Source Information
Black, Susan Easton. Inscriptions Found on Tombstones and Monuments in Early Latter-day Saint Burial Grounds: Nauvoo, Illinois (Joseph Smith Homestead, and Pioneer Saints Cemetery on Parley Street); Mt. Pisgah, Iowa; West Bank of the Niobrara River, Nebraska; Winter Quarters, Nebraska. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1979. Private Donor.
About Inscriptions Found on Tombstones and Monuments in Early Latter-day Saint Burial Grounds
This database lists names of people buried at the Joseph Smith Homestead (Nauvoo, Illinois); Old Nauvoo Pioneer Cemetery on Parley Street in Nauvoo, Illinois; and the Pioneer Cemetery in Winter Quarters (Omaha, Nebraska). The names and facts engraved on the tombstones were compiled by Susan Easton Black and then correlated with information she received from the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Details can include name, monument location, inscription and notes, spouse, gender, birth date and place, death date and place, and age at death.
Historical Background
Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came to Commerce, Illinois, in 1839 to escape persecution in Missouri. They renamed the city Nauvoo in 1840, and the town’s population rose to near 12,000 by the middle of the decade. In 1846, the Latter-day Saints began to leave Nauvoo as they migrated west. Many spent their first winter after leaving Nauvoo in “winter quarters” in what is now North Omaha, Nebraska. While the main body of the church began its move, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was established in 1860 in Illinois as a “reorganization” of Smith’s original church. Records in this database include members of both groups.
