Previously: The Utah War and an Impossible Cover-Up
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In response to the article, we're told that Ward released a statement that he had merely suggested ideas on the designs of the windows, and nothing more. From then on it was generally accepted that Truman Angell was the sole designer of the temple, but when you look a little closer, that isn't true either.
Ultimately, it was Brigham Young who is said to have come up with the design of the temple, with an implication that he received it by revelation:
Concerning this house [the SLT], I wish to say, if we are prospered we will soon show you the likeness of it, at least upon paper, and then if any man can make any improvements in it, or if he has faith enough to bring one of the old Nephites along, or an angel from heaven, and he can introduce improvements, he is at liberty to do so. But wait until I dictate, and construct it to the best of my ability, and according to the knowledge I possess, with the wisdom God shall give me, and with the assistance of my brethren; when these are exhausted, if any improvement can be made, all good men upon the earth are at liberty to introduce their improvements. (JD 1:278, emphasis added)
Interestingly, we're actually told by historians that it was Brigham Young that dictated plans for the first four temples in Utah, with architects merely adding improvements or drawing details in specific rooms. This implies that Brigham, trained only as a carpenter, received the plans by revelation. But ironically, we have quotes from Brigham Young stating that he wasn't a visionary man or had ever seen the Savior.
Furthermore, the Journal of Discourses, quoted above, is not an accurate or reliable source of history. The discourses were written in Pitman Shorthand, a technique used by scribes to attempt to record long sermons or speeches verbatim using strokes, dots, and marks to represent sounds and vowels.
According to modern researchers, most of the discourses found in the JD may have been very different than what was actually said at the pulpit. There is just no way to know for sure if the shorthand was accurate. And curiously, the man who is said to have recorded nearly all the early sermons in Utah was George D. Watt, the first ever English convert to the LDS Church.
Watt was baptized in 1837 in Liverpool, and is credited for recording about 235 sermons from Brigham Young, between 1854 and 1877.
This concept of linking so much history to one source (i.e., a scribe recording what he heard in Church meetings; a single historian writing multiple volumes of foundational history; a single 19th century architect credited for designing over 100 Old World buildings) follows a pattern that we see in what I believe is an AI-generated script.
Another example of this is the famous historian George Bancroft, who supposedly wrote a 10-volume series on the foundational history of the United States.
Another famous Bancroft was Hubert Howe Bancroft, who wrote 39 volumes on the history of North America. We are not told if the two Bancrofts were related, but so much foundational history of North America and specifically the American West are attributed to this one man. Watch the video below for more information:
We can also see this pattern within other aspects of LDS history. For instance, only one man, William Clayton, is the historical source linking Joseph Smith to D&C Section 132, as well as to Joseph’s supposed Freemasonic membership in the Nauvoo Lodge.
In regard to 19th century architects, we have William P. Ginther, who is given credit for designing 113 Old World buildings in the United States:
...God sendeth more witnesses and proveth all his words. (2 Nephi 8:2, RE)
In contrast, Satan does not prove his words, but rather relies on the one-man model, a clear pattern that contradicts the way God establishes truth.
Another pattern we see with architects and builders said to have been involved in the construction of Old World buildings is name repetition. The video below shows an example of this in the history of a courthouse in Texas:
The article in "The Contributor" mentioned above reads more like a description of an already-existing building than merely the plans for one. The description is long and I can't quote it here, but you can also find it in the appendix of the book, Everlasting Spires, available on kindle or hardback.
In 1855, the narrative has William Ward completing drawings for "the east elevation, a basement floor plan, and a section plan of the east entrance." He was also given an assignment from Truman Angell (because Angell felt unqualified to do so) to render a "perspective study of the building." C. Nina Hamilton further explains that:
The drawing was so well received that Truman Angell had it varnished, framed, and presented to the president [Brigham Young] to be hung in his office (the Governor's Office). After William completed the perspective study in August, Brigham Young temporarily removed him from the Temple project to retain his artistic talents through the winter of 1855-56 to paint the Old Endowment House. (The Salt Lake Temple: A Monument to the People, pp. 51-52)
The rendered "perspective study" of the building is shown below:
One of the assignments given to William Ward was to sculpt a mural representing the Utah Territory (known then as Deseret) that would be placed on the Washington Monument:
The mural features the beehive, the all-seeing eye, and a masonic handshake, symbolism denoting that the true narrators, and writers of this scripted history, are secret societies creating a cover story to hide the truth.
