Smith Family Cemetery

Burial Site One- Nauvoo House

The Bee House

Final Resting Place

(To the left is the Bee house and behind is (what you can't see at all in the pic) Joseph and Emma's first home, behind that is the Nauvoo House where they were buried first.

I learned so much on this trip so I decided that over the course of hopefully the next few days I will share what I learned through a bunch of little posts. This first one is about the Smith Family Cemetery. After Joseph and Hyrum were martyred, their bodies were brought back to Nauvoo. They had a funeral and were buried- well people thought they were buried, but really their caskets were full of rocks because their families thought that there could be a possibility for grave robbing. Really their bodies were buried under the foundation of the Nauvoo House. Later their bodies were moved by decision of Emma, they were moved to under the foundation of the Bee House, but only Emma's family knew. When Emma died she asked to be buried so many feet from the Bee House (I can't remember what the guide said). Years later there was concern about the bodies being lost when the Mississippi gets high, so the bodies started to be searched for. Joseph and Hyrum's bodies were found under the foundation of the Bee House and Emma's was found right were she had asked to be buried so many fee from the corner. All three bodies were then moved and just up a little bit and were given a head stone. The bodies have remained there since. ( Sorry I don't know exact dates... I should have wrote this stuff done it was so amazing!)