William and Caroline Weeks Home Nauvoo Illinois

The William and Caroline Weeks Home is on the north side of Young Street between Patridge and Durphy Streets. The William Weeks Home is the first stop of the Temple Tour, a guided tour done by the missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This tour consists of three different homes in the are the Edward and Ann Hunter Home and the William and Ester Gheen Homes.

William and Caroline Weeks Home is first stop on the Temple Tour in Historic Nauvoo. The William Weeks Home is on the north side of Young Street between Partridge and Durphy Street.

William Weeks was the general superintendent and architect of the Nauvoo Temple, working under the direction of the prophet Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith had seen the Nauvoo Temple in a vision, and directed William Weeks on getting his vision from God to life.

One of the coolest things about the William Weeks home is that the original drawings of the Nauvoo Temple are on display!

William Weeks also did the architectural drawings and initial carvings of the wooden oxen for the baptismal font. The wooden oxen supported a wooden baptismal font. The wooden baptismal font was replaced by a stone baptismal font in 1845. William Weeks showed the stonecutters how to carve the oxen and the baptismal font.

William Weeks also helped design the Nauvoo House, the Nauvoo Arsenal and the Masonic Hall.

In the basement of the Weeks home the original fireplace still exists today. The Missionaries do not bring tour groups downstairs, though.

William Weeks went to Salt Lake City in 1847 but became disaffected with the Church and died in Los Angeles in 1900's.

Almost 100 years after William Weeks left Nauvoo, missionaries of The Church knocked into the great-grandchildren of William Weeks! It was through this relationship with the missionaries that the great-grandchildren of William Weeks returned the original drawings of the Nauvoo Temple back to the Church! Read the story here.