You will often find these symbols in the narratives of Old World buildings. This is because, in my opinion, they have to leave their trademark symbols hiding in plain sight to comply with an unwritten law known as "revelation of the method."
In 1856, Truman Angell was sent to Europe to study architecture, and William Ward stayed in Utah in his role of assistant architect in Angell's absence. Until, of course, Ward suddenly up and left Utah in July of 1856, abandoning his position, and moving to St. Louis, Missouri.
He left we're told, not because of dissatisfaction with the Church, but because he felt that Truman Angell failed to give him the proper recognition for his role in designing the Salt Lake Temple.
William ward doesn't return to the narrative until 1888, when he returned to Salt Lake City at the age of 61. He remained there until he died of lung fever on January 13th of 1893.
Ironically, this was just three months before the temple would be dedicated, and this also follows an AI pattern.
The pattern is that many architects of Old World buildings die before seeing their projects to fruition. In a past post I wrote on the Logan Temple, I gave the following list of architects in Utah who died prematurely:
In many Old World buildings that I've researched in Utah we find a common theme of architects dying prematurely and not living to see their masterpieces completed. Some examples from my previous series are as follows: Obed Taylor died before the Assembly Hall was finished, Henry Monheim died before the Salt Lake City-County building was finished, Carl Neuhausen died before the Cathedral of the Madeleine was finished, and John H. Burton died before the Territorial Insane Asylum was finished...
Truman Angell's son, Franklin Angell, suddenly became ill and died one week before the Tabernacle was finished for general conference. We also have the example of John R. Winder, First Counselor in the First Presidency given charge over the construction of the Hotel Utah, dying one year before it was completed. (A Gothic Castle in Logan)
William number 3: William Harrison Folsom
When Nauvoo was being evacuated in 1846, Folsom stayed behind to finish the interior of the temple. When more mobbers began flooding into the city, Folsom moved to Montrose, Iowa, but instead of going west with the rest of the Mormons, he settled in Keokuk, Iowa.
He left his family in Iowa and went to California to mine and work construction where he made a substantial sum of money. After he returned to Iowa he remained there for nine more years working as a builder, where he supposedly worked on columns for the Nebraska Territory capitol building.
Ironically, the narrative asserts that the first capitol building (1855) in Nebraska had no columns, but was a simple brick building. The second capitol building (1858) had to be repaired after only a year because one of the walls was collapsing. The members of the legislature meeting in the building literally used the basement floor as a latrine.
There were no columns until they built the 4th building in 1888, so I'm not sure how Folsom could have worked on them while living in Utah. The official history is that five buildings were constructed on the same site until this last one, built in the Art Deco style, was finished in 1929:
But let's be honest, this is probably the building that was here the entire time.
Folsom finally came to Utah in 1860, just in time to give Truman Angell a break as head architect. Angell's health was failing him at this time, so in 1861 he decided to go back to work in carpentry and farming (because those jobs are less physically demanding than drafting buildings on paper? "Good call" Truman).
Before Folsom was sustained as Church Architect, Brigham Young asked him to design the Salt Lake Theatre (because apparently that was more important than working on the temple). The first theatre in Utah is nearly a forgotten building today, but it was truly a magnificent structure. It boggles the mind how the LDS people found the resources, time, and available labor to build the theatre at such an early time period.
The theatre, the narrative declares, was completed in 1862, which means it only took one or two years to build. The building was razed in 1928 after Heber J. Grant sold it to Mountain States Telephone, but here is a depiction of it on an old postcard:
No actual photos exist of the exterior, but thankfully, we have this one of the interior:
Notice the ornate columns and exquisite woodwork. Also notice the size and height of the building. How in the world did they build this in 1862, and in less than two years with the resources then existing? Remember, there were no railroads coming into Utah at this time, so all materials either came on horse or oxen-drawn wagons, or were manufactured locally.
