My Short Short Story
Jules Verne famously depicted flamboyant world traveler George Francis Train as Phileas Fogg in his book, Around the World in 80 Days. A year is missing, however, from Verne’s classic and from Train’s own autobiography—1871, the year of the Great Chicago Fire.
Gather around and HEAR; as I fill in the gap of that missing YEAR.
For tonight I will reveal how the Great Fire … was started.
Not when Mrs. O’Leary’s cow tipped over a lantern; but for reasons Mr. Train knew and Chicago authorities didn’t.
Train acknowledged to his confessor on his deathbed that he believed MORMONS were responsible for the fire. He revealed that ancient Egyptian artifacts and documents held by the Chicago museum challenged the core of the fledgling Mormon religion. The museum was one of 18,000 buildings destroyed in the Great Fire.
Train had a close friendship with Mormon prophet, Brigham Young.
He would have tried to warn Young by telephone of the plot to burn down the museum (which destroyed most of Chicago, along with it); but the telephone hadn’t been invented yet.
The Pony Express would take several days; but it had gone out of business when the First Transcontinental Railroad connected the East with the West via the Golden Spike that was driven into the rails in the Utah Territory.
And the Golden Spike connected not only the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads, but also the telegraph lines along the rails of each; but telegrams were notoriously lacking in privacy.
Train decided to hold back the information he held, until he could meet personally with Young. Nevertheless, he had to warn the public, at least in general terms.
So, on the night before the fire, Train cried out to a receptive crowd in Farwell Hall in Chicago:
“This is the last public address that will be delivered within these walls! A terrible calamity is impending over the City of Chicago! More I cannot say; more I dare not utter.”
Was the Mormon plot a phantom of the mind of a lunatic? Or did Train have his facts right?
I will now expose the perfidious pact that was kept from the public for more than a century. Train had his facts RIGHT.
The world has been missing a critical element of the story, involving WHY Mormons in Illinois (who didn’t follow Brigham Young out West) had a motive to destroy Egyptian papyri on ridiculing display at the Wood's museum in Chicago during the Great Fire. They didn't like how the writings were being handled by the "Gentiles."
William Smith, the brother of Mormon founder Joseph Smith was in the Chicago area on the night of the fire. After his brother’s death, he had allowed the Egyptian papyri to be sold to the museum and resented how they were being treated by the gentiles. He had a motive for making sure the museum was among the building burnt to the ground during the fire. And burn down the museum, he DID.
Smith was charged with ASSAULT, ADULTERY, FORNICATION, BASTARDLY, RAPE and other crimes; NO wonder he had the criminal intent to create such a lawless act the night of the fire. But he was never charged with being an incendiary in Chicago the night of the Great Fire.
William was an ardent believer in the Book of Mormon. That book says, “It is better that one man should perish (or one museum, in this case) than that a whole nation should perish and dwindle in unbelief.”
An Egyptologist, a Professor Seyffarth in St. Louis in 1857, examined the papyri in the Chicago museum and confirmed that facsimiles published in Joseph Smith’s alleged“Book of Abraham” were not depicting Abraham at all, or made by Abraham, as alleged, but were common FUNERAL TEXTS.
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The Great Chicago Fire started in Chicago west of the Chicago River and was said to have “jumped the river” later that night, the east side of the river where the Museum was located and consumed in the flames. What happened, in fact, however, is that the fire was contained on the east side and could not have jumped the river. A second fire was started on the east side that same night … BY WILLIAM SMITH.
And now you have .... THE DREADFUL END OF THE STORY.
