•June 13, 2018•

By Emma Baker
Of the Hancock County Journal-Pilot

For the Mormons, Quincy appeared to be a beacon of hope and safety during tumultuous times.

Members of the Mormon faith began arriving in Hancock County about 1839 looking for security after having encountered hostility elsewhere, according to Thomas Gregg, a Hancock County settler who wrote about the Mormon faith in his 1880 book “History of Hancock County, Illinois.”

But in the Quincy area they were welcomed. They established their own town, Nauvoo, about 50 miles north of Quincy. Gregg’s book describes early Nauvoo, before the building of the Mormon Temple, as a picturesque site on the east side of the Mississippi River, about 10 miles north of Keokuk, Iowa.

“The origin, rapid development and prosperity of this religious sect are the most remarkable and instructive historical events of the present century,” Gregg wrote about the Mormons in Nauvoo.

Illinois was a new home where members settled after being driven out of New York, Ohio and Missouri. Unfortunately, the Mormon followers would eventually be driven out of Illinois, too.

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