As the history reads, this theatre was just a "pet project" of Brigham Young's, and it qualified Folsom to became head architect when Angell stepped down in 1861. After Folsom was officially sustained as Church Architect, his first task was to oversee the excavation of the temple foundation that had supposedly been covered up in 1858.
More Inconsistencies Surrounding the Temple Foundation
It is thought that a part of the wall above the foundation is not sufficiently solid [and] will have to be taken up. (Quoted in Forty Years, p. 241)
Raleigh says that only the basement walls above the foundation needed to be taken up. However, according to Truman Angell, in a letter of correspondence to Brigham Young, much of the foundation, "from the footing to the under side of the flagging"..., would have to be taken up and redone.
The word "flagging," in regard to 19th century stone architecture, meant the top layer of the foundation or the base or footing layer, or literally any layer in between. So we don't really know how much of the foundation was actually said to have been "taken up".
According to William Folsom, in another letter of correspondence to Brigham Young, the work done on the original foundation was very, very bad:
As it was found on raising some of the stones they were not brought to a bed. They were also filled in the joints with cobble rock and spalls and some of them were never bedded in mortar. Holes were left large enough to run my hand in. The mortar that was used seemed to be of very poor quality. (Quoted in Forty Years, p. 243)
In another letter from Brigham Young to Daniel Wells (named as the superintendent of the construction of the SLT), the order was given:
...to have all the rock and flagging in the Temple wall taken down to the top course of the foundation, and have that course hewn level to commence laying the Temple all upon. (Quoted in Ibid, p. 246)
Wilford Woodruff records in his journal in December of 1862 that:
The Temple foundation was been taken up in part [and] re-laid [and] many improvements have been made. (Quoted in Ibid, p. 247)
Yet, in that same 1893 article I mentioned earlier from the magazine called "The Contributor", we are informed that the foundation was made of firestone quarried from Red Butte by the Sharp Brothers, and that it had never been disturbed!
Read it for yourself:
...on the eight of June [1853] the work of laying the foundation was commenced at the southeast corner stone. The hard Red Butte firestone was laid in lime mortar. In 1892 a piece of this mortar was taken up, and was found to have become indurated, in the thirty-nine years it had been in the wall, to almost the consistency of the stone itself...
The laying of the foundation was completed on July 23, 1855, and now bears the weight of the vast structure, never having been disturbed. (The Contributor, Vol. XIV, April 1893, p. 263)
The word "indurated" means hardened. The article is claiming that the lime mortar hardened over time until it became as strong as stone. It is describing something akin to geopolymer concrete, or modernly called Portland cement. It was used by ancient civilizations when they constructed stone buildings and it actually gets stronger over time.
If the mortar was made of such high quality, then why does the narrative have William Folsom stating that it was so terrible? How do we reconcile these inconsistencies?
The article in "The Contributor" goes on to further state that part of the basement walls, "two courses", between "the flagging and firestone were replaced", which is more consistent with Alonzo Raleigh's journal. However, this one article from The Salt Lake Herald, published in 1891, tells a completely different story:
The Salt Lake Temple foundation is not laid of granite from Cottonwood canon (sic), as has been stated, but is of the same kind of sandstone as the temple block wall foundation--we call it firestone--and has never been disturbed or taken up and relayed as has been stated. (The Salt Lake Herald, October 22, 1891)
So what are we to believe? Was the foundation taken up and replaced, or was it built soundly the first time? Or, was the temple already there and the foundation stories were made up to add twists, turns, and flavor to the historical narrative?
The problem with official LDS sources cited as sources for the faulty foundation are that they include only leaders of the Church and the famous architects, masons, and superintendents (i.e., Young, Woodruff, Wells, Raleigh, Angell, Folsom, etc.) They are all big names in the history of the Church. In my opinion, these historical documents could've been easily manipulated to portray a certain narrative.
