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Published: January 13th 2008
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Superintendents house
Keokuk national cemetary Obfuscator writes: Our inventory is now two bricks richer. Yes. Bricks.
We began our dreary day in Keokuk, where we had found a motel in the previous night. We drove down the main drag and passed a lot of very confusing signs about which things were which way. Eventually we found ourselves by the Keokuk National Cemetery, which I guess got put there because of a big Civil War Hospital in the town. Like other National Cemeteries, it has lots of orderly rows of more or less identical, military issue headstones. There were a couple of Congressional Medal of Honor winners whose headstones stood out a bit, and a Major with a huge headstone for no apparent reason. Interestingly, there were also some unknown soldier graves and one marked “Indian Child.” The National Cemetery was right next to a regular cemetery, which was far less orderly, but had some neat looking graves. Since both were built on a hill, there was some lovely landscaping and cool terraced views.
We went from there down to the riverfront to see a statue of Keokuk and their park. As I understand it, Keokuk fought the Americans in the War of 1812, but
later made peace and resettled, unlike Blackhawk, who kept fighting. While Blackhawk's tenacity was admirable, one can't help but think that Keokuk probably made the more prudent choice. Keokuk looks out across the Mississippi, and has a nice looking park behind him, though since it was grey and wet, we didn't spend much time there. The rest of the town looked like it might look pretty nice on a sunnier day.
From Keokuk, we crossed over into Illinois, and headed a bit north to Nauvoo. Since Onaxthiel and I both have LDS friends, and had heard a lot about the town, we figured we should check it out as long as we were in the area for it. We both knew there was an important Mormon temple there, but what I think neither of us appreciated is just how much other stuff there is in the town. Keep in mind that the population of the town according to the signs outside it, is just over 1000, It seems like a massive part of the town is wholly owned by the Mormon Church. I guess they've bought up as much of it as they could for restoration, and they've done
a great job.
Joseph Smith and his brother Hyram were killed by a mob in nearby Carthage 1844, while they were in a jail awaiting a trial on charges of treason. Since there was such animosity toward them, their bodies were initially secretly buried apart from their coffins, and were moved several times since that time. Now Joseph Smith (supposedly) lies in a well marked grave in Nauvoo, along with his family. The town also boasts a bunch of neat historic buildings, including Smith's home and those of other early Mormons. There's a great visitor's center, where really friendly folks on mission will tell you all you could possibly want to know about Nauvoo, Mormonism, or whatever. In the visitor's center, we also got to watch a neat and well made film about the life of Joseph Smith.
When we left the visitor's center, we headed over to a building that had caught our eye earlier, which was the home of Jonathon Browning, the creator of many early repeating firearms. Apparently he moved to Nauvoo fairly early in his life, converted, and remained a dedicated Mormon and gunmaker for years. They have what's left of his original home,
Sunstone, used a the top of the capitals around the temple at Nauvoo
One of very few photos of the town, as the LDS don't want many photos taken at the site. as well as some rebuilt workshops and such, where guides will happily tell you all about gunsmithing in the 1840s. Nearby they also had a brickyard that we stopped at. Apparently at its height in the 40s, Nauvoo was in competition with Chicago for Illinois' largest city, and had five brickyards, and a heck of a lot of other industry going on. They've restored one, and still make bricks in it for the benefit of Mormons and other tourists who want to learn about such things. There were a couple of really nice older gentlemen working there when we arrived who were all too happy to show us exactly how they make the clay, mold the bricks, dry them out, and fire them. Now of course, they're not doing it for construction, but rather just make little souvenir bricks with a Nauvoo stamp on them for people like us, but thus we ended up with two bricks.
Of course, you can't visit something like this without being proselytized a bit, but the folks there are very respectful of other beliefs as well, and are delightful and polite. They're eager to show you as much as you care to see,
so if you find yourself down by Nauvoo, and are curious about their faith or just about the lives of pioneers, I think we can both highly recommend stopping here.
By the time we left the brickyard, it had started raining. Since we don't like rain much, we decided it was time to go, though I think we could have spent a lot more time there. We stopped briefly to drive around the huge temple, and snapped a couple of pictures of it, before heading north and back across into Iowa to see the town of Fort Madison. The Mississippi is really lovely all along these routes, I should mention. It was still raining when we got to Fort Madison, and the fort was closed anyway, but it was pretty neat looking. We stopped in a little diner and ate some burgers, before driving down into Missouri, where we found a motel in Hannibal to stop at for the night.
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