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The Masonic Hall…
Masonic
…labeled, in these revisionist days, ‘Cultural Hall’
The Masonic Hall served a variety of public purposes, while the “Mormons” were in Nauvoo. The costumed missionary/guides who very kindly showed us around were well supplied with stories of what happened here. They offer little documentation, but the stories are worth preserving and repeating, whatever their factual content.

Perhaps the best of this batch concerns Joseph’s unorthodox use of the upstairs floor here to communicate the content of a revelation. I quote verbatim from the guide’s script, which she kindly let me photograph:
“7. A Western Prophesy [sic] - A number of contemporary reports indicate that Joseph not only prophesied that his people would locate to the Rocky Mountains but even indicated where they would settle and the route they would take. One such report concerns the Masonic Hall. Brother George H. Goddard recorded that he was present in the Masonic Hall in Nauvoo when the Prophet mapped out on the floor with a piece of chalk the Great Basin, indicating the route the Saints would take to get there. We do know that both Brigham Young and the Mormon Battalion carried copies of a map originally made by Levi Hancock who received the necessary directions on making it from Joseph. Those maps were undoubtedly taken from or like the Masonic Hall floor map.”
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