Father Isaac Morley and others were trying to decide in the spring of 1850 on a suitable place to recommend to President Brigham Young as a site for a Latter-day Saint Temple, when my great grandmother, Betsy Bradley, and her three-year-old son, Hyrum, saw a personage in white on a white horse mysteriously appear on the hill to the north east of Manti and then just as mysteriously disappear.
Others may have seen this same manifestation. Great Grandma Bradley told about this mysterious appearance to everyone who desired to listen and one of the Sagas of the Sanpitch was born: Everyone said, “This personage dressed in white on the white horse is the same personage that constrained Father Morley to point with a prophetic finger to an eminence rising in the distance and say, “There is the termination of our journey; in close proximity to that hill, God Willing, we will build our city,’ and that person is the Prophet Moroni! And he wants a Latter-day Saint Temple built on the Manti Stone quarry!”
The settlers of the Sanpitch had shown how the power of the Lord is manifested to a people and had seen the fruitation of their Saga fulfilled in the summer of 1850 in the words on page 436 of Orson F. Whitney’s “Life of Heber C. Kimball”: “One of the Elders laboring in the Manti Temple writes: ‘In an early day when President Young and party were making the location of the settlement here, President Heber C. Kimball, prophesied that the day would come when a temple would be built on this hill. Some disbelieved and doubted the possibility of even making a settlement here. Brother Kimball said, “Well, it will be so, and more than that the rock will be quarried from that hill to build it with, and some of the stone from that quarry will be taken to help complete the Salt Lake Temple.” On July 28, 1878, two large stones, weighing respectively 5,600 and 5,020 pounds, were taken from Manti stone quarry, hauled by team to York, the U.C.R.R. terminus then, and shipped to Salt Lake City to be used for tablets in the east and west ends of the salt Lake City Temple.’”
Why did the General Authorities of the L.D.S. Church and President Brigham Young hold so tenaciously to insisting that a Latter-day Saint Temple be built on the Manti stone quarry if they didn’t have the assurance that the Prophet Moroni had dedicated that site for a temple?
This test of President Heber C. Kimball’s prophecy took place June 25, 1875 at a conference held at Ephraim, Utah. Before the above mentioned conference was held in Ephraim, the resident of the city of Ephraim had quarried enough stone that was suitable to build the foundation for a temple and this stone had been taken from the Ephraim stone quarry and had been deposited on the spot where the Noyes Building of Snow College now stands. The residents of Ephraim had hoped to have the temple built on the ground where Snow College now stands in the center of Ephraim. This same stone is at the present time still in good condition in the foundation of the Noyes Building at Snow College.
Whitney’s “Life of Heber C. Kimball” states on page 435, “At the conference held in Ephraim, Sanpete County, June 25, 1875, nearly all the speakers expressed their feelings to have a temple built in Sanpete County, and gave their views as to what point and where to build it, and to show the union that existed, Elder Daniel H. Wells said, ‘Manti,’ George Q. Cannon, Brigham Young, Jr., John Taylor, Orson Hyde, Erastus Snow, Franklin D. Richard, Lorenzo Young, and A.M. Musser, said, ‘Manti stone quarry.’ I have given the names in the order in which they spoke.
At 4 p.m. that day, President Brigham Young said, ‘The Temple should be built on Manti stone quarry.’” I testify from what I have read and have had handed down to me through family tradition and otherwise that Brother Warren S. Snow was an honest man and I believe wholeheartedly his following statement. Whitney’s “Life of Heber C. Kimball” says on page 436, “Early on the morning of April 25, 1877, President Brigham Young asked Brother Warren S. Snow to go with him to Temple hill. Brother Snow says, ‘We two were alone, President Young took me to the spot where the Temple was to stand. We went to the southeast corner, and President Young said, “Here is the spot where the Prophet Moroni stood and dedicated this piece of land for a Temple site and that is the reason why the location is made here, and we can’t move it from this spot, and if you and I are the only persons that come here at high noon today, we will dedicate this ground.’” I am predicting that the sage of the Prophet Moroni dedicating the site for the Manti Temple is a saga that will live a long time in the hearts and memories of the people who live in Sanpete County or in the Valley of the Sanpitch!
1. Additional reference to great grandma, Betsy Bradley, (Mentioned in para. 1) can be read on page 60, para. 2, in the book, Descendants of William Henrie, by Manetta Prince Henrie, Chapter Five: Myra Elizabeth Henrie Oldson: Quote: “Grandma Betsy also told Myra of how she and her three-year-old son, Hyrum, had seen a personage in white, on a white horse, mysteriously appear on the brow of the stone quarry when President Isaac Morley and others were trying to decide on a suitable place to recommend to President Brigham Young for a site for the Latter-day Saint Temple. It disappeared just as mysteriously. Everyone said they thought it was the Angel Moroni, but little Hyrum said, “It was the Lord.”
2. Additional reference to Father Morley pointing a prophetic finger (mentioned in para.2) is mentioned in history of “Early Manti” in the story of Mrs. A.B. Sidwell, “Reminisences of Early Days in Manti,” para 3, para. 2: Quote: “On the arrival of the last detachments, Father Morley being among that number, (He having been unavoidably detained) – a council was held relative to the advisability of remaining where they were then encamped. Father Morley felt constrained to proceed about three miles southward and pointing with a prophetic finger to an eminence rising in the distance, said, ‘There is the termination of our journey; in close proximity to that hill, God willing, we will build our city.’”
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