1 The book of Mormon: an account written by the hand of Mormon, upon plates taken from the plates of Nephi. [18 lines] By Joseph Smith, Junior, author and proprietor. Palmyra: Printed by E. B. Grandin, for the author. 1830. iv [5]–588[2] pp. 18.5 cm.

Only a few pages of what is now known as the Original Manuscript of the Book of Mormon existed when Oliver Cowdery introduced himself to Joseph Smith in Harmony, Pennsylvania, April 5, 1829. A year earlier, at Harmony, Martin Harris had transcribed Joseph Smith’s dictation from the plates, and in about two months they had produced 116 pages, which were lost when Harris took them to Palmyra to show his incredulous wife. At the end of September Joseph Smith had begun dictating his translation again, and from time to time his wife Emma and her brother Reuben Hale acted as scribes. But when Cowdery started writing for Joseph Smith on April 7, the work on the manuscript began in earnest. [1]

Cowdery had met David Whitmer earlier in Palmyra, and in May he wrote to Whitmer and asked if he and Smith might stay at Whitmer’s father’s farm in Fayette, New York. About the first of June they reached Fayette, and the day after they arrived they resumed their work on the manuscript. Occasionally two of David’s brothers, Christian and John, relieved Cowdery as Joseph Smith’s scribe. By the first of July the manuscript was finished.[2]

With the manuscript near completion, Joseph Smith turned his attention to its publication. On June 11, 1829, he deposited the title page of the Book of Mormon with the clerk of the Northern District of New York and obtained a copyright. About the same time, he and Harris approached Egbert B. Grandin, publisher of the Palmyra Wayne Sentinel, about printing the book. Grandin was troubled by the adverse publicity and refused. Next they contacted Thurlow Weed, publisher of the Rochester Anti-Masonic Enquirer, who declined on the grounds that he was only a newspaper man. But he sent them to Elihu F. Marshall, a Rochester book publisher, who agreed to do the printing if payment was suitably guaranteed. With a printer in hand, Harris went back to E. B. Grandin and urged him to take on the job. After talking with friends, who assured him printing the book would be viewed only as business, and consulting with his typesetter, John H. Gilbert, Grandin agreed to print and bind in leather 5,000 copies for $3,000. As security, Harris gave Grandin a mortgage on his farm, dated August 25, 1829, which bound Harris to pay the $3,000 within eighteen months.[3]

While Smith and Harris made arrangements with the printer, Oliver Cowdery began making a second copy of the manuscript. This transcription—now referred to as the Printer’s Manuscript—would be given to the typesetter, while the Original Manuscript was locked away, thus preserving the text should any part of the Printer’s Manuscript be lost. Cowdery did most of the copying, but Emma Smith, Christian Whitmer, and others also worked on this transcription.[4] The printing of the Book of Mormon actually began several months before the entire Printer’s Manuscript was finished: in a postscript to a letter to Joseph Smith of November 6, 1829, Cowdery remarked that, at that point, he had transcribed a little more than half. Apparently he attempted to copy the manuscript just fast enough to stay ahead of the typesetter. But at one point, it would seem, he got behind, and the typesetter used instead part of the Original Manuscript (Helaman 13–Mormon). Seventy-four leaves of the Original Manuscript, about a quarter, are held by the LDS Church. The entire Printer’s Manuscript is in the possession of the RLDS Church.[5]

Grandin’s print shop was on the third floor of what is now known as the Grandin Building and used by the LDS Church as a museum. Luther Howard’s bindery, operated in partnership with Grandin, was on the second floor; Grandin’s Palmyra Bookstore was on the first. Near the end of August 1829 the shop began on the Book of Mormon.[6] John H. Gilbert set the type for about 85 percent of the book.[7] On occasion, when he was rushed to get a form ready for the press, he engaged some additional compositors and sometimes cut the pages of the manuscript so they could simultaneously work on the same page. Gilbert faced a serious problem with the Printer’s Manuscript. Like the Original, it had virtually no punctuation; only the names of persons and places were capitalized; and there were no paragraphs. So it became his task to add punctuation to the text and divide it into paragraphs. Since the Printer’s Manuscript now shows only sporadic additions of punctuation in pencil or pen, it would seem that much of the punctuation was added by the compositor as he set the type.[8]

Gilbert also did the press work with J. H. Bortles until December 1829, when Grandin hired a journeyman pressman, Thomas McAuley. After that, McAuley and Bortles operated the press. Grandin’s press was a single-pull Smith Patented Improved Press, inked with “balls.” (It is now on display at the LDS Church’s Museum of Church History and Art.) Faced with setting a six hundred-page book, Grandin ordered a new font of type from Albany. Even so, one form of sixteen pages had to be printed and the type distributed before the next form could be set. Gilbert reported that when he was also working the press, it took nearly three days to print one form.[9]

Generally Oliver Cowdery, Hyrum Smith, and Martin Harris saw the book through the press. At least during the early weeks, Hyrum Smith handed the Printer’s Manuscript to Gilbert only a few pages at a time. Cowdery did the bulk of the proofreading—occasionally breaking the monotony of reading proof by setting a few lines of type himself. Joseph Smith was in Pennsylvania almost the entire time the Book of Mormon was in press and had little to do with the actual printing.[10]

Two crises drew Joseph back to Palmyra. In January 1830 excerpts from the Book of Mormon appeared in The Reflector, a one-man Palmyra newspaper published irregularly by Abner Cole, a former justice of the peace, who used the pseudonym Obediah Dogberry. Cole put his newspaper together in Grandin’s shop on Sundays and consequently had access to the Book of Mormon sheets. The Reflector for January 2, 1830, prints what is now 1 Nephi 1:1–2:3; and the issues of January 13 and January 22 include 1 Nephi 2:4–15 and Alma 43:22–40. Earlier Oliver Cowdery and Hyrum Smith had learned of Cole’s intentions and had tried to dissuade him from using the book, but to no avail. In desperation they dispatched Joseph Smith, Sr., to Harmony to fetch Joseph Smith, who reached Palmyra on Sunday, January 3. Following some heated negotiations, Joseph persuaded Cole to end his piracy. After January 22, The Reflector ran no other excerpts from the Book of Mormon.[11]

As the publication of the book became more of a certainty, a few of the local citizens began to speak out against it. Some proposed a boycott and sent a committee to E. B. Grandin to inform him of their intent. Alarmed over the possibility of a financial loss, Grandin immediately stopped work on the book. Once again Joseph Smith was called from Harmony. Upon arriving in Palmyra, he and Martin Harris persuaded Grandin that his payment was secure. Thus reassured, he resumed the printing.[12]

The first signal that the Book of Mormon was almost out of press came on March 19, 1830, when the Wayne Sentinel announced it would be ready within the week. Seven days later the Sentinel reprinted the title page together with the advertisement, “The above work, containing about 600 pages, large Duodecimo, is now for sale, wholesale and retail, at the Palmyra Bookstore, by Howard & Grandin.”

Two months earlier, Martin Harris had entered into an agreement with Joseph Smith to have “equal privilege” in selling the book until the printing bill was paid. And the moment that copies were delivered from Luther Howard’s bindery, Harris was out trying to sell them—with little success. Consumed by the debt hanging over him, he demanded that Joseph Smith receive a revelation for him. The next day Joseph received a revelation (D&C 19) which declared to Harris, “Impart a portion of thy property. . . . Pay the debt thou has contracted with the printer. Release thyself from bondage.” In the end it fell to Harris to underwrite the publication of the Book of Mormon, and in April 1831 he sold his mortgaged farm for $3,000, to settle the debt with E. B. Grandin.[13]

The 1830 Book of Mormon is originally bound in brown calf, plain except for seven double bands in gilt on the backstrip with a black leather label stamped in gilt Book of Mormon.[14] End sheets are of the same paper as the text. The copyright notice appears on the verso of the title page. A preface (pp. [iii]–iv) explains the loss of the initial 116 pages of manuscript and the revelation to Joseph Smith not to retranslate that part but to begin with the plates of Nephi. Only the 1830 edition has this preface. Pages [51]–588 contain the main text, and the testimonies of the three and of the eight witnesses occur on both sides of the leaf following p. 588. A few copies have a four-page index, in double columns, titled References to the Book of Mormon, but this was printed later, probably in Kirtland about 1835, and is not intrinsic to the book (see item 24).

Many variants exist. Janet Jenson and Alfred Bush have found forty-one points in the text where printing variations occur. For example, on p. 81, line 20, the phrase Holy One occurs in some copies as Holy one; on p. 91, line 9, the word carcasses also appears as carcases; the page number on p. 487 is given correctly and as 48; and on p. 507, lines 26–27, the phrase which is in my name is corrected in some copies to read which is my name. No pattern to these variations has emerged, and it is unlikely that one will. Most are typographical errors; some are errors in the Printer’s Manuscript that were perpetuated into print. What certainly happened was that errors were caught and corrected while a particular signature was being printed, but the sheets with the errors were not discarded; then books were assembled from signatures in several stages of correction, producing a large number of variant copies. Of some seventy copies she surveyed, Jenson identified sixty which were different from one another. In 1884 a committee appointed by the RLDS Church compared the Printer’s Manuscript with a copy of the 1830 Book of Mormon and tabulated about 350 differences, mainly typographical errors and errors in the manuscript corrected in the book. Their list and Janet Jenson’s list have only one entry in common. Since each point where the Printer’s Manuscript differs from a printed book marks a potential printing variation, it is very likely that Jenson’s list can be extended to include many more than forty-one points in the text. Indeed it is possible that very few copies of the book exist which are entirely identical.[15]

Flake 595. CSmH, CtY, CU-B, DLC, ICHi, ICN, MH, MiU-C, MoInRC, MWA, NjP, NN, OClWHi, TxDaDF, UHi, ULA, UPB, US1C, UU, WHi.

2 [Prospectus for The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, 1832] Broadside?

No copy of this prospectus is known to have survived. Its existence is inferred from the reference to the “prospectus, which was published last winter” in the article “To Man” in the first number of The Evening and the Morning Star, and from the comment in Joseph Smith’s history that he received a copy in March 1832.’ [16]

Fortunately the text of the prospectus was added to the Kirtland reprint of the Star (item 17). Dated February 23, 1832, and undoubtedly written by W. W. Phelps, it announced that the paper would discuss the revelations of God and provide the Saints with beneficial information “without interfering with politics, broils, or the gainsayings of the world”—a promise Phelps would break in the fourteenth number with his article “Free People of Color.” “As the forerunner of the night of the end, and the messenger of the day of redemption,” it declared, “the Star will borrow its light from sacred sources”—hence the paper’s name, The Evening and the Morning Star. It further stated that the Star would be issued monthly, at one dollar a year, until it seemed proper to publish it more often. Parenthetically it mentioned that “a supplement will be published weekly, if required, containing the advertisements of Jackson county, &c,”—thus anticipating the Upper Missouri Advertiser (item 4)

3 The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence: June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland: December 1833–September 1834.

2 v. (24 nos. in 192 pp.) 32 cm.

The first Mormon newspaper had its conception at a conference held in September 1831, in Ohio, at which W. W. Phelps was instructed to purchase a press and type in Cincinnati and publish a monthly newspaper in Jackson County, Missouri, to be called The Evening and the Morning Star (see the preceding item). Two months previous Phelps had been directed to settle in Jackson “and be established as a printer unto the church,” and Oliver Cowdery had been called to assist him (D&C 57).[17]

Cowdery joined Phelps in Independence, Missouri, just after the first of the year. On January 27, 1832, he wrote to Joseph Smith that they expected “soon to be ready to print,” and that they were waiting for Martin Harris to bring paper for the press.[18] The following month they issued a prospectus for the Star. In May they did a little job printing for, ironically, Lilburn W. Boggs, publishing a Star Extra which outlined his position in his run for lieutenant governor.[19] The first regular number of the Star appeared in June, and between June 1832 and July 1833, Phelps published a total of fourteen numbers before the press was destroyed on July 20, 1833.

The fourteenth number of the Star contains Phelps’s article “Free People of Color,” which did little more than repeat the laws of Missouri regarding the immigration of free blacks into the state. But Phelps inserted a more inflammatory editorial comment on p. Ill of the same issue: “As to slaves we have nothing to say. In connection with the wonderful events of this age, much is doing towards abolishing slavery, and colonizing the blacks, in Africa.” According to the Star Extra of February 1834 (item 10), he published “Free People of Color” to scotch the rumors that the Mormons were tampering with the Jackson County slaves. Unfortunately it only ignited the animosities of the local Missourians, leading immediately to the destruction of the print shop and ultimately to the expulsion of the Latter-day Saints from Jackson County.

For the non-Mormons in Jackson the Star certainly represented those characteristics which they found most objectionable in the Saints, their peculiar religious beliefs including a belief in direct revelation from God, their communitarianism (see items 5–6), their rapidly increasing numbers in the county, and the fact that they were northerners in a slave-holding state. Thus the Star was a likely target when the wrath of the Jackson citizens finally boiled over. During the week of July 15, 1833, some of the prominent county residents circulated a manifesto outlining their grievances and called for a mass meeting at the courthouse in Independence on Saturday, July 20. On the 16th Phelps issued an extra in an attempt to mitigate the effect of his articles (item 7). But that Saturday, several hundred people converged on his home, a two story brick building which housed the press in the second story, and after throwing the press and type out of the upper story window, they pulled down the building.[20]

Too important was the power of the press for the Church leaders to allow the Star to die, particularly with their side of the Jackson violence still to be aired. So on September 11, seven and a half weeks after the Independence print shop was destroyed, they resolved to establish a new press in Kirtland, under the firm name of F. G. Williams and Company, and to continue the Star in Kirtland under Oliver Cowdery’s editorship until it could be transferred back to Missouri. Cowdery left for New York on October 1 to purchase a press, and two months later he and Newel K. Whitney brought it into Kirtland. On December 4 they began distributing the type, and on December 18 the elders dedicated the new shop and then pulled the first sheet of the resuscitated Star from the press. Cowdery published ten more issues in Kirtland between December 1833 and September 1834, making a total of twenty-four numbers in two volumes.[21]

Each issue of the Star consists of eight royal-quarto pages, printed in double columns. None of the pages are numbered for the first twelve issues, but beginning with the thirteenth, the first issue of volume 2, the pages are numbered consecutively from [97] to 192.

