When the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles sent a messenger to Wight’s company in September 1844, Wight expressed his view that the time authorized by God to build the Nauvoo temple had passed and that “the Lord would not accept of the Temple when it was built.” When members of Wight’s company later traveled to Nauvoo, it was rumored they intended to “burn the Lumber round the Temple and break the Capitals” to halt construction; in response, Brigham Young posted a guard around the temple at night. William Clayton later recorded that “we could not learn satisfactorily” whether the rumors were correct. However, “There has since that been many threats thrown out from the Rigdonites and other sources that the Temple never should be built and no doubt an attempt would have been made to set fire to it, if it had not been well guarded all the time.” (David Clayton to Brigham Young, Nauvoo, IL, 24 Sept. 1844, Brigham Young Office Files, CHL; Clayton, Journal, 26 Sept. 1844; Clayton, History of the Nauvoo Temple, 61.)

Brigham Young Office Files, 1832–1878. CHL. CR 1234 1.

Clayton, William. Journals, 1842–1845. CHL.

Clayton, William. History of the Nauvoo Temple, ca. 1845. CHL. MS 3365.

Upon returning to Nauvoo from a mission in England in 1841, Kimball built a log house, to which he later added a brick room. By early May 1845 Kimball was moving forward with his plans to build an expanded house; he razed the log portion of his house and built a two-story brick structure through the summer and fall of 1845, completing it on 12 November. (See Kimball, Journal, 2 and 6 May 1845; 12 Nov. 1845; and Kimball, Heber C. Kimball, 81, 121.)

Kimball, Heber C. Journal, Sept. 1842; May 1844–May 1845. Heber C. Kimball, Papers, 1837–1866. CHL. MS 627, box. 3, fd. 4.

Kimball, Heber C. Journal, Nov. 1845–Jan. 1846. CHL.

Kimball, Stanley B. Heber C. Kimball: Mormon Patriarch and Pioneer. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981.