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The Story of the Book of Mormon

Book of Mormon


First Council of the Seventy

  • George Reynolds was born on January 1, 1842, In Marylebone, London, United Kingdom and died on August 9, 1909, in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States because of meningitis.
  • His father was George Reynolds and his mother was Julia A. Tautz.
  • He was under the care of his maternal grandmother, Sarah White, during his childhood who occupied as a servant and also was an influencer to Reynolds to go to a gathering of Latter-Day-Saints church with her.
  • He attended a sacrament meeting of the church’s Paddington Branch with his grandmother, and almost immediately decided that he wanted to become a member.
  • In any case, his parents rejected to allow him to be baptized as a member of the church. Often, he would avoid his parents’ choices and attend the Sunday meetings in Paddington. When Reynolds was 14 years old, he visited the church’s Somers Town Branch, where he was unfamiliar, and requested acceptance into the church by baptism. Not realizing that his parents had forbidden the action. The branch president, George Teasdale, baptized him on May 4, 1856, and he was confirmed as a member of the church on May 11, 1856.
  • He wedded his third and last wife, named Mary Goold on April 25, 1885. But like many early Latter-Day Saints, he practiced the religious principle of plural marriage. He had 3 wives and 32 children. One of his daughters wedded Joseph Fielding Smith.
  • He had been jailed In Utah since the Utah Supreme Court confirmed his second conviction in June 1876. After his failed appeal to the Supreme Court, they transferred him from a jail in Utah to the Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln, where he became U.S. Prisoner Number 14 and was assigned to be the bookkeeper in the knitting department. He hardly survived In the Nebraska prison for 25 days, after which they transferred him to the Utah Territory Penitentiary, where regulations were more primitive and vermin more abundant. He reported the detainees could not have a fire for fear that the jail would burn down. On many wintry mornings, he would awaken and his beard would be one solid mass of ice. They released him from jail on January 20, 1881, having served his full sentence, less than 5 months for moral behavior. U.S. President Grover Cleveland absolved him in 1894.
  • He continued his position as secretary to the First Presidency after being imprisoned. He also became an active organizer within the Deseret Sunday School Union (DSSU), serving as the editor and writing many articles for its publication, the Juvenile Instructor. Reynolds was an early or second assistant to three general superintendents of the DSSU from 1899 until his death in 1909. He was the second assistant to George Q. Cannon from 1899 to 1901; he became the first assistant to Lorenzo Snow In 1901, and he was also the first assistant to Joseph F. Smith from 1901 until 1909.

Published Works

  • Reynolds, George (1879). The Book of Abraham: Its Authenticity Established as a Divine and Ancient Record: With Copious References to Ancient and Modern Authorities. Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret New Printing & Publishing.
  • (1888). The Story of the Book of Mormon. Salt Lake City, Utah: Jos. Hyrum Parry.
  • (1900). A Complete Concordance to the Book of Mormon. Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book.
  • (1891). A Dictionary of the Book of Mormon: Comprising Its Biographical, Geographical and Other Proper Names. Salt Lake City, Utah: Jos. Hyrum Parry.
  • (1882). “Internal Evidences of the Book of Mormon: Showing the Absurdity of the ‘Spalding Story'”. Juvenile instructor. LDS Church. 17 (15-16): 235-38, 251-52. Retrieved 2007-04-05.
  • (1882). “The Book of Mormon and the Three Witnesses”. Juvenile Instructor. LDS Church. 17 (18): 281. Retrieved 2007-04-05.
  • (1882). “Time Occupied in Translating the Book of Mormon”. Juvenile Instructor. LDS Church. 17 (20): 315-317. Retrieved 2007.04-05

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