The first fourteen issues include the earliest authorized printings of Joseph Smith’s revelations.[22] The Star opens with “Articles and Covenants of the Church of Christ” (D&C 20), and all or parts of twenty-two other revelations, each subsequently incorporated into the Doctrine and Covenants, appear throughout these fourteen issues. In addition Phelps included doctrinal discussions, instructions for the Saints, letters from the elders in various parts of the country, and bits of national and foreign news, particularly the catastrophic events which he saw as foreshadowing the Second Advent. On January 14, 1833, Joseph Smith wrote to him, urging him to make the Star more interesting, particularly by including more on the development of the young Church. In response, Phelps inserted a brief history of the Church in the April 1833 issue, and in each of the three succeeding issues he included articles or lengthy letters on the Church’s progress.[23]

The ten issues published in Kirtland reflect the change in editor. They contain, for example, no revelations, and the articles are generally longer and better written. But then Cowdery had “hot copy,” and eight of the ten Kirtland issues include detailed discussions of the Mormons’ expulsion from Jackson County. Three long serial articles, “Millenium,” “Faith of the Church,” and “The Gospel,” each written by Sidney Rigdon, commence in this part of the Star and continue in the Messenger and Advocate (item 16), the Star’s successor.[24]

The circulation of the Star was small, probably no more than a few hundred, and it is clear that when it ceased publication, only a handful of files existed. Consequently, the entire twenty-four issues were reprinted in Kirtland between January 1835 and October 1836 (item 17), in octavo format to conform with the Messenger and Advocate, so that more of the Church membership could retain those first Mormon writings.

Flake 3272. CSmH, MoInRC [nos. 1–14], UPB, US1C.

4 The Upper Missouri Advertiser. By W. W. Phelps & Co. Independence: June 27? 1832-July 1833?

48 cm.

Only a single issue of the Upper Missouri Advertiser is extant, no. 3, July 11, 1832. A notice in this issue asserts that “The Advertiser will be published weekly at Independence, at the rate of seventy five cents a year, till the sheet is printed on both sides—then one dollar a year: in advance.—Advertisements the customary prices.” Presumably the first number appeared two or more weeks before July 11. The Saints’ petition to Daniel Dunklin of September 28, 1833, refers to “the stoppage [on July 20, 1833] of The Evening and Morning Star, a monthly paper, and the Upper Missouri Advertiser, a weekly paper,” suggesting that the Advertiser ran until the Mormon press was destroyed.[25]

The Star of July 1832 refers to the Advertiser, commenting that “it will contain sketches of the news of the day, politics, advertisements, and whatever tends to promote the interest of the Great West.” Thus the Advertiser was intended to be a community paper serving the non-Mormons as well as the Mormons, whereas the Star was specifically directed to the Saints.

The surviving number consists of a single sheet, 48.3 x 30.5 cm., printed on one side in three columns. It includes news items from other papers, legal notices, a list of letters remaining at the Independence post office, an ad soliciting job printing, a notice that Wynkoop Warner has opened a new tavern, and a notice that Peter Whitmer, Jr., has opened a tailoring business in the upper room of Colonel Boggs’s house, opposite Warner’s tavern. One further glimpse into the contents of the Advertiser is provided by the Morning Courier and New-York Enquirer for December 11, 1832, which reprints an article from the Advertiser about the return of a Captain Bent—undoubtedly Charles Bent, the prominent fur trader and brotherin- law of Lilburn W. Boggs—from a trading expedition to Santa Fe.

Flake 9260. MWA [no. 3].

5 Be it known, that I, [blank space] Of Jackson county, and state of Missouri, having become a member of the church of Christ, organized according to [First two lines of print]. [Independence? 1832?]

Broadside 31 x 19 cm.

Be it known, that I, [blank space] Of Jackson county, and state of Missouri, bishop of the church of Christ, organized according to law, and established [First two lines of print]. [Independence? 1832?]

Broadside 31 x 19 cm.

6 Be it known, that I, [blank space] Of Jackson county, and state of Missouri, having become a member of the church of Christ, organized according [First two lines of print]. [Independence? 1832?]

Broadside 31x19 cm.

Be it known, that I, Edward Partridge, of Jackson county, and state of Missouri, bishop of the church of Christ, organized according to law, and established by the revelations of the Lord, on the [First two lines of print]. [Independence? 1832?]

Broadside 31x19 cm.

Ordinarily printed forms such as these would not be included in this bibliography. But these two pairs, undoubtedly printed on the Independence press, provide some insight into the law of consecration, as initially conceived, and so they are included here.

Item 5 consists of two forms originally printed on the same side of a single sheet. The first form, a deed of gift, conveys property from the Church member to the bishop. The printed portion indicates that the property is to be used for “the purpose of purchasing lands, and building up the New Jerusalem, even Zion, and for relieving the wants of the poor and needy,” and that the donor forever releases all rights to it. It further binds the bishop and his heirs to use the property for the above stated purposes. Spaces are left for the name of the donor, the name of the bishop, and a description of the property conveyed by the donor to be written on the form in manuscript.

The second form in item 5 is a lease from the bishop to the member. With it the bishop leases real property to the member and loans him certain items of personal property. Its printed text stipulates that the leasee agrees to pay all the taxes and to pay yearly to the bishop any surplus income from the property above the needs of his family. The lease is to be binding during the life of the leasee, unless he is expelled from the Church, in which case the real property is forfeited to the bishop and the leasee is to pay an equivalent amount for the personal property. If the leasee becomes unable to earn a living, he is to be supported by the bishop. Upon the death of the leasee, the lease then applies to his widow until her death, or, if both parents are dead, to the children until they become of age. Also in this form there are spaces for the name of the leasee, the name of the bishop, and a description of the real and personal property.

Item 6 is a different printing of item 5. The deed of gift in item 6 is textually identical to that of item 5 except that Edward Partridge’s name is printed in the form as bishop. The lease in item 6 also has Partridge’s name printed in it. That part of the text giving the conditions of the lease is a rearrangement and slight modification of the corresponding part of item 5, but the conditions themselves are the same. Whether item 6 is earlier or later than item 5 is not known.

Generally the terms of these two pairs of agreements are consistent with the outline of the law of consecration in chapter 44 of the Book of Commandments (item 8). The intent was that every member of the Church would deed all of his real and personal property to the bishop. Some, it was expected, would give more to the bishop than they leased back, and from the surplus thus created, the bishop could lease property to those who had none and in other respects finance the programs of the Church. Subsequent litigation in the Missouri courts forced significant modifications in the law of consecration, reflected in the revised version of chapter 44 in section 13 of the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants (now D&C 42; see item 22). And on May 2, 1833, Joseph Smith wrote to Partridge that thereafter the properties conveyed back to the Church members should be given in fee simple rather than leased or loaned.[26] It would seem therefore that both items 5 and 6 were printed before Partridge received this letter. The LDS Church has a copy of the lease in item 5 which is filled out to Joseph Knight, Jr., and dated October 12, 1832. So item 5 must have been printed before this date. Item 5, filled out to Levi Jackman, and item 6, filled out to Benjamin Eames, both undated, are reproduced in Leonard J. Arrington, et al., Building the City of God (Salt Lake City, 1976), pp. 28–29, 370–71. Item 5 filled out to Titus Billings is given in History of the Church 1: 365–67, with no distinction between the printed and manuscript parts. In addition to these, the LDS Church has copies of item 5 for Stephen Chase, George W. Pitkin, and Sanford Porter, and a copy of the deed of gift form of item 6 for James Lee, all undated.

Edward Partridge, the first bishop in the Church, was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, August 27, 1793, and was living in Painesville, Ohio, when he converted to Mormonism in December 1830. On February 4, 1831, he was called to be a bishop “and to spend all his time in the labors of the church” (D&C 41:9), and four months later he was directed to go to Missouri (D&C 52:24; 58:14, 24). He continued to serve as the bishop in Missouri when the Saints moved into Clay and Caldwell counties, and on October 5, 1839, he was called to be the bishop of the Nauvoo upper ward. He died in Nauvoo, May 27, 1840.[27]

Items 5–6: US1C.

7 The Evening and the Morning Star Extra.—July 16, 1833. [Independence, 1833]

Broadside 21.5 x 16.5 cm.

W. W. Phelps rushed this extra off the press and tacked up copies around Independence in an effort to calm the local Missourians’ wrath over his article “Free People of Color” and his editorial in the fourteenth number of the Star (see item 3). The extra declares that the purpose of the article was actually to prevent free people of color from immigrating into the state, and further, that “none will be admitted into the church.” One might suspect, however, that in spite of its overreaching disavowal this extra only fanned the flames, for it repeated the comment in Phelps’s editorial, “in connexion with the wonderful events of this age, much is doing towards abolishing slavery,” which certainly was offensive to the slave-holding Missourians.

The extra is reproduced in Chad Flake’s A Mormon Bibliography, p. 226. Its text is reprinted in History of the Church 1:378–79 with a few changes.

Flake 3272a. US1C

8 A book of commandments, for the government of the Church of Christ, organized according to law, on the 6th of April, 1830. Zion [Independence]: Published by W. W. Phelps & Co. 1833. 160 pp. 12.5 cm.

Three months after the Church was organized, Joseph Smith and John Whitmer began to arrange and copy the revelations that Joseph Smith had received up to that point, and for a time manuscript copies of some of them circulated among a few of the Church members. With the advent of a Mormon press came the possibility of printing the revelations and making them more widely available. At a conference in Hiram. Ohio. November 1 and 2, 1831, six weeks after the decision to establish a press in Independence, the Church leaders agreed to print the revelations in book form under the title “Book of Commandments,” in an edition of 10,000. Oliver Cowdery was designated to carry the manuscript revelations to Independence. In the course of the conference Joseph Smith received a revelation (D&C 1) which would constitute the preface to the printed book, and the day after he received another (D&C 133). the “Appendix,” which would be its concluding chapter. On November 8 some of the ciders met at Hiram and again discussed the revelations. In response to Sidney Rigdon’s remarks about transcription errors, they directed Joseph Smith to correct any such errors “he may discover by the holy Spirit.”[28] Not all shared the decision to put the revelations in print. David Whitmer, the persistent anticreedalist, for example, objected on the grounds that they were “not law,” that they were directed only to individuals, and the Church as a whole had no need of them.[29]

For two weeks following the conference, Joseph Smith reviewed and arranged the revelations, and during this time he received two others pertaining to the Book of Commandments. The first (D&C 69) directed John Whitmer, the official Church recorder and historian, to accompany Oliver Cowdery to Missouri, and the second (D&C 70) called Joseph Smith, Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, John Whitmer, Sidney Rigdon, and W. W. Phelps to be “stewards over the revelations and commandments.” This group, subsequently known as the Literary Firm, was to assume the responsibility for publishing the book. They were to be supported out of the proceeds from its sale, and any profit above that needed for their support was to be paid into the bishop’s storehouse. Not surprisingly, David Whitmer was not included in the Firm.[30]

John Whitmer, David’s older brother, was born in Pennsylvania on August 27, 1802, baptized by Oliver Cowdery in June 1829, and was one of the eight witnesses of the Book of Mormon. In 183 1 he was designated to “write and keep” a history of the Church (D&C 47); three years later he was called to be his brother’s assistant in the presidency of the Church in Missouri (see item 15). For almost a year he served as editor of the Messenger and Advocate (item 16). Along with his brother, Cowdery, and Phelps, he became estranged from the Church in 1838, and on March 10 he was excommunicated. He remained in Far West, Missouri, until his death on July II, 1878.[31]

Cowdery and John Whitmer left Kirtland on November 20, 1831, and arrived in Independence January 5, 1832. That April, Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, and others traveled to Independence with paper for the press. On April 30 the Literary Firm met in Independence and concluded to reduce the edition of the Book of Commandments to 3,000. Here also they appointed W. W. Phelps, Oliver Cowdery, and John Whitmer “to review the Book of Commandments & select for printing such as shall be deemed by them proper, as dictated by the Spirit & make all necessary verbal [i.e., grammatical] corrections.”[32]

Originally Joseph Smith’s revelations were recorded on individual pieces of paper such as those now in Brigham Young University’s Lee Library Whitney Manuscript Collection. Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner remembered the elders discussing the revelations at her home in Independence and recalled that these “were in large sheets, not folded.” Ultimately Phelps, Cowdery, and Whitmer produced a printer’s manuscript from which the Book of Commandments was set in type. The RLDS Church owns four leaves of this manuscript, in the handwriting of John Whitmer, bearing the marks of its use by the compositor.[33]

The Book of Commandments was in the press by December 1832, and five months later the Star published the “Appendix” with the comment that the book would be completed during the year. Early in June, Phelps was far enough along in the printing to write the Church leaders in Kirtland about binding the book. In response Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, and F. G. Williams suggested selling it without a binding, since to search for a suitable binder would keep it too long out of circulation.[34]

