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Show .10/111 362 A Book of Monnoni May 15:Bom John Whittaker Taylor in Provo, yt~h, to John Taylor and Sophia Whittaker, whom Ius father married on a carriage ride in Salt Lake City's Liberty Park, . 1&'8JL 1883 1894 . Married May Leona Rich. He later mamed plural WIves Nellie Eva Todd (known to the family as his "Canadian wife"), and-after the W»..t:ord Woodruff ManifestoJanel-' Janetta Maria Woolley (i~§M, Eliza Roxey Welling (1901), and Rhoda Welling (1901)-(his "Mexican wives"), and Ellen Georgena Sandburg (19091. He was the father of thirty-five children. fhirij-SiX Vision: Abraham Cannon reported that Taylor, as a young man working in a Summit County sawmill, saw a bright light which "continued to increase in intensity and with the increase he seemed to be pushed further away from its source. Finally he clasped his arms around the stump of a tree for the purpose of keeping himseInn position. He saw the Son of God appear in the brilliancy of the light and then his hold upon the stump began to slip and he knew that should he release his grasp he would be thrust back with such violence that he would be dashed to pieces. "His father told him that the interpretation of thc dream was that the bright light was the truth which would banish all truthhaters from before it, and the tree stump to which he was holding was a similar n~prcse/l tation to that of the I'Od of iron in the Book 0f Mormon." "Prophet of the Quorum": 1884 :11;:1 Business Speculator: Family Background: 1858 n'. Till ·lm· Called to the Quorum of the Twelve by his father. John Taylor. John W. so frequently pl'Onounced public and private pl'Ophecies that during the next two decades he was referred to as "the prophet of the Quorum." After "laboring for nearly six months allllost entindy in his own interests," Taylor was charged by Pl'esid(!nt Lon~ni'.o Snow to attend "more faithfully to his ecclesiastical duties, and less to his personal affairs." John W.'s husillPSS speculations brought financial ruin to se\'eral frimHls, including J. Golden Kimball. By 1902 Taylor's husitwss prospects were so abysmal that the l\vel\'c appointpd Reed Smoot to persuade creditors to settle $140 ,000 of Taylor's debts at ten cents on the dollar. A decad(! lall!r. Taylor's Monnon friends in Canada endul'Cd similar losses as his speculative schemes again collapsed. Champion of Plural Marriage: 1892 Two years after the Church sustained the \\'ilford Woodruff Manifesto, Taylor said, "I do not know that that thing was right though I voted to sustain it, and \\'ill assist to maintain it; but among my father's papers I found a mvelation given him of the Lord, and which is /lO\\' ill Illy possession, in which thc Lord tuld him that the principiI' uf plural man-iage would never be o\,crcollw. I'rpsidpnt Taylor desired tu havc it suspended. hut the Lord would not p;rmit it." 1905 John \V. Taylor and I\latlhias Co\\'ley. with tacit apprm'al of members of the First Pn$i(hmc.v, had enterpd pillral malTiagcs altcr the I\lanifestu and had IH!rfontwd slll'h malTiages in the United Stall!s. Canada. and l\lp.\ico. Apostle Heed Smoot, cOl1ll1lill(!d II\' his plpct ion t (J t I\I' ll. S. Senate to vote against knll\\'n ot1i!IHlpl"s of till' l\lanil£!sto. withlwld his sllstaining \'()h~ lill' thl~ (J,1I0l"llln (II the ·'\velvc /\postles in tlw 1!IWi ()ctolwr Conli'I'('IWI'. Taylor, asked about the possihility of n!signing his apustlcship. replied. ") told YOII hmtlll·(!n that ",hill' I didn 't support you in the policy of dqlOsing till! "post II's to make a showing in Congress and said) would not appro\'e of the pulicy of the Church in this n!ganl. I wOllld not oppose it."' Both Taylor and Cowley rpsiglwd tlwir apostleships. hut tlwir resignations \\u·e not alllllllllll'l'd for several months. |
