I work in the Museum of Church History and Art and on Friday we got to look around in the vaults! Well they have some pretty cool stuff down there. For instance, if anyone saw the display for Joseph Smith's 200th birthday, they had bunch of items that were excavated from the Smith log home in Palmyra and we got to see those up close. They even found a small axe that was left under the shingles of the family's frame home in Manchester! They also had a bunch of coats that belonged to president's of the church which I thought was pretty cool.But, by far the coolest thing I saw on Friday were these 2 canes that were made by Brigham Young. He made them out of the wood from Joseph Smith's coffin (the one that he was carried in as he was being taken back to Nauvoo from Carthage). That's cool in and of itself, but the most interesting part were the heads of the canes (the part where you would put your hand). It looked like they were made of ivory or something and were shaped like flattened balls. Well on top of the first one there was a circular silver piece that looked like a quarter, and on it was engraved "gift of Brigham Young to Sidney Rigdon on (whatever date) 1844." That's really interesting because at that time in the church's history Brigham Young and Sidney Rigdon were in a sense contending for the succession to the Presidency. I think this gift shows that Brigham knew how much Sidney meant to Joseph as a friend and how much he had done for the church, even though they (JS and SR) had a falling out at the end.
The head on the other cane, however, was broken so there was no silver plate and we don't know who it was given to. But underneath where the plate would have been there was a shallow hole and inside were little bundles of Joseph Smith's hair! How cool is that?! I still can't get over it. There definitely are some perks to this job :).
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