By July 20, 1833, Phelps had printed five 32-page signatures. That afternoon a large group of Missourians swarmed into the Star office, threw the press and type out of an upper story window, and pulled down the building (see item 3). Close by, Mary Elizabeth Rollins and her younger sister Caroline watched the destruction:

When the mob was tearing down the printing office, a two story building, driving Brother Phelps’ family out of the lower part of the house, they (the mob) brought out some large sheets of paper, saying, “Here are the Mormon commandments.” My sister, 12 years old (I was then 14) and myself were in a corner of a fence watching them. When they spoke about them being the commandments, I was determined to have some of them. So while their backs were turned, prying out the gable end of the house, we ran and gathered up all we could carry in our arms. As we turned away, two of the mob got down off the house and called for us to stop, but we ran as fast as we could, through a gap in the fence into a large corn field, and the two men after us. We ran a long way in the field, laid the papers on the ground, then laid down on top of them. The corn was very high and thick. They hunted all around us, but did not see us. After we were satisfied they had given up the search, we tried to find our way out of the field. The corn was so tall we thought we were lost. On looking up we saw some trees that had been girdled to kill them. We followed them and came to an old log stable, which looked like it had not been used for years. Sister Phelps and family were there, carrying in brush and piling it up on one side of the stable to make their beds on. She asked us what we had. We told her and also how we came by them. She took them and placed them between her beds. Subsequently Oliver Cowdery bound them in small books and gave me one. I gave it to Apostle Richards shortly before he died. We have one, however, that belonged to Sidney Gilbert.[35]

Some time later, after the press had been moved from the street, John Taylor, a twenty-year-old Mormon convert of seven months from Kentucky, salvaged a second batch of sheets:

In 1833 at the time of the destruction of the Printing Press in Independence Jackson Co. the printed sheets of the Book of Commandments & the pied type & press were thrown in an old log stable by the mob. I asked Bp. Partridge if I might go & get out some copies of the Book of Commandments. He said it would most likely cost me my life if I attempted it. I told him I did not mind hazarding my life to secure some copies of the commandments. He then said I might go. I ran my hand into a crack between the logs & pulled out a few at a time until I got as many as I could carry, when I was discovered. A dozen men surrounded me and commenced throwing stones at me and I shouted out “Oh my God must I be stoned to death like Stephen for the sake of the word of the Lord.” The Lord gave me strength & skill to elude them and make my escape without being hit by a stone. I delivered the copies to Bp. Partridge who said I had done a good work and my escape was a miracle. These I believe are the only copies of that edition of the Book of Commandments preserved from destruction.[36]

Sheets survived in other ways. William E. McLellin, for example, gathered up some as they blew about the streets of Independence. And it is apparent from the letter of Joseph Smith, S. Rigdon, and F. G. Williams of June 25, 1833, that Phelps had sent copies of the various signatures to Kirtland as they were printed.[37]

The surviving Book of Commandments consists of 160 pages in five signatures. The phrase Copy Right Secured according to Law appears on the verso of the title page. Pages [31–160 contain revelations received by Joseph Smith between July 1828 and November 1, 1831, arranged essentially chronologically in sixty-five chapters numbered with roman numerals. Curiously, the title page occurs in two states: (1) with a border of fleur-de-lis-like figures, and (2) without a border. Why there are two variant title pages is not clear. Phelps obviously changed the design of the title page during the run of the first signature and used both states to compile copies.[38] Those now extant show a diversity of bindings, many obviously homemade, a reflection of the book’s history.

Despite some claims to the contrary (e.g., David Whitmer’s An Address to Believers in the Book of Mormon [Richmond, 18871, p. 5), it is clear that the Book of Commandments was unfinished at the time the press was destroyed. The “Appendix,” for example, which was to be the final chapter, is not included. Moreover, the printer’s manuscript owned by the RLDS Church shows that the last page of the Book of Commandments ends three-fourths of the way through chapter 65. This manuscript includes the latter half of this chapter and bears the printer’s “take sign” around the word Ephraim, the last word on p. 160.

Just what the finished book would have contained is, of course, a matter of conjecture. Seven revelations printed in the Star are not in the Book of Commandments. The printer’s manuscript at the RLDS Church contains two others not printed in either the Star or the Book of Commandments. If it was to include all sections printed in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants that were received by Joseph Smith after chapter 65 and before the “Olive Leaf (D&C 88)—the latest revelation published in the Star, then twenty-one additional chapters were intended for the book. It would seem, therefore, that the completed book would have contained at least ten, and perhaps as many as twenty, additional chapters.

Parts or all of fifteen revelations in the Book of Commandments are printed in the Star, and in each case the two versions are textually the same. All of the chapters in the Book of Commandments are reprinted in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants (item 22), but with substantial changes.

Flake 2854. CSmH [2], CtY [l], CU-B [l], DLC[1], ICN[2], MoInRC [l, 21, N] Pf 11, NNf 1], TxDaDF [1], UPB, US1C [1, 2], UU [2].

9 [Handbill dated December 12, 1833. Liberty, Missouri? 1833?]

10 The Evening and the Morning Star. Extra. Kirtland, Ohio, February, 1834. [Kirtland, 1834 ]

Broadsheet 32 x 24.5 cm. Text in three columns.

No copy of item 9 is located, but its existence is inferred from several contemporary references. For example, Oliver Cowdery remarks in a letter of February 10, 1834, “I received a long circular, or handbill, this evening from Zion, written by our brethren in that country and printed; I shall have it set out, and sent, Extra Star.” The “Second Petition to the President of the United States,” dated at Liberty, April 10, 1834, refers to item 9, a copy of which accompanied the petition. And the Star Extra (item 10), which reprints item 9, contains a reference to the original.[39]

One might guess where item 9 was printed. After the Mormon print shop was destroyed, the press was acquired by Messrs. Kelly and Davis, who began publishing the Upper Missouri Enquirer in January 1834. The Enquirer advertised for job printing, and W. W. Phelps did have some business with this shop, as shown by Cowdery’s inquiry of January 21, 1834.[40] So it seems likely that item 9 was printed at the Enquirer, late in December 1833 or in January 1834.

The Star Extra (item 10) reprints the Missouri handbill together with two editorial comments by Oliver Cowdery. Its main text, entitled “The Mormons” So Called, is signed by Parley Pratt, Newel Knight, John Carrill [Corrill], and dated December 12, 1833. It recounts the events leading up to the destruction of the Star office, the agreement of the Saints to leave Jackson County by April 1, 1834, and their violent expulsion in November 1833. This account largely agrees—at a number of points word for word—with that in Parley Pratt’s History of the Late Persecution (item 59), suggesting that Parley actually wrote the handbill and used it five years later in composing his book.

Pratt, Knight, and Corrill were among the ten high priests chosen “to wa[t]ch over” the ten Missouri branches by a Church council on September 11, 1833.[41] Knight and his father Joseph, Sr., were associated with Joseph Smith as early as 1827. Born in Marlborough, Vermont, September 13, 1800, Newel moved with his family to Bainbridge, New York, in 1809, and then to Colesville two years later. David Whitmer baptized him into the Church in May 1830. In May 1831 he moved with the Colesville branch to Ohio, and three months later he led the Colesville Saints into Missouri. He was a member of the first high council in Missouri (see item 15) and a member of the high councils at Far West and Nauvoo (see item 296). He evacuated Nauvoo with George Miller’s company in 1846, and on January 11, 1847, he died at the Ponca Indian reservation in northern Nebraska.[42]

John Corrill was born in Worcester County, Massachusetts, September 17, 1794. He encountered Oliver Cowdery in Ohio in the fall of 1830 and was baptized into the Church the following January. On June 3, 1831, he was ordained an assistant to Bishop Edward Partridge, a position he held until November 7, 1837. In 1838 he was elected to the Missouri state legislature from Caldwell County (see items 55–56). That fall Corrill began to distance himself from the Church leaders, and in November he testified for the state at Joseph Smith’s trial before Austin A. King. The following March he was excommunicated. He died in Quincy, Illinois, September 6, 1843. Yet his book/\ Brief History of the Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints, (Commonly Called Mormons;) Including an Account of Their Doctrine and Discipline; with the Reasons of the Author for Leaving the Church (St. Louis, 1839) was inoffensive enough for The Prophet to advertise it for much of its run.[43]

Item 10: Flake 3272b. UPB, US1C.

11 Verily, I say unto you, concerning your brethren | First line of text] [Kirtland? 1834? |

Broadsheet 31.5 x 19.5 cm. In two columns.

12 Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you, who have assembled [First line of text] [Kirtland? 1834?]

Broadsheet 34 x 25 cm. In two columns.

13 Behold, blessed saith the Lord, are they [First line of text] | Kirtland? 1834?]

Broadside 25 x 18 cm. In two columns.

These three items print revelations to Joseph Smith. In each case, only the text of the revelation is given; there is no title, no additional explanatory text, and no place or date of publication.

Item 11 contains the revelation of December 16, 1833 (D&C 101), which explains the loss of Mormon lands in Jackson County. It is reprinted in the Painesville Telegraph of January 24, 1834, with the explanation that “soon after the above accounts [of the Mormon expulsion] were received at the head quarters of the Mormon Prophet, in this county, the following document (which they call a revelation,) was printed and privately circulated among the deluded followers of the imposter, Smith.” It is also reprinted in E. D. Howe’s Mormonism Unvailed (Painesville, 1834), pp. 147ff, with the comment that it “issued from their [the Mormons’] press in Kirtland, in the form of a handbill.” According to the Painesville Telegraph of May 9, 1834, the revelation was distributed among the branches of the Church by those soliciting men and supplies for Zion’s Camp during the two months preceding the departure of the Camp for Missouri (see item 14).

Item 12 includes two revelations: what is now D&C 88:1–126, the “Olive Leaf,” received by Joseph Smith December 27 and 28, 1832; and what is now D&C 89, the “Word of Wisdom,” Mormonism’s rules of health, revealed February 27, 1833. Items 11 and 12 show identical typefaces and similar formats, but they have different column widths and different center rules. This suggests that they were printed about the same time, but not together.

As far as it is known, none of the revelations in these two broadsheets appeared earlier in print, with the exception of the last three paragraphs of the “Olive Leaf,” now verses 117–26, which were published in The Evening and the Morning Star of February 1833. All three revelations are in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants (as sections 97,7, and 80, respectively), and these versions are textually the same as the broadsheet printings—except that the Doctrine and Covenants adds what are now verses 127–41 to the “Olive Leaf.” Part of this added text, essentially verses 127–37, was published separately in the Star of March 1833.

Item 13 prints the revelation of August 7, 1831 (D&C 59), which outlines a standard of conduct for the Saints, particularly the observance of the Sabbath. In format it is similar to the broadsheets, except that the text begins with an enlarged boldface letter B and is divided into numbered verses. This revelation is published in the Star of July 1832, in the Book of Commandments as chapter 60, and in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants as section 19. Its text in the Book of Commandments, which also begins with a boldface B, is identical to that in the broadside, including an identical division into numbered verses. The text in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants differs in one grammatical change, a number of changes in punctuation, and a different arrangement in verses. There is little doubt item 13 is a Kirtland imprint: the boldface B is the typeface of the Kirtland press, and its center rule is the same as that in the second broadsheet. It seems likely it was printed about the same time as the broadsheets.

Item 11: Flake 2920a. UPB. Item 12: Flake 2916a. UPB. Item 13: Flake 2914a. US1C.

14 RIGDON, Sidney, and Oliver Cowdery. Dear Brethren,- [Signed and dated at end:] Sidney Rigdon, Oliver Cowdery. Kirtland, Ohio, May 10, 1834. [Kirtland, 1834]

Broadsheet 32 x 20 cm.

The text of this broadsheet is copied into Oliver Cowdery’s “Letterbook,” now in the Huntington Library, with the title “Copy of a circular to the churches, written by Oliver Cowdery.” Generally overlooked in the past, it is an important statement of Mormon assumptions and expectations at the moment Zion’s Camp marched out of Kirtland for Jackson County.

Dated five days after Joseph Smith and the main body of Zion’s Camp left Kirtland, the circular states that when the Camp reaches Missouri, the Mormons there will inform the governor, Daniel Dunklin, that they are ready to move back on their Jackson County lands. “The Governor is bound to call out the Militia and take them back,” it continues, “and has informed our brethren of his readiness so to do, previous to this time.” It goes on to explain that after the militia has escorted them back to their lands, the Jackson County Saints together with Zion’s Camp will be enough to “maintain the ground” after the militia has been discharged. Mainly, the circular is an appeal to those in the various branches of the Church to join Zion’s Camp and contribute funds to assist the Mormons in Missouri. More men are needed, it asserts, so the Saints can move between Missouri and Ohio in groups large enough for their protection and so a sufficient body can be maintained in Missouri when some return to Kirtland.[44]

It was an optimistic document. It assumed that Dunklin would live up to his pledge of military assistance, when in fact he ultimately declined to call out the militia, undoubtedly because he felt a broken promise to the Mormons was less serious than civil war. It also overestimated the Saints’ ability to intimidate the Jackson citizens. Four to five hundred Missourians were involved in the destruction of Phelps’s house and print shop (see items 3, 8); and at a June 16 meeting five to eight hundred pledged that “they would dispute every inch of ground, burn every blade of grass, and suffer their bones to bleach on their hills, rather than the Mormons should return to Jackson county.” In the end the destiny of Zion’s Camp lay in Daniel Dunklin’s hands. His promise of military assistance helped bring it into being, and his abandonment of this promise insured it would not succeed.[45]

Flake 7283. US1C.