Where are all the journal entries, letters of correspondence, and personal papers of the hundreds of ordinary workers, their wives and children, and extended families? Where are these primary source documents that would add corroborating evidence and credence to the narrative?
I do not believe these sources exist. I have recently learned that there are no original journal entries from lay-member pioneers specifically stating that they worked on early temples. The stories are hearsay. Descendants of "temple construction workers" began assuming that because their progenitors lived close to a certain temple, they must've worked on it, and that's how the stories began circulating and were passed down to future generations.
Please dear readers, if any of you have access to original journals that prove my hypothesis wrong, please post them in the comments. So far no one has been able to provide me with any original journal entries.
For now, let's move onto the curious, and ironic, story of Utah's most famous temple architect.
Truman O. Angell: A Man Unimpressed with European Architecture
You are more called to assist the Saints to build cities and temples, and teach the principles of architecture as they have been in the church from the beginning, and then to preach the gospel. (Truman Angell's journal, p. 6)
Truman was present in that initial vanguard company that arrived in Salt Lake Valley in 1847. He become Church Architect shortly thereafter when his design for the Council House was chosen over William Major's plan (yet another William in the narrative).
As the story goes, Truman's first six years as Church Architect were his most productive, designing the Council House, the Seventies Hall, the Old Tabernacle, the Social Hall, and even a State House in Fillmore, the original capitol city of Utah. The State House was of a gothic design, but strangely, only the South wing was built.
(Who builds only a single wing of a planned building? Wouldn't you begin with the central structure and move on from there? Wouldn't you dig out the entire foundation at the same time rather than digging out other sections later and trying to tie them into the existing foundation? Stories of only single wings being built are common in these old narratives.)
One of the biggest ironies of the story of Truman Angell is that he was sent to Europe to study architecture after he and William Weeks had already drawn up the plans for the Salt Lake Temple. The plans were completed, we're told, in 1854, and twenty years later, in 1874, an exact description of the 1854 temple plan was published again.
In April of 1856 Truman Angell was getting ready to embark on his architectural mission to Europe and received a blessing under the hands of Brigham Young, part of which stated that:
...you shall have power and means to go from place to place, from country to country and view the various specimens of architecture that you may desire to see, and you will wonder at the works of the ancients and marvel to see what they have done... (Truman Angell Journal, p. 1)
Well, whatever Truman did in Europe doing that year, "wondering" at ancient architecture was not part of it. He was mostly engaged in missionary work in the branches of the LDS Church in England. Only about 1/5 of his journal contains writings about days that he visited buildings. The majority of the time he was conducting Church business in the English branches or simply resting at his places of lodging.
And what he did write about European architecture was mostly negative.
Along with his pessimistic view on Old World architecture in Europe, Truman makes some interesting comments regarding specific structures that are worth mentioning here. In my opinion, some of these comments may be clues that the Angell journal was indeed written by AI.
The first building mentioned in the journal is St. Paul's Cathedral in London:
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The history of this building dates back to the year 604 AD, when apparently, it was "founded". We're told that four cathedrals were constructed on the site previous to the current one shown above, with the fourth structure said to have been destroyed in the 1666 (a massive clue here) Great Fire of London.
The narrative of this building is so typical of Old World cathedrals across the world, in which we hear that 4 or 5 structures were built on the same site before the one we see standing today. This is a clue, in my opinion, deliberately inserted into the AI-scripted narrative to distinguish these buildings as belonging to the Old World, and were in reality the only building to ever exist on the site.
St. Paul's Cathedral is 365 feet heigh, which is impressive when you consider the primitive rope-and-pulley crane system that was supposedly used to lift the massive stones to those heights during the late 1600s.
You would think that Truman Angell, an American carpenter with zero formal training as an architect, would be highly impressed with this building. Yet, this is what he said about it:
We went through St. Paul's Cathedral from bottom to top. I purchased a guide for the particulars of said building, read that, the most I could say of it was that it was a National Show, and when the people want to make a show with their money, such buildings may be built, that can be easily matched. (Ibid, p. 32)
Check out the interior of St. Paul's Cathedral. Does it look a building "that can be easily matched"?
