Portrait of John Taylor

Third church president

John Taylor

1808–1887

1 topic · 4 dated events · 3 sources

Their part in each topic

Utah Polygamy and the Manifesto

Third church president

Taylor refused to yield on plural marriage under the Edmunds Act, told the Saints in his last public sermon that no man had a right to control his conscience, and went into hiding in 1885. He died on the underground in July 1887. A document in his hand dated 27 September 1886 became, decades later, the foundation text of Mormon fundamentalism.

Timeline · Key players · Key sources · Why it matters

In the timeline

4 events across 1 topics, chronological. Only events this person was actually part of — present at, responsible for, or the subject of — not every event where the name comes up.

1885

Colonies founded in northern Mexico

The First Presidency established settlements in Chihuahua and Sonora as a refuge, beginning with Colonia Juarez, Colonia Dublan and Colonia Diaz. Mexican federal statutes since 1884 also prohibited marriage where one partner was already married, a fact church leaders knew from the outset.

Disputed Whether the colonies were principally a polygamous refuge or part of a broader pattern of Mormon out-migration; most colonization occurred after 1890.
People: John Taylor
27 September 1886

A document in John Taylor's hand refuses to revoke the covenant

About 150 words found after Taylor's death declare that everlasting covenants cannot be abrogated. Lorin C. Woolley, one of Taylor's bodyguards, later claimed that Joseph Smith and Jesus Christ appeared that night and that Taylor ordained five men to keep plural marriage alive whatever the church did.

Disputed The document's existence is not in dispute; the visitation and the ordinations rest on Woolley's accounts of 1912 and 1929, which faithful writers say grew in detail after the other named participants had died.
People: John Taylor · Lorin C. Woolley

Sources in their own name

Source records in the database whose author line names this person. Each links to the topic that uses it.

1843

Nauvoo Neighbor (1843–1845)

John Taylor

Primary sourcePrimaryText held in the Corpus

The city paper's coverage of the Expositor affair, the martyrdom and, on 11 September 1844, the proceedings of Rigdon's trial before a crowd reported at six to seven thousand.

1844

Nauvoo Neighbor (1843–1845)

John Taylor, editor

Primary sourcePrimaryText held in the Corpus

How the Nauvoo leadership justified the abatement publicly within a week of the act, expressly invoking the destruction of their own press in Jackson County.

1854–1886

Journal of Discourses, 26 vols.

Brigham Young, Wilford Woodruff, John Taylor, George Q. Cannon and others

Official LDSPrimaryText held in the Corpus

What Brigham Young and his contemporaries actually preached about race and priesthood, in their own words and at length.

Appears alongside

People who share the most dated events with John Taylor.

This page is generated from the same topic records as the rest of the database, so a correction made once shows up here too. All key players · How this is built