Susan Easton Black doesn't just love Nauvoo. She also loves Venus, Commerce and the City of Joseph. These names were all used at different times to describe a town on the Mississippi River in Illinois -- a town that is "the largest land mass dedicated to the memory of any one man," according to Black.

The Church History Museum in Salt Lake City presented Black as part of its "Evenings as the Museum" event on Thursday, April 23. The museum was full of tours, historical re-enactors and other special presentations. More than 100 people gathered in the basement auditorium to hear Black speak on "Nauvoo, Then and Now."

When Illinois became a state in 1818, it was the frontier. Some of the land was desirable, Black said, and some was undesirable. One piece that was undesirable was a piece of swampland on the Mississippi. A man named James White was "the first white settler" in that area, Black said, recounting an old pun.

White discarded the American Indian name for the land, and renamed it Venus, probably with the hope that its exotic female name would attract the imagination of men dreaming of a new home. "The problem is it's a swampland," Black said. And swampland meant "lung fever" or "swamp fever," what we now call malaria.

As people get sick and some die, they decide to abandon Venus and sell at low prices. "So what you get coming into the area were men known as land speculators. Today we give them a much more ennobled title: land developers," Black joked.

The land speculators drew up plans that showed a city with four ports and pitched it as the next New Orleans, according to Black. They renamed the town Commerce as part of their scheme. The bank panic of 1837 stifled their attempts to sell the swampland, and another downturn in 1839 left them willing to sell to anybody with no interest payments for 20 years. "Who was desperate enough to think that 'Whoa, that's a pretty good deal'?" Black asked.

Enter the Mormons.

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had been driven from Missouri. Joseph Smith wanted a piece of land where "he could build a city that would be a light unto the world," Black said.

But it was still a swampland, and with the onslaught of malaria, only the coffin maker was prospering at first. Funerals were consolidated to two a week according to Black: one on Thursday and one on Monday. It was at one of these funerals that Joseph Smith gave a sermon where he revealed the doctrine of baptism for the dead.

The members of the LDS Church took to this doctrine. "It would not be an unusual day if you were to see Joseph standing out in the water, and you were to see people then lined up waiting for their turn to be baptized. And a hundred yards from Joseph, there's Wilford Woodruff, people lining up for him; a hundred yards from him, there's Parley P. Pratt -- and just going around the peninsula," Black said.

This outpouring of baptizing for the dead was the biggest religious experience of these years for Mormons, Black said. It was around this time of baptisms for the dead that Joseph renamed the town Nauvoo -- which means, according to Black, "A beautiful situation."

At the time of Joseph's martydom in 1844, Nauvoo had not yet become the "light" Joseph had wanted it to become. There were log cabins but few brick homes, Black said.

"Brigham Young concludes, that before he goes west, he will complete this light unto the world," Black said. "He formally ... changes the name of the town to City of Joseph."

Brigham Young tells the people that they will leave, but they are to "leave behind their memory of Joseph Smith," Black said.

Sixteen brickyards sprung up. The people wanted to leave a worthy memory of Joseph. Their homes become a monument. "So what you have is the biggest dichotomy that's ever gone on in these United States. You have people who are preparing to go west who have turned their parlors into places where they make spokes ready for their wagons," Black said. "Yet at the same time, they're building something that will last, not only their generation, but generation and generation as their memory of the slain prophet."

The Mormons left the City of Joseph, but not its memory.

Now, after many years, Nauvoo has been restored as a city of light.

"It's known by many different names, from Venus to Commerce to Nauvoo to City of Joseph to Nauvoo the Beautiful today," Black said. "And I'll be forever grateful for the restoration of this beautiful city on the Mississippi and especially for the restoration of the Nauvoo Temple."

Information on other "Evenings at the Museum"

E-mail: mdegroote@desnews.com