15 The Evening and the Morning Star Extra. Kirtland, Ohio, August, J834. [At head of first column:] An appeal. [Signed and dated at end:] W. W. Phelps, David Whitmer, John Whitmer, Edward Partridge, John Corrill, Isaac Morley, Parley P. Pratt, Lyman Wight, Newel Knight, Thomas B. Marsh, Simeon Carter, Calvin Beehe. Missouri, (United States.) July, 1834. [Kirtland, 1834]

Broadsheet 33.5 x 26 cm. Text in two columns.

On July 3, 1834, ten days after Zion’s Camp reached Liberty, Missouri, and about the time the Camp was discharged, Joseph Smith convened a conference at Lyman Wight’s house in Clay County and organized the first high council in that state. Four days later the conference sustained David Whitmer as president of the Church in Missouri, W. W. Phelps and John Whitmer as his assistants, and twelve high councilors including Parley Pratt, Lyman Wight, Newel Knight, Thomas B. Marsh, Simeon Carter, and Calvin Beebe. Edward Partridge continued as the bishop, with John Corrill and Isaac Morley as his assistants. Here also the Church leaders approved the appeal printed in item 15.[46]

Isaac Morley had been an assistant to Partridge since June 3, 1831. An early settler of the Western Reserve and a veteran of the War of 1812, he was born in Massachusetts on March 11, 1786, and converted to Mormonism in Ohio in 1830. When the Saints evacuated Missouri in 1839, he settled at the south edge of Hancock County and was appointed presiding elder in that area in October 1840 (see item 277). Five years later he was named a captain of a company of one hundred when the Church began to prepare to leave Illinois (see item 284). Morley made the overland crossing to Utah in 1848 and ultimately settled in Sanpete County. He served in the general assembly of the provisional state of Deseret and in the territorial legislature, 1851–55. He died in Fairview, Utah, June 24, 1865.[47]

Of the six high councilors who signed the appeal, Pratt, Wight, and Marsh would become members of the Quorum of Twelve, and Knight would serve on two other high councils (see items 9–10, 296). Simeon Carter was born on June 7, 1794, in Killingworth, Connecticut, and baptized in Kirtland in February 1831. He was called to preside over one of the Missouri branches in September 1833 (see items 9–10), and in November 1837 was sustained as a member of the Far West high council. In May 1846, as the Saints were moving across Iowa, he left for a two-year mission in England. He crossed the plains to Utah in 1849 and settled in Brigham City, where he died on February 3, 1869.[48]

Less is known about Calvin Beebe. Born in Paris, New York, July 1, 1800, he was ordained an elder before June 3, 1831, and had moved to Jackson County by January 23, 1832. He too was called to preside over a Missouri branch in September 1833 and sustained as a member of the Far West high council in November 1837. By 1843 he had settled in Lima, Illinois, just south of the Hancock County line; in January 1846 he participated in the Nauvoo Temple ordinances; and in October 1849 he was living in Pottawattomie County, Iowa. In 1859 he associated himself with the Reorganization, and at the April 1860 RLDS conference in Amboy, Illinois, he was ordained a member of the high council. He died in Mills County, Iowa, July 17, 1861.[49]

The appeal was published in The Evening and the Morning Star for August 1834, and, from a rearrangement of this setting, as the Star extra. Copies of the extra were mailed to various newspapers and reprinted in some (e.g., the Columbia Missouri Intelligencer and Boon’s Lick Advertiser of October 11, 1834). Written in response to the “Fishing River” revelation of June 22, 1834 (D&C 105), it alludes to the events surrounding the expulsion of the Mormons from Jackson and the futile attempts to obtain redress, and it quotes the Book of Commandments to show that the Saints are forbidden to shed blood in order to regain their lands. It asks for a peaceful restoration of their rights to own land in Jackson and worship as they please; it declares that a “gathering” has begun in Missouri for the purpose of building a holy city; and it pleads for peace and the protection of the Saints wherever they might be. One might guess that Phelps was actually the author, since his name appears first among the signers, even though he was David Whitmer’s assistant.

Flake 3272c. US1C.

16 Latter Day Saints ‘Messenger and Advocate’. Kirtland: October 1834–September 1837.

3 v. (36 nos. in 576 pp.) 23 cm.

On September 11, 1833, Joseph Smith, Frederick G. Williams, Sidney Rigdon, Newel K. Whitney, and Oliver Cowdery met in Kirtland and resolved to establish a press there, to continue The Evening and the Morning Star in Kirtland temporarily, and, at some future time, to replace it with an Ohio periodical entitled Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate (see item 3).[50] One year later the Star announced that it would cease publication with the close of the second volume and would be succeeded by the Messenger and Advocate. This announcement further explained, “As The Evening and the Morning Star was designed to be published at Missouri, it was considered that another name would be more appropriate for a paper in this place [Kirtland]; consequently, as the name of this church has lately been entitled the church of the Latter Day Saints, and since it is destined, at least for a season, to bear the reproach and stigma of this world, it is no more than just, that a paper disseminating the doctrines believed by the same, and advocating its character and rights, should be entitled ‘Messenger and Advocate.’”

Oliver Cowdery continued as editor of the Messenger and Advocate for the first eight issues, October 1834–May 1835. In May 1835 he was replaced by his brother-in-law John Whitmer, apparently because of Cowdery’s appointment as an assistant president of the Church in December 1834.[51] Whitmer served as editor for the next ten issues, June 1835–March 1836. W. W. Phelps was also in Kirtland during this period, and it is apparent from his diary and from the number of articles signed with his initial P that he performed a substantial part of the editorial labors.[52] Oliver Cowdery again assumed the editorial chair in March 1836 when Phelps and Whitmer returned to Missouri, and the Messenger and Advocate lists him as editor for ten issues, whole numbers 19–28 (April 1836–January 1837). In fact, Oliver’s brother Warren A. Cowdery actually carried the editorial burden during this time. W. A. Cowdery officially became editor with the February 1837 issue (whole number 29) and served as such until the paper ceased publication in September 1837.[53]

W. A. Cowdery, a physician and Oliver’s oldest brother, was born in Rutland County, Vermont, in October 1788. A convert to Mormonism in 1831, he was appointed by a revelation in November 1834 to preside over the branch in Freedom, New York (D&C 106:1). Early in 1836 he moved to Kirtland and began working on the Messenger and Advocate. Two years later he left the Church along with his brother and the Whitmer brothers. He died in Kirtland, February 23, 1851.[54]

Joseph Smith and the other leaders grew increasingly dissatisfied with Warren Cowdery’s conduct of the paper, at first because he included too many ponderous articles on ancient history and philosophy and too few on the progress of the Church. When he published an editorial in the July 1837 issue criticizing Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon for their roles in the Kirtland Bank fiasco, he became intolerable. With the close of the third volume, the Church authorities terminated the Messenger and Advocate and began a new magazine, Elders’ Journal, with a new editor (see item 39).[55]

The changes in the ownership of the Kirtland press are reflected in the Messenger and Advocate’s publishers. F. G. Williams & Co. is listed as the publisher for the first nineteen numbers; Oliver Cowdery as “Editor and Proprietor” of whole numbers 21–28; J. Smith, Jr. and S. Rigdon as the publishers of the next two numbers; and William Marks as publisher and “Proprietor” of whole numbers 31–34.[56]

Each issue of the Messenger and Advocate consists of sixteen octavo pages, printed in double columns. The entire run comprises three volumes of twelve numbers each, the whole continuously paged. The magazine was a monthly, but much of the time it appeared late, a fact that must be kept in mind when one attempts to date a particular event from its pages. The first issue, for example, and the issues for December 1835, February 1836, January 1837, and June 1837 carry apologies for being late. In November 1835 Phelps wrote to his wife that “the ‘Messenger and Advocate’ has been and is yet five or six weeks behind its time.”[57]

Like its predecessor, a one year’s subscription to the Messenger and Advocate was $1, “in advance.” In the October 1836 issue W. A. Cowdery remarked that the publishers had hoped to issue the paper twice monthly but abandoned that idea because of so many unpaid subscriptions. At the time it ceased publication, it had about 1,500 subscribers, who were between $800 and $1,000 in arrears.[58]

The prospectus of the Messenger and Advocate, printed in the last number of the Star, asserts that those who wrote for the magazine would be identified by name. And for the first eight numbers this is generally the case. Starting with the ninth issue, a number of articles and hymns are signed with the initials P, C, and R, in boldface, designating W. W. Phelps, Oliver Cowdery, and Sidney Rigdon. From the nineteenth issue on, the contributions of Warren A. Cowdery are identified with a W.

Needless to say, the Messenger and Advocate is the basic source for the study of Mormonism’s Ohio period. The tone of the magazine reflects the theological ferment that characterized the Kirtland Church. Its pages include doctrinal essays, official statements of the Church leaders, announcements and minutes of conferences, news of the progress of the Church in Kirtland and elsewhere, responses to anti-Mormon attacks, and letters from the outlying branches. The first number gives a summary of the basic tenets of Mormonism by Oliver Cowdery (see item 64), and in eight of the first thirteen issues there is a series of letters from Cowdery to W. W. Phelps which constitute the first published account of the birth of Mormonism (see item 197)

Hake 4778. CSmH. CtY, CU-B |v. 1–21, MHfv. I-2|, MiU-C, MoInRC, NN, OCHP, OClWHi [v. 11, ULA [v. 1–2], UPB, USIC, UU.

17 Evening and Morning Stan Independence: June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland: December 1833-September 1834. [Kirtland: January 1835–October 1836]

2 v. (24 nos. in 384 pp.) 24 cm.

The final number of The Evening and the Morning Star, September 1834, announced in a prospectus that the entire two volumes of the Star would be reprinted by F. G. Williams & Co., in octavo format better suited for binding, and at least two numbers of the reprint would be issued each month, commencing that November. One infers that, even at this early date, few complete runs of The Evening and the Morning Star had survived.

Despite the positiveness of the announcement, the first number of the reprinted Star did not appear until January 1835. Four additional numbers came off the press during the next five months, but only one more came out during the nine months following, undoubtedly because the shop was occupied with the Doctrine and Covenants and the hymnal (items 22, 23). Then, between April and October 1836, the remaining eighteen numbers were reprinted. One might infer that Oliver Cowdery supervised the republication, at least the early issues, since statements at the end of the first three reprinted numbers are signed by him as editor of the Messenger and Advocate.[59]

The reprinted Star consists of 24 sixteen-page octavo numbers, in double columns, the two volumes continuously paged—the same format as the Messenger and Advocate. The date of reissue is given at the end of each reprinted number. Most numbers also note that the price is $2 for the two volumes, payable in advance, and that no subscription will be received for less than the two volumes.

The reprint bears a shortened name, Evening and Morning Star, and substantial editing. Generally the material is rearranged within and among the numbers, and there are additions and deletions. In the first number, for instance, the prospectus (item 2) and a statement on changes in the contents are added to the first reprinted number; an extract from the Book of Mormon, the article “On the Government of the Thoughts,” part of “Worldly Matters,” and the poem “The Body is But Chaff are omitted; and the poems “The Prayer of a Wise Heathen” and “He Died! the Great Redeemer Died!” are moved to the second and third numbers, respectively. A one-sentence comment on altered contents is added to the second reprinted number; the article “Hosca Chapter III” is omitted; and the poem “Go On, Dear Pilgrims, While Below” is moved to the third number. The third reprinted number adds the two poems from the earlier issues and a statement on changes in the revelations, but is otherwise essentially the same as the original. The fourth reprinted number does not include “Population of the United States in 1830,” “Foreign Statistics,” and the article “Remarkable Fulfilment of Indian Prophecy,” which are moved to the fifth number. The fifth reprinted number also adds three new hymns and an apology for its late appearance because of the printing of “a book of much importance” (the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants). A new hymn is added to the sixth reprinted number, “How Precious is the Name” (see item 107). The seventh reprinted number adds an announcement regarding the reprint, but otherwise it retains the same contents as the original, as do the next eight numbers. The poem “Moroni’s Lamentation” is moved from the sixteenth number to the seventeenth, but otherwise the contents of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth reprinted numbers are the same as the originals—except that the serial article “The Elders of the Church in Kirtland, to their Brethren Abroad” is rearranged among these three numbers. The minutes of the May 3, 1834, conference in the twentieth number and the obituary of Harriet U. Herrick in the twenty-first are moved to the twenty-second reprinted number, which also adds the poem “The Gathering.” The last two reprinted numbers keep the contents of the originals.

There are significant textual changes. In the article “The Gathering” in the sixth number, for example, the population of the Jackson County Saints is originally given as 465 Church members and 345 nonmembers and children, while in the reprint these figures are changed to 472 and 358, respectively. The more important changes occur in the printed revelations. Apart from numerous grammatical improvements, these mainly reflect additions to the Church’s governmental structure and adjustments in the practice of the law of consecration. The prospectus for the reprint as well as the statements in the first and third reprinted numbers pass these off as corrections of typographical and copying errors. But this seems a bit disingenuous in view of the letter from Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, and F. G. Williams of June 25, 1833, which mentions typographical errors in the Book of Commandments and lists only four obvious ones.[60] Generally the versions of the revelations in Evening and Morning Star coincide with those in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants.

Flake 3273. CSmH, CtY, CU-B, DLC, MH, MiU-C, MoInRC, NN, OClWHi, ULA, UPB, US1C, UU.

18 Northern Times. Kirtland: February 13? 1835-.

54 cm.