Take a look at the interior columns with the acanthus leaves at the top. Isn’t it interesting that despite Truman’s disdain for the cathedral, he is said to have designed similar columns to line the interior of the Salt Lake Temple celestial room?:
Doesn't that seem strange to you?
Looks like Truman "easily matched" some of the designs of St. Paul's Cathedral. If you take a closer look you'll see that Truman even copied the dentil molding trim that rests over the top of the columns. Scroll back up to the photo of the cathedral and you'll see the same pattern.
But remember, according to the narrative, Truman had drafted the design for the Salt Lake Temple two years before embarking for Europe on his "architectural mission".
Is this not ironic?
I believe that ironic narratives are written and subtly inserted into the official construction stories as clues to what is really going on (i.e., revelation of the method).
Some examples of irony in the Utah narrative include:
- Having to cover up the temple foundation just as its walls are about to rise above the ground.
- Having to replace the temple foundation because a master mason (a man trained to know better) used a defective level.
- Several architects in Utah dying before seeing their work completed.
- Always excavating building foundations in the middle of winter when conditions would have made the work impossible.
- Truman Angell not being impressed with European architecture but designing a gothic temple with the same characteristics found in European architecture, years before he travels to Europe to study gothic buildings.
Truman records a visit to the Duke of Wellington's Monument and the Sarah Bridge (a stone arch bridge in England) and comments that, "the architecture of these places was not very remarkable" (Ibid, p. 41).
Truman next visits the Crystal Palace, built for the Great London Exhibition of 1851. Here is a photo taken of the structure in 1854:
This building was constructed, we're told, in only 39 weeks, less than 9 months. It covered an area of nearly 1 million square feet, and was over 1800 feet long and 128 feet high. It was constructed of cast iron and plate glass (293,000 panes of glass to be exact). And as you can see, there are stone arches making up the first level of the building.
The crazy thing (on top of building it in 9 months) is that this palace was relocated from Hyde Park to South London. Let that sink in. It was disassembled, transported, and reconstructed in another location. This process took three years, from sometime after the exhibition ended to June 1854.
Can you imagine the kind of labor force it would have taken to accomplish such a task?
It remained in this new location until it was destroyed by fire in November of 1936, because, apparently, cast iron and glass are extremely flammable.
The fire narrative is another clue the AI uses to identity buildings that don't belong to our civilization:
Here is what Truman Angell said about the Crystal Palace:
10th. Bro. John Kay and I walked out to see the Crystal Palace now being built which is about 1 mile from where we board we could not go within the yard; we were about 20 rods from it at the nearest, it looked very well in the distance. They were pulling down parts of the works which were overburdened with weight. (Ibid, p. 53, emphasis added)
Truman recorded this on November 10th of 1856, two years after the narrative tells us that the Crystal Palace was moved and rebuilt in South London.
Why would Truman say that the Crystal Palace was still being built in 1856? Was this a slip-up on the part of the AI writing the script?
Even more baffling is Truman's comment that workers were "pulling down parts" of the building "which were overburdened with weight".
What? Really?
Here are some more photos of the structure taken before it was destroyed in 1936. They were originally black and white, but a man named Brian White colorized the photos:
Check out the stone work on the stairs in the photo above (lower right).
Does this building look like something built so shoddily that parts of it would have to taken down because of structural weight problems?
Does it look like something that could've been disassembled, transported, and reassembled in less than three years? And during the 1850s no less?
In my opinion, whoever built this palace, did it right the first time, and it was never moved, and whoever destroyed it did it on purpose, to erase evidence of the Old World.
Notice the irony coming through in Angell's journal entry: a building so well constructed had to have parts of it removed because it was...not so well constructed. And how did Truman get the date wrong? What in the world was really going on in 1856 when Truman was in Europe?
Or did he ever go at all? Was it all just a script? Did a man named Truman Angell even exist at all? Or was he placed in the narrative to explain away the amazing architecture that existed in Utah before Brigham Young ever arrived there?
