century. 

Casey Griffiths: Yep. So that’s our tease for next time. There’s still going to be a couple twists and turns— 

Scott Woodward: Yes. 

Casey Griffiths: —as we go up to the current time, but, man, this is sort of the lost era of church history. I feel like we know what’s going on right now, and we know what happened with Joseph Smith and sort of Brigham Young, but this is a fascinating time, and such great people who genuinely want to do what’s right. It’s just a cool story. 

Scott Woodward: The Lord working through imperfect people to help build his kingdom in the way that he wants it. I love Joseph F. Smith’s confidence. The Lord never makes a mistake as to who he wants to lead this church. And yet, just like Wilford Woodruff, he was very gentle in allowing that to sort of bubble up. He’s not heavy handed. The Lord is never heavy handed. And he kind of lets them work this out. And that’s another important lesson about, I think, the nature of the Lord, the way he works with his servants on the earth. So many lessons we can learn from this history, so . . . 

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. 

Scott Woodward: Thanks for having the discussion.

Casey Griffiths: It’s nerdy. It’s nerdy, but it’s instructive. 

Scott Woodward: It’s instructive. Yes. Thank you for listening to this episode of Church History Matters. Next week Casey and I bring the history of succession in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints up to the present day as we cover a few remaining key lessons learned about succession during the 20th and 21st centuries. If you’re enjoying Church History Matters, we’d appreciate it if you could take a moment to subscribe, rate, review, and comment on the podcast. That makes us easier to find. Also, we’d love to hear your suggestions for future series on this podcast. If there’s a church history topic you think would be worth exploring for multiple episodes, send us your idea to podcasts@scripturecentral.org. We’ll consider all suggestions. Today’s episode was produced by Scott Woodward and edited by Nick Galieti and Scott Woodward, with show notes and transcript by Gabe Davis. Church History Matters is a podcast of Scripture Central, a nonprofit which exists to help build enduring faith in Jesus Christ by making Latter-day Saint scripture and church history accessible, comprehensible, and defensible to people everywhere. For more resources to enhance your gospel study, go to scripturecentral.org, where everything is available for free because of the generous donations of people like you. And while we try very hard to be historically and doctrinally accurate in what we say on this podcast, please remember that all views expressed in this and every episode are our views alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Scripture Central or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us.