The idea of a Mormon political newspaper dates as early as 1833. On November 29 of that year, Oliver Cowdery wrote to Horace Kingsbury that “we shall print the Democrat in this place [Kirtland], as circumstances render it impossible to print it elsewhere. We shall draw a Prospectus soon.”[61] And six days later Joseph Smith wrote to Edward Partridge, “We expect shortly to publish a political paper, weekly, in favor of the present administration . . . for thereby we can show the public the purity of our intention in supporting the government under which we live.”[62] Not until a year later, however, did these hopes materialize. In February 1835 the first regular issue of the Northern Times appeared, to a chorus of derisive welcomes from the local Whig newspapers—the Cleveland Whig of February 18, Painesville Telegraph of February 20, and the Chardon Spectator and Geauga Gazette of February 21.

It would seem that two Northern Times extras were issued prior to the first regular number, and a third extra was issued about five weeks after. The Chardon Spectator of February 28 remarks that “two little black half sheets, under the same title, were sent out just before our late [October 14, 1834] election.”[63] And the Chardon Spectator of April 4 notes:

The Northern Times appears to observe neither times or seasons. After the lapse of four or five weeks, from the first and only regular number, an extra has made its appearance, making three extras to one regular, much like the extra allowances made to some of the mail contractors—being greater than the regular.[64]

None of the three extras are located, and only three complete numbers of the Times and fragments of two others are extant, spanning the period August 7, 1835, to January 13, 1836. The exact date of the first regular number and the length of the newspaper’s life are not known. From the comments in the Cleveland Whig of February 18 and the Spectator of April 4, and from the surviving numbers of the Times, one might make the following guesses: the first regular number of the Times came out on Friday, February 13; the second number came out on Friday, April 10, and thereafter the Times issued on each Friday, without a lapse, up to and including October 9; sometime on or before Wednesday, December 2, it began issuing on Wednesday and continued without a lapse up to Wednesday, January 13, 1836.[65] Oliver Cowdery’s “Sketch Book” shows that it was still being published in February 1836.[66]

The surviving issues indicate that it was a six-column, four-page weekly, printed on the Kirtland press by F. G. Williams and Company. A one-year’s subscription cost $2 if paid during the first quarter, $2.25 if paid within the year, and $2.50 if payment was delayed until the close of the year. Cowdery was the first editor. In May 1835, he was replaced by Frederick G. Williams, but Cowdery’s correspondence and his “Sketch Book” show that he remained the guiding spirit. It is clear from W. W. Phelps’s diary that, at least in June 1835, Phelps did much of the editorial work.[67]

A Democratic newspaper reflecting the political leanings of the Mormons, the Times printed local and national news, editorialized on local, state, and national political issues, and endorsed candidates for public office. Its first regular number, according to the Painesville Telegraph of February 20, 1835, attacked “the dead carcass of the United States Bank,” praised President Andrew Jackson, and supported the nomination of Martin Van Buren. The issues for October 2 and 9, 1835, urged the local residents to vote the Democratic ticket in the upcoming county election and promoted Martin Van Buren and Richard M. Johnson for president and vice-president of the United States. The October 9 issue also explained that the editors were “opposed to abolition [of slavery], and whatever is calculated to disturb the peace and harmony of our Constitution and country.”

Flake 5871. CtY [v. 1, nos. 27–8 (2, 9 Oct 1835)], UPB [v. 1, no. 19 (7 Aug 1835) first leaf], USlC [v. 1, no. 36 (2 Dec 1835); v. 1 no. 42 (13 Jan 1836) first leaf].

19 PRATT, Parley Parker. A short account of a shameful outrage, committed by a part of the inhabitants of the town of Mentor, upon the person of Elder Parley P. Pratt, while delivering a public discourse upon the subject of the gospel; April 7th, 1835. [Kirtland? 1835?]

11 pp. 19 cm.

A Short Account marks the formal entrance of Parley P. Pratt into the bibliographical record. While the other members of the newly called Quorum of the Twelve Apostles were preparing for their first mission as a quorum, Parley visited the town of Mentor, three miles northeast of Kirtland, on a preaching expedition—with disastrous results. This little pamphlet describes the incident.

The first section tells of Parley’s return to Mentor on April 7, 1835, in order to fill an appointment to preach made a few days before. Not long after he had started his discourse on the steps of the Campbellite meetinghouse, the local band marched up to the gathering and began to play as loudly and competitively as it could. When it became apparent that their music would not drive Parley from his rostrum, the musicians pelted him with eggs, thereby hastening the close of his sermon. The second section contains a summary of Parley’s intended discourse, the third a few editorial remarks, and the fourth another account of the incident by “A New Englander.” Parley’s Autobiography (New York, 1874), pp. 138–39, also gives a brief account of these events.

A comparison of the type with that of the other Kirtland imprints confirms that this tract was printed by the Kirtland press. For example, the peculiar typeface of the phrase town of Mentor in the title matches that of the word Prospectus on the last page of The Evening and the Morning Star.

Flake 6623. US1C.

20 Theology. Lecture first On the doctrine of the Church of the Latter Day Saints. Of faith. [At head of first column] [Kirtland, 1835]

Broadside 34 x 25.5 cm. In three columns.

This broadside contains the first of the seven “Lectures on Faith” which are published in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants (see item 22). Acomparison of broken type shows that the broadside was printed from a rearrangement of the same typesetting used to print the lecture in the Doctrine and Covenants. And the few changes that occur between the two suggest the broadside is the earlier printing. The Doctrine and Covenants was in press in June 1835, so the broadside must have been struck off about this time.

Flake 7285. US1C.

21 PRATT, Parley Parker. The millennium, a poem. To which is added hymns and songs on various subjects, new and interesting, adapted to the dispensation of the fulness of times. [6 lines] Boston: Printed for Elder Parley P. Pratt, author and proprietor. 1835.

52 pp. 15 cm.

The preface of this first book of Mormon poetry explains that “The Millennium was written in about two months, while journeying the distance of ten or twelve hundred miles, and preaching almost daily, and also attending seven or eight general conferences of the elders of the church.” This clearly refers to the missionary journey of the Twelve that extended from May 4 to September 26, 1835, during which Parley Pratt twice visited the city of Boston.[68] On August 13, 1835, he took out a copyright for The Millennium, a Poem in the District Clerk’s Office in Boston, and on September 5 deposited a copy of the book.[69] Three years later he advertised it on the back wrapper of Mormonism Unveiled: Zion’s Watchman Unmasked (item 45) at 12 1/2¢ a copy.

Parley’s book of poems, produced merely for his own pleasure, demonstrates that, by the summer of 1835, writing had become an important part of his life. It consists of a table of contents (pp. [3]–4); a preface which is signed “The Author’s Friend,” followed by a short note by Parley (pp. [5]–7); “The Millennium,” a narrative poem in six chapters which identifies the major gospel events from the dispersion of Israel to the millennial reign of Jesus Christ (pp. [9]–30); and eleven songs (pp. [31]–52). It was originally bound in plain tan stiff paper, without a title on the backstrip or front cover.

Each piece, except the preface, is reprinted in The Millennium and Other Poems (item 63). Parts of “The Millennium” are included in Voice of Warning, pp. 121, 159, 168–71, 192 (item 38). Eight of the eleven songs are in the 1840 hymnal (item 78).

Flake 6608. CtY, DLC, US1C, UPB.

22 Doctrine and covenants of the Church of the Latter Day Saints: carefully selected from the revelations of God, and compiled hy Joseph Smith Junior, [sic] Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, Frederick G. Williams, (presiding elders of said church) proprietors. Kirtland, Ohio. Printed by F. G. Williams & Co. for the proprietors. IH35.

iv[5]-257[i]-xxv pp. 15 cm.

Fourteen months after the Independence press was destroyed, the elders of the Church launched a second effort to print Joseph Smith’s revelations in book form. At a meeting in Kirtland, September 24, 1834, the Kirtland high council appointed Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, and Frederick G. Williams to select the contents and publish the book—with the understanding that they would share any profits arising from its sale. W. W. Phelps was added to this committee in May 1835. Smith, Cowdery, Rigdon, and Phelps, of course, were members of the original Literary Firm (see item 8). Williams, the Church printer, scribe to Joseph Smith, and a member of the First Presidency, was added to the Firm in March 1833. Phelps’s correspondence and a remark in Joseph Smith’s history make it clear that publishing the Doctrine and Covenants was also an undertaking of the Literary Firm.[70]

A printer’s manuscript for the book is not extant. The manuscript volume “Kirtland Revelations,” now in the LDS Church archives, contains many of the revelations included in the Doctrine and Covenants. A number of these show corrections in the handwriting of Joseph Smith consistent with the versions in the printed book, while others bear the notation “To go into the covenants.”

Smith, Cowdery, Rigdon, and Williams took out a copyright for the Doctrine and Covenants in the Ohio District Court on January 14, 1835.[71] A notice in the fifth number of Evening and Morning Star indicates that the book was in press in June. By August 17, 1835, it was complete enough for Cowdery, Rigdon, and Phelps to present it to a general assembly of the Church for approval. The Messenger and Advocate of August 1835, which appeared late, reported that “the Doctrine and Covenants . . . is nearly ready for sale. At any rate it may be expected in the course of a month, as one thousand copies have already been delivered to the binder.” On September 16 Phelps wrote to his wife that the first copies had come from the Cleveland binder, that the books would be priced at $1 per copy, and that David Whitmer and Samuel H. Smith had been appointed general agents for the Literary Firm to sell the books.[72] Not all copies were bound in the fall of 1835. Some were saved in sheets and bound the following spring, apparently by the newly established bindery in Kirtland.[73]

It is curious that David Whitmer was appointed to sell the Doctrine and Covenants, for he later asserted that he strongly objected to the book on the grounds it established “a creed of religious faith.”[74] Indeed the preface (pp. [iii]–iv), signed and dated by Smith, Cowdery, Rigdon, and Williams, February 17, 1835, alludes to the “aversion in the minds of some against receiving any thing purporting to be articles of religious faith,” and goes on to defend the book as a needed statement of Latter-day Saint beliefs which were being so widely misrepresented. Clearly the anticreedal sentiments so prominent during the Church’s first years were still being expressed.

The first part of the book (pp. [5]–74) consists of the seven “Lectures on Faith.” Delivered before the school of the elders in Kirtland the preceding winter, these lectures cover such basic doctrines as the necessity of faith; the attributes of God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost; man’s relationship with God; and the nature of salvation. Three appeared earlier in print, the first as a broadside (item 20), and the fifth and sixth in the Messenger and Advocate of May 1835. Exactly who wrote them is not completely clear. Alan Phipps, in a statistical study, concludes that they were mainly written by Sidney Rigdon, with Lecture Five and parts of some of the others written by Joseph Smith.[75] The “Lectures on Faith” were included in the various LDS editions of the Doctrine and Covenants until 1921.

The second part (pp. [75]–257) contains one hundred revelations spanning the period from July 1828 to March 28, 1835, as Sections 1–4, 6–100, numbered by roman numerals, with two sections erroneously numbered 66 and section 7 misnumbered 6. In addition, it includes the minutes of the organization of the first high council on February 17, 1834, as Section 5; an article on marriage as Section 101; an article on government and laws in general as Section 102; and, as an unnumbered section, the minutes of the August 17, 1835, general assembly. All sixty-five chapters of the Book of Commandments are reprinted in the Doctrine and Covenants, with substantial changes consistent with the versions in Evening and Morning Star.[76] Ten of the chapters in the Book of Commandments are combined into three sections of the Doctrine and Covenants, so fifty-eight sections actually comprise what was published earlier in the Book of Commandments. Traditionally the articles on marriage and government are attributed to Oliver Cowdery. These were read at the August 17 general assembly and accepted as part of the book. The article on marriage appeared in all LDS editions until 1876; the article on government is still included as Section 134. The minutes of the general assembly occur only in the 1835 edition. An index (pp. [i]–xxiii) follows the assembly minutes, and page xxv, headed Notes to the Reader, contains errata. The phrase Copy Right Secured According to Law occurs on the verso of the title page.

Usually the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants is found in plain brown sheep with gilt double bands on the backstrip, the title in gilt or a brown leather label on the backstrip. It also exists in a number of other bindings, a consequence of its being bound at different times: three-quarter brown sheep with marbled paper boards; polished tree-calf with a gilt border on the covers, gilt bands and the title in gilt on the backstrip; and black or brown plain or striated sheep with a gilt border on the covers, gilt bands and the title in gilt on the backstrip. Sidney Rigdon’s and David Whitmer’s copies, now owned by a private collector, are in brown polished calf with a gilt and blind stamped ornamental border on the covers, gilt bands and the title in gilt on the backstrip, and marbled endsheets. The Huntington Library copy has a loose book plate (13x9 cm.) tipped in at the front with the following printed in gold within a border consisting of a single wavy line: Betsy Knight’s | Book | of | Doctrine and Covenants | of the | Saints. | See Paul to the Hebrews, Chapt. I, Verses 1 & 2. | September, 1835. | No.

Flake 2860. CSmH, CtY, CU-B, DLC, ICHi, ICN, IHi, MH, MiU-C, MoInRC, MWA, NjP, NN, OCHP, OClWHi, TxDaDF, UHi, ULA, UPB, US1C, UU.

23 A collection of sacred hymns, for the Church of the Latter Day Saints. Selected by Emma Smith. Kirtland, Ohio: Printed by E G. Williams & Co. 1835.

iv[5]–121[i]–v pp. 11 cm. Ornamental border on title page.

