Mark Twain - Nauvoo

Monday we headed to Washington Park in Quincy, Illinois.  We found out it was the site of the 6th Lincoln-Douglas debate, the one that centered around slavery!

 

We were looking for this marker, also located in that park

 

We then headed to Hannibal, Missouri

To see all things Mark Twain!

 

We saw the boyhood home and museum, which included quite a lot

The museum told about his life, his family, and background.  Also, when he took the pen name Mark Twain (real name: Samuel Clemens), it literally meant "12 feet deep" as a water measurement on the river.  I wonder what other people thought of that pen name, in that day and age? Maybe as silly as Lemony Snicket?

A reconstructed home on the site where the real Huck Finn's house stood

Becky Thatcher's house

The offices of Samuel Clemens' father

The boyhood home and a reconstructed "Tom Sawyer fence"

The museum had exhibits about Twain's books, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Roughing It, Innocents Abroad, Huckleberry Finn. 

Before we left Hannibal we drove past the Unsinkable Molly Brown's birthplace.  It was closed so we didn't get to take a tour.

We headed back into Illinois!

And a corner of Iowa!

And then back into Illinois

We drove up the Great River Road and Lincoln Heritage Trail toward Nauvoo, Illinois

See all that green out in the river? It's a whole lot of lily pads!

 

Our first stop was to see the temple and walk around the grounds

This was a pioneer-era temple that was destroyed with nothing remaining.  It was rebuilt in 2002

The temple was reconstructed as faithfully as possible to the original for the exterior--a nod to the stonecutter's chisel marks on the exterior stone

Tuesday we went to the Nauvoo Temple to do baptisms and since it is next door to a Catholic church, there were a lot of these signs posted up and down the street

That night, we saw the Nauvoo Pageant

We had gone down after the temple, around 2 p.m., to reserve seats.  They have this nifty contraption set up.  It is as wide, across the top, as one seat.  There is red twine sitting in the box, you measure out enough twine for how many seats you need. 

 

Then there's a spot to cut the twine with, right there!

 

You fill out a card, punch holes in it to thread it on to the twine

And off you go, to find seats to reserve!

It was really nice because we didn't have to go down early to get seats.  This was our view for the night's performance

 

Since the pageant is all about the early church and settling of Nauvoo, plus building the temple, near the end the "temple" rose on stage

 

The bugs sure liked the stage lighting, it made for a pretty cool photo!

 

At the very end of the pageant, the temple on stage disappeared and the real temple was lit up in the background

 

Wednesday we had a lazy day in camp, that night we went to the British Pageant.  We reserved seats again and went down right before the show.

 

I always find it interesting how they repurpose a stage for different things. This pageant was originally started in England, almost a decade ago.  At the very beginning it talks about early reformers that helped get the bible translated to English and then moves to the early 1800s when LDS missionaries went to England and the successes and hardships they had.

Since many of the converts in England came to the U.S., they had a ship rise on stage near the end.

But at the very end, they had all the currently serving missionaries come up on stage as they all sang, "Called to Serve".  I think I liked this pageant better than the Nauvoo pageant, mostly because they used a lot more music in this one--including snippets as a nod to the nations that make up the United Kingdom and a lot of hymns snippets.

Thursday I went for a walk in the morning and walked down Parley Street--this was the street the Mormon pioneers walked down as they left Nauvoo, headed West to what eventually became Utah.

It is called the Trail of Hope, because they hoped to find a place without religious persecution

At the end was this statue plus a memorial to those who died on the trail

This is what the end of Parley Street looks like--it's the river. It was frozen over when the pioneers left, enabling them to leave

Friday we headed out.  We saw the Old Nauvoo Burial Grounds first

And a frog! (Look closely!)

We have seen these signs a lot in the Midwest (reminiscent of Burma Shave)

We made it back to Missouri!

 

We headed to Bowling Green, Missouri

 

We saw some Amish at Walmart

They had special horse and buggy parking at Walmart which was really nice

We didn't go to Mexico, but drove through Louisiana (Missouri, that is!)

And ended up in Florida! 

Mark Twain's birthplace was Florida, Missouri

The actual home is located at the Mark Twain State Park--free admission!

 

We headed to Marceline next

It is not where Walt Disney was born, but it was the town he considered to be his hometown

It was too late in the day for us to see the museum

 

We hit 80,000 miles on our motorhome today! We have put about 40,000 on it with this trip and we still haven't seen the entire U.S.! 

Saturday we stopped at the J.C. Penney Memorial Museum, located in the local library in Hamilton, Missouri

Lots of J.C. Penney memorabilia

And a walk down memory lane--catalogs we could thumb through!

We also learned something interesting: Penney's grandparents came to Missouri precisely because the Mormons were leaving and their properties (already developed) were up for grabs!

 

We saw a lot of Mormon history sites the rest of the day. Mound Grove Cemetery had a Zion's Camp marker, plus graves of three presidents of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints--Joseph Smith III (Joseph Smith Jr.'s son), Israel Smith, and Frederick Smith. 

 

We followed a few historic trail routes during the day too

We saw a monument to the eight witnesses of the Book of Mormon

Liberty Jail, where Joseph Smith was jailed for 4 1/2 months around the time that the Missouri governor issued an "extermination order" to drive the Mormons out of Missouri

This was just a reconstruction, but this was the original site of the jail

 

We found Hiram Page's grave in the middle of nowhere

David Whitmer's in Richmond, Missouri

Along with another site of a jail where Joseph Smith was imprisoned

The monument to the three witnesses of the Book of Mormon in the Richmond Pioneer Cemetery

Where we discovered one of the coolest ways to preserve old and broken headstones! 

 

Our last stop of the day put us firmly on the Santa Fe trail

Right by a Madonna of the Trail!

 

It was also the site of a Trail of Death, as native peoples were pushed off their lands

Today we attended the Blue Springs 2nd Ward, Independence Missouri Stake