Temple is latest chapter in book of Mormons here

As the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' new temple in Logan Circle opens for public viewing, consider Philadelphia's ties to early Mormon history.

Though the church was founded in New York and associated with Illinois and Utah, Philadelphia played a significant role in its early history.

Missionaries had reached Chester County and parts of central New Jersey by the 1830s. In 1839, the Philadelphia branch of the church was organized by Joseph Smith Jr. while returning from Washington, D.C.

Smith and fellow early converts met on the corner of Seventh and Callowhill Streets. The next month he addressed an audience of nearly 3,000 at the then-First Universalist Church of Christ, at Fourth and Lombard.

This was not the founding prophet and president's first trip to Pennsylvania. More than a decade earlier, Smith married Emma Hale, a native of Susquehanna County, where the betrothed also resided for a time.

In the 1840s, congregations of Mormons appeared throughout New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Mormon Lorenzo Barnes was nearly exhausted by "calls in every direction, on the right hand and on the left. . . . I can fill but a small part of the calls I have for preaching."

With more than 300 members at the time, Philadelphia had one of the largest branches of the church outside Nauvoo, Ill., the settlement where Smith himself presided.

Unlike the treatment Mormons encountered in other cities across the country, the reaction of Philadelphians to the group did not dissolve into violence and pogroms, though Mormons were harangued by many of the city's newspapermen.

Attempts by the press to censure the Philadelphia branch met a predictable fate. Mormon Samuel James believed that "the persecution has had a tendency to elicit inquiry, rather than suppress the truth."

In response, Philadelphia Mormons created one of the church's first independent periodicals, the Gospel Reflector.

Although never a Mormon himself, Thomas Leiper Kane, a Philadelphia lawyer and Union Civil War officer, was a longtime supporter of the church and friend of Mormon leader Brigham Young. Kane spoke at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania on March 25, 1850, delivering a discourse titled "The Mormons" in an attempt to dispel misconceptions and falsehoods about congregants and their faith.

Kane also served as a mediator during the so-called Utah-Mormon War from 1857-58, a dispute between Brigham Young and President James Buchanan.

Owing to internal schisms, a crisis of succession, and the pull of Mormons' gathering principle, many Philadelphia members would later migrate west.

However, the story of Mormons along the Delaware was far from over. The 61,000-square-foot granite temple on the northeast corner of Vine and North 18th Streets, which is now open for public viewing, is slated to serve more than 40,000 congregants in Southeast Pennsylvania, South Jersey, Delaware, and parts of Maryland.

The Historical Society of Pennsylvania's latest free document display explores Philadelphia's connections to early Mormon history, featuring letters from Joseph Smith Jr., Brigham Young, and more. Visit hsp.org/calendar to learn more.