The first Mormon hymnal has its beginning in the revelation to Joseph Smith, July 1830 (D&C 25), in which Emma Smith, Joseph’s wife, was designated to make a selection of hymns for the use of the Church. Twenty-two months later, in Independence, the Literary Firm brought W. W. Phelps to this undertaking when it directed him to “correct and print the hymns which had been selected by Emma Smith in fulfilment of the revelation.”[77] The printing of the Book of Commandments, the destruction of the Independence press, and the printing of the Doctrine and Covenants delayed the publication of a hymnal, but once the Doctrine and Covenants was out of press, Phelps immediately turned his attention to it. On September 11, 1835, he wrote to his wife that he was then “revising hymns for a hymn Book.”[78] Three days later, the Church authorities officially sanctioned his efforts when they directed “that Sister Emma Smith proceed to make a selection of Sacred Hymns, according to the revelation; and that President W. W. Phelps be appointed to revise and arrange them for printing.”[79] One infers that the prime responsibility for the book rested with Phelps.

Writing to his wife on November 14, Phelps complained of the backlog in the print shop and remarked that “the hymn book is not likely to progress as fast as I wish.”[80] Two hymns, “The Spirit of God Like a Fire Is Burning” (pp. 120–21) and “The Glorious Day Is Rolling On” (pp. 93–94), are printed in the Messenger and Advocate for January 1836 from the same typesettings as in the hymnbook. The March 1836 issue also prints “The Spirit of God” from the same setting, and includes several other songs in the book, all printed from different settings. It would seem, therefore, that the hymnbook was finished about the time the January Messenger and Advocate was issued—sometime in February or March.

A Collection of Sacred Hymns contains the texts of ninety hymns (pp. [5]–121), following a preface (pp. [iii]–iv) which was certainly written by Phelps. An “Index to find a Hymn by the first line” is at the end (pp. [i]–v). The phrase Copyright secured occurs on the verso of the title page. Of the ninety hymns, forty-two had appeared earlier in The Evening and the Morning Star, the Evening and Morning Star, and the Messenger and Advocate. Helen Hanks Macare has found thirty-five to be of Mormon authorship, including twenty-six by W. W. Phelps, three by Parley P. Pratt, one by Thomas B. Marsh and Parley Pratt, and one each by Eliza R. Snow, Edward Partridge, and Philo Dibble. Seventeen of the borrowed hymns are by Isaac Watts. Because of the predominance of Baptist hymns among those borrowed, Macare suggests that the hymnal was based on a Baptist book, possibly one then in use by the Campbellites.[81]

The most common binding for the 1835 hymnal is plain brown sheep, underrated except for the title L.D. Hymns and five sets of double bands in gilt on the backstrip. Other original bindings include: three-quarter brown sheep with marbled paper boards; and tree-calf with a gilt border on the front and back covers, gilt bands on backstrip. The LDS Church owns W. W. Phelps’s wife’s copy, the text of which is printed in gold. It is bound in black striated sheep with gilt ornamental borders on the covers, gilt decorations on the backstrip, and Sally Phelps in gilt on the front cover.

Flake 1760. CSmH, CtY, MiU-C, MoInRC, RPB, TxDaDF, UPB, US1C, UU.

24 References to the Book of Mormon. [Caption title] [Kirtland? 1835?] iv pp. 18 cm. Text in two columns.

This four-page item is usually found tipped into a copy of the 1830 Book of Mormon. Typographically it resembles the products of the Messenger and Advocate press. The typeface of the word References, for example, matches that of the word Index on p. i of the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants. Since it only applies to the 1830 edition, it was certainly printed before the second edition went to press in the winter of 1836–37.

Its title is misleading. Rather than a set of references, it is really a book-by-book outline or an extended table of contents. It is also the prototype of future Book of Mormon “indexes” (see items 83, 98, 158).

Flake 6841. CSmH, CtY, CUB, ICN, MoInRC, MWA, NN, OCHP, OClWHi, UPB, US1C.

25 Extract from the new translation of the Bible, It being the 24th chapter of Matthew; but in order to show the connection we will commence with the last verse of the 23rd chapter, viz. [At end:] Published for the benefit of the Saints. [Kirtland? 1835?]

Broadside 30.5 x 25 cm. Text in two columns, ornamental border.

This broadside prints the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew as revised by Joseph Smith in the spring of 1831. Two manuscripts containing this text are in the possession of the RLDS Church: the original manuscript (NT 1), and a copy made by John Whitmer in the summer of 1831 with later corrections by Joseph Smith (NT 2). The broadside differs at a number of points from both NT 1 and NT 2, but generally it follows NT 1. It also differs from the version of Matt. 24 in The Holy Scriptures (Piano, 1867) which is based on NT 2, and the version in the Pearl of Great Price (Liverpool, 1851) which mainly follows NT 1 but incorporates three significant modifications written into NT 2.[82]

It is not at all clear where or when this broadside was printed. Some have suggested it was published in Nauvoo in the 1840s to refute the teachings of William Miller, and it is so entered in Cecil K. Byrd’s A Bibliography of Illinois Imprints (Chicago, 1966), no. 782. But there are reasons for believing it was printed earlier. Of all the early Mormon presses, the type style of \he Messenger and Advocate most closely resembles that of the broadside. Moreover, the text is printed in John Corrill’s A Brief History of the Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints (St. Louis, 1839), exactly as in the broadside except for one omission and some improvements in punctuation and capitalization. Corrill also introduces the text with the phrase, “the twentyfourth chapter of Matthew, but in order to shew the connection, I will commence with the last verse of the twenty-third chapter, viz,” suggesting that he took his version from the broadside. Because of the activity of the Kirtland press in 1835, item 25 is tentatively assigned as an 1835 Kirtland imprint.

The copy at Brigham Young University differs from the other two extant copies in the ornamental border. A comparison of broken type, however, shows that the textual parts of all three were printed from the same setting.

Flake 468. CtY, UPB, US1C.

26 Prayer, at the dedication of the Lord’s House in Kirtland, Ohio, March 27, 1836,—By Joseph Smith, jr. President of the Church of the Latter Day Saints. [Kirtland, 1836]

Broadsheet 31 x 18.5 cm.

On the morning of March 27, 1836, about a thousand people gathered in the Kirtland Temple for the dedication of the building, and at the afternoon session Joseph Smith read the dedicatory prayer. A detailed account of these services, including the text of the prayer, is in the March issue of the Messenger and Advocate. Item 26 was printed from a rearrangement of this typesetting.

Oliver Cowdery’s “Sketch Book” indicates that he met with Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Warren A. Cowdery, and Warren Parrish the day before the dedication and assisted in writing the prayer. George A. Smith reported in 1864 that Joseph Smith read it at the dedication from a printed copy, which troubled some of the participants.[83] So the broadside must have been struck off just prior to the services.

The prayer appears in all LDS editions of the Doctrine and Covenants since 1876 as Section 109, differing at two or three points from the text in the broadside.

Flake 2921. US1C.

27 The twelve apostles. [4 lines in 3 columns] The seven presidents of the seventy elders. [3 lines in 3 columns] The first seventy elders. [21 lines in 3 columns] The second seventy elders. [24 lines in 3 columns] [Kirtland? 1836?]

Broadside 31 x 20 cm. Ornamental border.

This broadside lists the names of the Twelve Apostles, the seven presidents of the Seventy, and the First Quorum of Seventy, as initially chosen in February 1835, together with those in the Second Quorum of Seventy who were selected a year later. Certainly a product of the Messenger and Advocate press, it would seem to have been printed after the second quorum was organized early in February 1836, and before the excommunication on May 23, 1836, of Charles Kelley, who is listed as a member of the first quorum.[84] The copy in the LDS Church archives bears the handwritten date April 7, 1836. One might note that nine of the Twelve, all of the presidents of the Seventy, and all of the First Quorum of Seventy marched with Zion’s Camp (see item 14).[85]

Flake 1450. UPB, US1C

28 SEIXAS, Joshua. Supplement to J. Seixas’ Manual Hebrew Grammar, for the Kirtland, Ohio, Theological Institution. New-York: Printed by West & Trow, for J. Smith, Jun., S. Rigdon, 0. Cowdery. 1836.

31 [1] pp. 13 cm.

For a time, the elders in Kirtland were deeply involved in the study of Hebrew, and between January 26 and March 29, 1836, they attended formal classes in the language conducted by Joshua Seixas, who had taught a course in Hebrew at Obcrlin College. In the fall of 1835, Lorenzo Snow, a student at Oberlin and not yet a member of the Church, had received private lessons from him. Snow wrote favorably about him to his sister Eliza, who at the time was living with Joseph Smith’s family and who brought Seixas to Smith’s attention. Early in January Orson Hyde and William E. McLcllin engaged Seixas to teach forty students for seven weeks for $320. On January 26 he began his course. Nine days later he divided his students into a morning class of twenty-three and an afternoon class of twenty-two. After March 29 there seems to have been little formal effort in Hebrew study among the Kirtland elders.[86]

Precisely when Supplement to J. Seixas’ Manual Hebrew Grammar was published is not clear. Its preface (pp. [7]–8) asserts that it was prepared expressly for the Kirtland elders, so it was probably published about the time, or shortly after, Seixas conducted his course. This preface, signed by Oliver Cowdery, indicates that the lessons in the book were abridged by Seixas from his A Manual Hebrew Grammar for the Use of Beginners (two editions: Andover, 1833 and 1834) and arranged in book form by Cowdery as a help to the beginning student. The main part (pp. [9]–27) consists of this series of grammatical lessons, and the first chapter of Genesis, in Hebrew, runs from the verso of page 31 to page 28. A half-title (pp. [1–2]) with Supplement to J. Seixas’ Hebrew Grammar precedes the title page (p. [3]), which is followed by Hebrew Alphabet. Names of the Letters and Vowels (p. [5]).

Seixas was born in New York City, June 4, 1802. For many years he was the chief Hebrew instructor in the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York City. He died in New York in the early 1870s.[87]

Flake 7619. MoInRC, UPB.

29 Latter Day Saints ‘Messenger and Advocate—Extra.’ [At head of first column:] Kirtland, Geauga County, Ohio, July 25, 1836. To John Thornton, Esq., Peter Rogers, Esq., Andrew Robertson, Esq., James T. V. Thompson, Esq., Col. William T. Wood, Doct Woodson J. Moss, James M. Hughs [sic], Esq., David R. Atchison, Esq. and A. W. Doniphan, Esq. Gentlemen,- [Signed at end:] Sidney Rigdon, Joseph Smith, Jr. O. Cowdery, E G. Williams, Hyrum Smith. [Kirtland, 1836]

Broadside 55 x 20.5 cm. Text in three columns.

When they evacuated Jackson County, the Mormons moved across the Missouri River into Clay County, where they lived in relative peace for about two years. By the summer of 1836, however, strains began to appear in their relations with their non-Mormon neighbors, who had expected the Saints to stay only temporarily in Clay. At a public meeting in Liberty on June 29, 1836, a committee of nine of the leading men in Clay County, named in this entry’s title, issued a report on the sources of conflict and urged the Mormons to leave the county in order to avoid civil war. On July 1, W. W. Phelps, John Corrill, Edward Partridge, Isaac Morley, and a number of Mormon elders met and agreed to move to another part of the state. The following day the Clay citizens met again in Liberty and, acknowledging the Saints’ response, offered to assist them in finding a new location.[88]

Item 29 is a reply to the committee of nine from Sidney Rigdon, Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Frederick G. Williams, and Hyrum Smith. It was printed from a rearrangement of the same setting used to print the reply in the Messenger and Advocate of August 1836. Praising the committee’s candor and acknowledging the hospitality of Clay County, it answers the various allegations and defends the Missouri Saints, not to dissuade the committee from acting in accord with the resolutions offered to the people of Clay county on June 29, it explains, “but from a sense of duty to a people embarrassed, persecuted, and afflicted.”

During the summer of 1836 the Saints began relocating in an area north and east of Clay, organized into two new counties, Caldwell and Daviess, that December. Their principal settlement would be at Far West, on Shoal Creek in Caldwell County, about thirty miles north-northeast of Liberty. But Missouri could not long accommodate the Mormons, and in the fall of 1838 they would again be forced to seek a new home (see items 39, 49, 51, 53, 55–56, 58, 59, 64, 65, 66, 79, 94).

Flake 7285a. DNA (photocopies at MoInRC, UPB, US1C).

30 HYDE, Orson. A prophetic warning to all the churches, of every sect and denomination, and to every individual into whose hands it may fall. By O. Hyde, preacher of the gospel, and citizen of the United States. [At end:] Toronto, August, 1836. [Toronto? 1836?]

Broadside 46.5 x 29.5 cm. Text in three columns.

Orson Hyde’s A Prophetic Warning is the earliest work that can be called a Mormon missionary tract. It also signals the beginning of one of the dramatic episodes in Mormon history, the first mission to England.

In April 1836, prompted by a prophecy of Heber C. Kimball, Parley Pratt left Kirtland for Toronto, where during the next six months his efforts would bring many into the Church including John Taylor, Joseph Fielding, John Goodson, John Snyder, and Isaac Russell. That June Pratt came back to Kirtland and enlisted the help of Orson Hyde, who at the time was proselytizing in New York. Then he returned to Toronto with his wife and Hyde’s wife. Hyde reached Toronto about the end of July, and together he and Parley labored in that vicinity into October (see the next item).[89]

It seems clear that Hyde published A Prophetic Warning when he was in Toronto. That July he had it printed in the Messenger and Advocate, probably with an eye to using it in the mission field. There the text is dated June 16, 1836, undoubtedly the date it was composed. This and the identification of Hyde as a U.S. citizen in the title suggest that the place and date at the end of the broadside are in fact the place and date of its publication.