On November 21st of 1856, Truman Angell went to France and visited the Royal Palace and other places in Paris. He records that there were 12 tunnels under the city stretching more than 150 miles. He saw a few more buildings in Paris and recorded the following:
After looking through this place [a cemetery close to the Royal Palace] we visited several other buildings of principal note. To mention them here would use up my patience. (Ibid, p. 57)
Wait a minute. I thought the point of the trip was to see European architecture and improve his drafting skills, but Truman didn't have "patience" for that.
On December 1st he visited Oxford Castle (although he spelled it "Oxgud") and records that, "it is a miserably poor place" (Ibid, p. 59).
On December 6th Truman visited Greenwich College, specifically the chapel and hospital, said to have been constructed in the early 1700s. Here is what this place still looks like:
Again, you'd think an inspiring architect would be impressed with such a well-built complex of edifices. But this is what Truman records after walking through the hospital, chapel, and the outer court:
It had a great deal of labor bestowed on it and I should say it was burdened, and in fact this is one of the faults of the English Architecture. (Ibid, p. 62)
Finally, on January 31st of 1857, Truman makes a positive comment on a building, the Heneford Cathedral:
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He offers the comment only as a P.S.:
...P.S. we visited Heneford Cathedral as we passed through Heneford today. It was built in a masterly style of architecture. (Ibid, p. 69)
And that's it. Truman did mention several train stations but only as part of his travel plans, never commenting on their architecture. And the only other positive remarks he made were in regard to some theatres in England and France. But overall, he was not impressed with buildings in Europe.
One writer sums up Trumans ironic visit to Europe rather concisely:
A second unexpected observation is that Angell was generally neither very impressed by nor very interested in the great buildings of Britain and France. He described in detail and took notes on only one structure--a theater that he thought might serve as a model for one back home. Of the new Houses of Parliament, he writes, "It was burdened with ornaments till it became sickening. I had to think the object of decorating so much was to excel rather than to display anything like a reasonable taste."
Westminster Abbey, he thought, "exhibited the genius of men but there was something very inanimate." He saw the neoclassical National Gallery of Art "with which I was not impressed" and the Tower of London of which he records, "I shall not mention more than to say that I bought a pamphlet that gives a full description of it"...
It was ironic, therefore, that compared with the productive years before his mission, Angell would have few opportunities in the years that followed to use his new knowledge. (Paul L. Anderson, Truman O. Angell: Architect and Saint, emphasis added)
Indeed, another irony is that although Truman was impressed with Eagle Theatre close to "Gervin Street" in London, it would be William Folsom that would be assigned by Brigham Young to design the Salt Lake Theatre, not Truman Angell.
Again, the narrative is full of one irony after the next. Once you begin the see the patterns in the narrative, you cannot unsee them. It becomes obvious that we are being lied to.
Again, the Book of Mormon warns us that the modern gentiles would be engaged in all types of sins and iniquities--lying being one of the major ones:
At that day when the gentiles shall sin against my gospel, and reject the fullness of my gospel, and shall be lifted up in the pride of their hearts above all nations and above all the people of the whole earth, and shall be filled with all manner of lyings, and of deceits, and mischiefs, and all manner of hypocrisy, and murders, and priestcrafts, and whoredoms, and of secret abominations... (RE, 3 Nephi 7:5, emphasis added)
The reference to gentiles includes most of us, but what particular group or organization has once received the gospel, sinned against it, and then rejected the fullness of it?
Is it not the LDS Church and its break-off groups?
Would not "all manner of lyings" and "deceits" include whitewashing and covering up an organization's true history?
Why should we believe anything that this organization has published as part of its official history?
Especially when that history is based upon source material taken from the journals, letters, and papers of men who specifically engaged in murder, priestcraft, whoredoms, and secret abominations (i.e., polygamy)?
This is where I leave you today. In my next post I'll be covering the story the transcontinental railroads meeting in Utah in 1869, making Utah the "Crossroads of the West." Stay tuned...
In the meantime, this video from My Lunch Break shows you more examples of AI patterns, including name repetition and architects dying before seeing their projects completed:
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