From the beginning of Mormonism, the elders were enjoined to warn the inhabitants of the cities they visited (see e.g., D&C 1:4–5; 38:41; 63:37, 57–58; 88:81; 109:41). In this spirit, A Prophetic Warning begins with an argument that the Second Advent is yet to come, and asks if the Christian world is prepared for this event. It argues that an apostasy from the primitive church was foretold by the New Testament writers and that the churches of the day have strayed from the teachings of Jesus. It concludes with an appeal to its readers to repent and be baptized by the authority of Jesus Christ, and even though it urges baptism by someone with authority, it does not identify itself as a Latter-day Saint tract (see item 54).

Fourteen months after Parley left Kirtland for Toronto, a time when financial problems and apostasy were wracking the Church in Kirtland (see item 37), Joseph Smith called Heber C. Kimball and Orson Hyde to lead a mission to England. On July 1, 1837, Kimball Hyde, Willard Richards, and four of the recent converts from Canada, Joseph Fielding, John Goodson, John Snyder, and Isaac Russell, sailed from New York on the Garrick, arriving at Liverpool on July 19 (see items 35, 36, 93).[90]

A few days before they sailed, these elders circulated A Prophetic Warning in New York City. On June 28 Kimball wrote to his wife:

We have spent most of two days of distribiting brother hides [Hyde’s] prophetic warnings in the city we did up a bout one hundred and fifty in leter form and directed to Every preast of Fvery profession in the city we found thare names in the papers.[91]

It would seem that Hyde published a second edition with the title A Timely Warning in Preston a month after he and the others arrived in England (see item 36). Under this title it was republished again in 1839 and twice more in the 1840s (items 54, 81, 332).

Flake 4168. MoInRC.

31 PRATT, Parley Parker. [Printed handbill headed “Doth our law judge a man before it hear him?” Kingston, 1836]

32 PRATT, Parley, Parker. [Printed handbill advertising two meetings. Toronto, 1836]

Neither of the foregoing two items is located; their existence is inferred from Parley Pratt’s Autobiography (New York, 1874), pp. 173–80. The first marks a bibliographical milestone in that it seems to be the earliest Mormon tract responding to an attack on the doctrines of the Church.

As Parley was about to return to Kirtland from Canada in October 1836 (see item 30), his Canadian friends urged him to meet a Mr. Caird, an Irvingite, who was creating something of a stir in eastern Canada.[92] Caird was in Kingston at the time, and although Parley had a dream that his efforts would be in vain, he delayed his trip home and, accompanied by John Goodson, took the steamer to Kingston. Upon arriving there, they attempted to meet Caird but were ignored. That evening they went to hear him preach and were astonished to hear him slander the Saints. “Next morning,” Parley writes in his Autobiography,

we published a printed handbill with a statement of his lying . . . and a statement of our doctrine as Latter-Day Saints. This we circulated freely in his next meeting, challenging him to refute the charge, or to meet us in debate. We could draw no answer from him. We circulated the handbills in the streets by hundreds, and then sent plenty of them by mail to our friends in Toronto. The bill was headed: “Doth our law judge a man before it hear him?”

Both Caird and Parley Pratt returned to Toronto, where Caird’s friends urged him to meet with Pratt, but Caird again refused and continued to attack the Saints in his public discourses. “I now applied to Wm. Lyon McKenzie, a printer and editor [of the Toronto Constitution], in King street,” Parley writes,

for some large public halls or rooms of his . . . and we put out a bill, advertizing two meetings, and pledging to the public that we would prove to a demonstration that Mr. Caird, who was now preaching in this city, was a false teacher, whom God had never sent, and that no believer in the Bible, who listened with attention, should go away unconvinced of that fact, or the truth of the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Twice Parley preached above the Constitution printing office, with Orson Hyde presiding over the meetings, satisfying his friends that he had fulfilled his pledge in the handbill, but failing to convince Mr. Caird. Ten years later he encountered Caird in Scotland, then retired to private life.[93]

33 Messenger Extra. Kirtland, Ohio, December, 1836. [At head of first column:] Minutes of a meeting of the stockholders of the Kirtland Safety Society Bank; held on the 2nd day of November, A.D. 1836. When the following preamble and articles were read three times by Orson Hyde, and unanimously adopted. [Kirtland, 1836] Broadside 32 x 17 cm. Text in two columns.

34 Messenger, Extra.—March, 1837. [At head of first column:] Minutes of a meeting of the members of the “Kirtland Safety Society,” held on the 2d day of January, 1837. [Kirtland, 1837]

Broadside 48.5 x 20 cm. Text in two columns.

An organizational meeting of the Kirtland Safety Society convened on November 2, 1836, with Sidney Rigdon, chairman, and Oliver Cowdery, clerk. Here the elders drew up a set of articles, dispatched Oliver Cowdery to Philadelphia to purchase plates to print bank notes, and delegated Orson Hyde to obtain a bank charter from the Ohio legislature in Columbus. Both returned to Kirtland on January 1, 1837. Cowdery had obtained the bank note plates, but Hyde had failed to secure a charter. The next day the stockholders called a second meeting to annul the old constitution and to adopt new articles, this time for a note-issuing joint-stock company rather than a chartered bank. Again Rigdon was the chairman of the meeting; Warren Parrish was the clerk.[94] Brief minutes of these two meetings, together with the articles of agreement, are the content of the two extras entered here.

Generally the two sets of articles are the same, the second obviously a modification of the first. The first set specifies the name of the company as the Kirtland Safety Society Bank, while the second modifies the name to Kirtland Safety Society Banking Company, and where the first set refers to the institution as the bank, the second avoids bank in favor of firm or company. Both capitalize the company at not less than four million dollars. The second eliminates the office of chief clerk provided for in the first, and while the president is implicitly the principal officer in the first set of articles, the cashier appears to be the principal officer in the second. (Until they withdrew about July 1, 1837, Joseph Smith was cashier and Sidney Rigdon was president.) The major change is the addition of two articles in the second dealing with the issuance of bank notes and binding the stockholders for their redemption. The March Extra also includes a list of 187 stockholders.

The minutes of the November 2 meeting appear to have been published only in the Messenger Extra of December 1836. It occurs in two states, with and without the phrase Messenger Extra at the head.

The January 2 minutes are printed without the list of stockholders in the Messenger and Advocate of January 1837. They are reprinted with the list of stockholders in the Messenger and Advocate for March 1837, and the March Extra is printed from this typesetting. There are a few differences between the January and March versions. The name of the company, for example, is given as the Kirtland Safety Society Anti-Banking Company in January, and as the Kirtland Safety Society Banking Company in March. And where the January version refers to managers, the March version specifies Directors.

Item 33: Flake 4656a. US1C. Item 34: Flake 4657. US1C.

35 The book of Mormon: an account written by the hand of Mormon, upon plates taken from the plates of Nephi. [22 lines] Translated by Joseph Smith, Jr. Kirtland, Ohio: Printed by O. Cowdery & Co. for P. P. Pratt and J. Goodson. 1837.

[i–ii][v]–vi[7]–619[2] pp. 15 cm.

Joseph Smith and the other Church leaders contemplated a second edition of the Book of Mormon as early as the summer of 1833.[95] But the loss of the Independence press and the preoccupation of the Kirtland shop with the Doctrine and Covenants, the hymnal, and Evening and Morning Star delayed a second edition until the winter of 1836–37.[96]

The preface (pp. [v]–vi), signed by Parley Pratt and John Goodson, indicates that they had obtained the rights to publish a second edition of 5,000. This probably means that they helped underwrite the publication and shared in the profits accruing from its sale. In spite of the statement in the preface, the exact size of the edition is uncertain. In 1886, Ebenezer Robinson, a typesetter in the Kirtland print shop, recalled a bit tentatively that it was 3,000.[97] This smaller number is more consistent with the relative scarcity of the 1837 Book of Mormon today.

The preface further explains that in preparation for the new edition, the first edition was “carefully re-examined and compared with the original manuscripts” by Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery. Richard Howard has found more than two thousand changes which were written into the Printer’s Manuscript of the 1830 Book of Mormon and incorporated in the second edition, and over one thousand other changes not indicated in the manuscript.[98] It would seem, therefore, that the 1837 Book of Mormon was printed from the corrected Printer’s Manuscript, and additional changes were made—by Cowdery?—as the book was set in type. Most of the changes are grammatical and stylistic. A few, however, are significant, for example, where “God” or “Eternal Father” on p. 25, lines 4 and 11; p. 26, line 9; and p. 32, line 11 are changed to “Son of God” or “Son of the Eternal Father.”[99] Thus the 1837 edition is an important progenitor in the genealogy of the Book of Mormon: from it was printed the first of a sequence of British and American editions culminating in the edition now in use by the LDS Church (see items 83, 98).

A copyright notice on the verso of the title page precedes the preface (pp. [v]–vi) and the main text (pp. [7]–619). The testimonies of the three and eight witnesses are on the two pages following page 619. A note To the Reader at the end explains that although the original idea was to publish both the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants in one volume, as indicated in the preface, the publishers abandoned that idea because the two together “would make a volume, entirely too unwieldy for the purpose intended, that of a pocket companion.” Pages 235–37 are misnumbered 335–37. Usually the book is found in plain brown sheep with double gilt bands on the backstrip, with or without a red, brown, or black leather label. It also occurs in brown plain or striated sheep with gilt borders on the covers, and gilt bands and ornaments and the title in gilt on the backstrip; brown tree-dyed sheep with a brown leather label; and three-quarter brown sheep with marble paper boards, gilt bands and the title in gilt on the backstrip. The copy that was originally owned by Warren F. Cowdery, Warren A. Cowdery’s son, now in private hands, is bound in red striated sheep with ornamental gilt borders on the covers, six ornamental gilt bands with gilt ornaments and the title in the panels on the backstrip, and Warren F. Cowdery in gilt on the front cover. The RLDS Church owns Elizabeth Ann Cowdery’s copy, which is similarly bound.

John Goodson appears to have been a man of means. Converted to Mormonism by Parley Pratt in Canada in 1836, he was ordained a seventy that December and sailed for England the following July with Heber C. Kimball, Orson Hyde, and the other members of the first Mormon mission to Great Britain (see items 30, 93). Goodson took with him a number of copies of the 1837 Book of Mormon, which he undoubtedly owned as the book’s co-publisher. Some of these he sold in England, and it is clear from Orson Hyde’s letter of September 14, 1837, that he helped support his fellow missionaries out of the proceeds. The rest, about two hundred copies, he brought back with him when he and John Snyder left for the United States on October 5—in spite of the efforts of Kimball, Hyde, and the others to persuade him to leave the books in England. In April 1839 Goodson and his wife were excommunicated from the Church.[100]

Flake 596. CSmH, CtY, CU-B, DLC, ICHi, ICN, MH, MiU-C, MoInRC, MWA, NjP, NN, OCHP, OClWHi, UHi, UPB, US1C, UU, WHi.

36 HYDE, Orson. [A timely warning. Preston? 1837?]

Broadside?

It would seem that in August 1837, a month after he reached England, Orson Hyde republished his A Prophetic Warning in Preston with a new title, A Timely Warning (see item 30). No copy of such an edition is located, but there is good evidence that it existed. The 1839 Manchester edition (item 54) is dated in the title Preston, 19th August, 1837, and at the end, May, 4th, 1839. Reprinted by W. R. Thomas, Spring-Gardens, Manchester. The implication is that this is a reprint of one dated August 19, 1837. Moreover, two entries in Joseph Fielding’s diary, which use the name A Timely Warning, also suggest a new edition: under the date September 19, 1837, he records that he and John Snyder encountered a clergyman who “having got a Timely Warning, published by Bro. Hyde, came on purpose to oppose”; and under the date September 22, 1838, he writes, “I also distributed a number of timely Warnings, published by Elder Hyde.”[101]

37 WHITNEY, Newel Kimball, Reynolds Cahoon, and Vinson Knight. Kirtland, Ohio, September 18th, 1837. To the saints scattered abroad, the bishop and his counselors of Kirtland send greeting. [Signed at end:] N. K. Whitney, R. Cahoon, V. Knight, [sic] [Kirtland, 1837]

Broadside 50.5 x 32.5 cm. Text in four columns.

On September 17, 1837, the Church leaders called the Kirtland Saints together in the temple. At issue was a failed Mormon “bank” (see items 33–34), an onerous debt, proliferating lawsuits, and apostasy—all embedded in the national economic crises following the banking panic of May 1837. Here they directed the bishop and his counselors to issue a memorial to the Saints abroad, which they drafted the next day.[102] This memorial was printed as item 37, and, from a rearrangement of the same typesetting, in the Messenger and Advocate of September 1837.

An appeal for financial help directed to the Mormons outside Kirtland, the memorial outlines the various circumstances which contributed to the penury of the Church, and it suggests that the appropriate way to finance the work of the last days is to tithe the members—foreshadowing the revelation of July 8, 1838 (D&C 119). It further argues that the salvation of the Saints depends on the building up of Zion and her stakes, thus linking the well-being of the colony in Kirtland to those in Missouri.

Newel Kimball Whitney was called to be the bishop in Kirtland on December 4, 1831 (D&C 72). A native of Vermont, he was a prosperous merchant in Kirtland when he joined the Church in November 1830. In October 1839 he was appointed bishop of the Nauvoo middle ward, and five years later he was sustained as “first bishop in the Church.” He made the overland journey to Utah in 1848 and continued to serve as the presiding bishop until his death in Salt Lake City, September 23, 1850, at age fifty-five.[103]

Reynolds Cahoon was chosen a counselor to Whitney on February 10, 1832. A veteran of the War of 1812 and a native of New York, he converted to Mormonism in Ohio in 1830, at the age of forty. He was on the committees charged with building the Kirtland and Nauvoo temples. In June 1838 John Smith selected him to be his counselor in the presidency of the stake at Adam-ondi-Ahman, and in October 1839 Smith again picked him as a counselor in the presidency of the Montrose, Iowa, stake. Cahoon was a member of the Council of Fifty and was named a captain of a hundred when the Twelve began planning for the evacuation of Illinois (see item 284). He made the overland trek to Utah in 1848, and died at South Cottonwood, April 29, 1861.[104]

Vinson Knight was ordained a counselor to Bishop Whitney on January 13, 1836. Born in Norwich, Massachusetts, March 14, 1804, he joined the Church in 1834 and was approved to be ordained an elder eleven days before he was called to be Whitney’s counselor. In October 1839 he was appointed the bishop of the Nauvoo lower ward, and sixteen months later he was elected to the first Nauvoo city council, in which capacities he served until his death on July 31, 1842.[105]

Flake 2115. UPB, US1C.

38 PRATT, Parley Parker. A voice of warning and instruction to all people, containing a declaration of the faith and doctrine of the Church of the Latter Day Saints, commonly called Mormons. By P. P. Pratt, minister of the gospel. [5 lines] New-York: Printed by W. Sandford, 29 Ann-St. MDCCCXXXVII.

x[11]-216 pp. 15 cm.

Fleeing the dissension that swept the Mormon community in Kirtland, Parley Pratt went to New York in July 1837 to preach the gospel and purify himself. Few New York doors opened to him, and so impelled by the literary instincts within him, he retired to his room to write (see items 19, 21, 31, 32). In two months he produced the most important of all the noncanonical LDS books, Voice of Warning. In a letter of October 3, 1837, Parley reported that he was publishing the book in an edition of 3,000 with financial help from Elijah Fordham, and that the first copies would be out on October 4 or 5. The Messenger and Advocate for September 1837 (which came out a month late) judged the book “not eloquent but without ambiguity, strong, bold, and expressive,” and ran a long summary. Six months later Parley advertised it at a retail price of 37½¢ a copy.[106]

Voice of Warning was not quite the first Mormon missionary tract or the first outline of the tenets of the Latter-day Saints, but it was the first to emphasize the differences between Mormonism and orthodox Christianity. It established a formula for describing the Church’s basic doctrines, and it included biblical proof-texts, arguments, and examples which would be used by Mormon pamphleteers for a hundred years. It was also an extremely effective missionary tract, and before the close of the century it would go through more than thirty editions in English and be translated into Danish, Dutch, French, German, Icelandic, Spanish, and Swedish (see items 62, 127, 139, 221, 326).

After a preface (pp. [iii]–x), which follows a copyright notice on the verso of the title page, Voice of Warning opens with a series of biblical examples of the fulfillment of ancient prophecy, and then moves to a discussion of those prophecies which it asserts deal with the establishment of a new covenant, the gathering of Israel, the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and the events surrounding the Second Advent. The third chapter argues that repentance and baptism by someone with authority from God are necessary to enter the kingdom of God. The Book of Mormon is the focus of the fourth chapter, and here Voice of Warning asserts that America is a promised land to the descendants of Joseph who was sold into Egypt, that God revealed himself to Joseph’s seed, and that a record of these revelations would come forth in the last days. It also suggests that the American Indians are a remnant of these descendants of Joseph. At this point the book interposes a proclamation urging its readers to heed the preceding discussion and repent and be baptized. The sixth chapter argues that ultimately the earth will be restored to its form at the time of creation, and analyzing the resurrection of Jesus, it infers that the righteous will be resurrected with perfected bodies of flesh and bone and will dwell forever with the Messiah on the redeemed earth. In the seventh chapter, the book declares that God speaks to various generations by direct revelation, that his revealed word to one does not necessarily apply to past or future generations, and that he has revealed himself to certain men in the nineteenth century. The final chapter compares, in two columns, “The Doctrine of Christ” with “The Doctrines of Men.” Throughout, the book reflects Parley Pratt’s utter conviction, epitomized by his declaration on the twelfth page: “No believer in the Holy Scriptures, who reads it with attention, shall close this volume without being fully convinced of the great and important truths contained therein.”

The 1837 Voice of Warning usually occurs in blue embossed cloth (leaf pattern), the title in gilt on the backstrip. Some copies exist in brown embossed cloth (vertical diamond pattern or small horizontal diamond pattern), green pebbled cloth, and plain brown calf with a brown leather label on the backstrip.

Flake 6627. CSmH, CtY, CU-B, DLC, ICHi, ICN, IHi, MB, MWA, NjP, OClWHi, UPB, US1C, UU, WHi.

39 Elders’ Journal of the Church of Latter Day Saints. Kirtland: October-November 1837; Far West: July-August 1838.

1 v. (4 nos. in 64 pp.) 25 cm.

The August and September 1837 issues of the Messenger and Advocate carry a prospectus, signed by Sidney Rigdon, for a new periodical called the Elders’ Journal, to be edited by Joseph Smith and to supersede the Messenger and Advocate after the September issue. Implicit in this announcement is a dissatisfaction with Warren A. Cowdery, editor of the Messenger and Advocate, who had been publishing ponderous articles on ancient history and philosophy and in the July 1837 issue had criticized Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon for their roles in the Kirtland Bank fiasco. Indeed the second number of the Elders’ Journal implicitly rebukes Cowdery: “we calculate to pursue a different course from that of our predecessor in the editorial department.—We will endeavor not to scandalize our own citizens”; and the fourth explicitly condemns him. By terminating the Messenger and Advocate and beginning a new magazine under Joseph Smith’s editorship, the leaders of the Church hoped to make the official organ more appealing to its subscribers and bring its control into more congenial hands.

Two numbers of the Journal were published in Kirtland, dated October and November 1837. These list Joseph Smith as the editor and Thomas B. Marsh, the senior member of the Twelve, as the publisher. A notice on the back page of each directed all correspondence to Don Carlos Smith, Joseph’s youngest brother, who actually did the editorial work for these two numbers.[107] A subscription was $1 per year. The second issue contains the minutes of the two Far West conferences, November 7 and 10, 1837, and so it probably did not appear until after Joseph Smith returned to Kirtland from Far West about December 10. A month later Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon moved to Missouri, insuring that no other numbers of the Journal would be published in Kirtland.[108]

Don Carlos Smith, born at Norwich, Vermont, March 25, 1816, began his printing career in 1833 in the Kirtland shop, and with the founding of the Elders’ Journal, assumed the responsibility for the Kirtland press. In Nauvoo he edited the Times and Seasons and served on the city council and as a brigadier general in the Nauvoo Legion, until his death on August 7, 1841. He and his wife Agnes Coolbrith had three daughters, the youngest of whom, Ina Coolbrith, eventually became the poet laureate of California.[109]

It is clear that the Kirtland shop acquired a second press, probably just before it began issuing the Northern Times (item 18). Sidney Rigdon testified in 1838 that soon after he and Joseph Smith had acquired the shop on February 1, 1837, and had given Oliver Cowdery their notes,

he [Cowdery ] wished to get a press & some of the type which they granted him on conditions that he should give up the notes above refered to, he then went into the office and took whatever he pleased & so completely stripped the office, as he (Rigdon) was informed by D. C. Smith, that there was scarcely enough left to print the “Elders Journal,” whereas, before there was a sufficient quantity to print a weekly and monthly paper, the book of Covenants, Hymn Book, Book of Mormon &c. but the notes he did not give up.[110]

Elisha H. Groves arrived in Kirtland from Far West, Missouri, about February 1837. He picked up the press Cowdery had just obtained from the Kirtland shop and shipped it to Far West before returning there that spring. In August 1837 John Whitmer wrote to Cowdery in Kirtland and offered him “some timbered land” in exchange for “the Press & type.” The following April the Far West high council resolved to continue the Elders’Journal with Thomas B. Marsh as publisher. It also resolved

that the printing press, type and furniture which was purchased of John Whitmer with all the furniture pertaining to the establishment, be sold by the Committee to Edward Partridge, and that he be authorized to pay for the same out of the avails of the City lots or donations.

At the end of the month it circulated a prospectus (item 44) which announced that the Journal would be revived at Far West on the same terms as before, with Joseph Smith the editor and Marsh the publisher. In May the high council appointed Sidney Rigdon “to correct the matter for the ‘Elders Journal’ (that is) the Orthography and Prosody of the different letters &c.”—that is, to be assistant editor. And that June the council appointed Marsh the “sole proprietor of the printing establishment” and urged him to sell off some of his land to support the Far West print shop.[111]

Two additional numbers, dated July and August 1838, were published at Far West before the outbreak of violence permanently ended the Journal. These bear a slightly different name: Elders’Journal of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and the fourth number includes “An Extract of Revelation Given, Far West, April 26th, A.D. 1838” (D&C 115), which officially names the Church. Rigdon undoubtedly did most of the editorial work on these two issues, and they reflect his militant stand against those who opposed the leaders of the Church. Both issues include articles by Alanson Ripley, who may have helped edit the paper.[112]

In size and format the Elders’ Journal conforms to the Messenger and Advocate: each number has sixteen pages, in double columns, the four numbers continuously paged. The four issues consist almost entirely of letters from the elders and minutes of conferences and council meetings. The third number contains a now-famous series of questions and answers about Joseph Smith and the Church, and the fourth includes a vitriolic denunciation of the Kirtland dissenters and the minutes of the Fourth of July celebration at Far West (see item 49)—a harbinger of the calamity to befall the Saints that October. Flake 3126. CSmH, CtY, CU-B, ICHi[no. 11, MH, MiU-C[no. 11, MoInRC, NN, OClWHi[nos. 1–2], ULA[no. 2], UPB, US1C, UU, WHifnos.1–3].

40 JOHNSON, Joel Hills. A contrast between superstition and religion. A dream. By J. H. Johnson, [sic] [At foot:] Republican Print, Painesville, Geauga Co. Ohio [1838?] Broadside 17x16 cm. Text in two columns, ornamental border.

41 JOHNSON, Joel Hills. Anti-Universalism. A poem. By J. H. Johnson. [Painesville? 1838?] Broadside 28 x 16 cm. Text in two columns, ornamental border.

42 JOHNSON, Joel Hills? The young bachelor’s wish, or maid’s desire. [Painesville? 1838?] Broadside 16 x 6.5 cm. Ornamental border.

43 JOHNSON, Joel Hills? Kirtland, March, 1838. The prodigal daughter. [Painesville? 1838?] Broadside 31 x 16.5 cm. Text in two columns, ornamental border.

Joel Hills Johnson was the oldest son in a family that left its mark on the history of the Church. Brother Joseph E. was Utah’s most prolific founder of newspapers; sisters Delcena and Almera were plural wives of Joseph Smith; and brother Benjamin F. entered the bibliographical record himself in 1854 with a defence of Mormon polygamy. Born at Grafton, Massachusetts, March 23, 1802, J. H. Johnson joined the Church in 1831, moved to Kirtland two years later, and got as far as Springfield, Illinois, when he left with the Kirtland Camp in July 1838. He was a member of the Second Quorum of Seventy. In the spring of 1839 he moved to Carthage and then to Ramus, twenty miles east of Nauvoo, where he presided over that branch of the Church. He immigrated to the Great Salt Lake Valley in 1848, and in 1849 was called to be the bishop of the Mill Creek Ward. Two years later he was sent to Southern Utah, where he lived until his death in 1882.[113]

Johnson was also one of Mormondom’s band of self-taught poets. His verse appears in the Times and Seasons (March 1840; April 1, July 15, October 1, 1841); the Deseret News (May 28, 1853); in his Voice from the Mountains (Salt Lake City, 1881) and his Hymns of Praise for the Young (Salt Lake City, 1882); and in his journal.1 His songs “High on the Mountain Top” and “The Glorious Gospel Light Has Shown” are still included in the LDS hymnal. (See also item 104).

Items 40–43 are pasted in the Joseph E. Johnson scrapbook now in the University of Utah Marriott Library, along with a fifth broadside poem Diplomatic Quackery Unveiled, which comments on the trial of a local physician for malpractice, and which is dated at the end, Painesville, Ohio, May 1838.[114] It seems clear that all five were printed by the Painesville Republican as they share, for example, the same type elements in their ornamental borders. Although not explicitly Mormon, the four broadsides listed here each deal with a religious subject consistent with the tenets of the Latter-day Saints. A Contrast Between Superstition and Religion, a poem in 15 four-line stanzas rhyming in couplets, describes a dream in which two women beckon the writer, the first a hag representing “superstition, satans friend,” the second a damsel representing religion. Anti-Universalism, in 30 four-line stanzas with alternating rhyming lines, ridicules the universalist doctrine that all, including the wicked, will be saved in heaven. The Young Bachelor’s Wish, a poem in twenty rhyming couplets, expresses the hope of finding a spouse so “That when our days on earth should end, / We both might be prepared to spend, / A blessed eternity above, / ‘And ever’ praise the God of love.” The Prodigal Daughter, in 34 four-line stanzas with rhyming couplets, tells the story of the daughter of a wealthy Londoner who is led to do great evil by the devil and then is redeemed by a vision of the afterlife.

Items 40–43: UU.

44 Prospectus for the Elder’s [sic] Journal, of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints. [Dated at end:] April 30, 1838. [Far West? 1838?] Broadside 41 x 26 cm.

This is a single sheet (41 x 52 cm.) folded to make four unnumbered pages with thirteen lines of text following the title on the upper third of the first page. Issued for the resuscitated Journal in Missouri (see item 39), it undoubtedly was printed on the face of a folded sheet so it could be used to gather the names of subscribers. The prospectus is also printed in the Journal of July 1838, where it is dated April 26, 1838. Flake 3127. US1C.

45 PRATT, Parley Parker. Mormonism unveiled: Zion’s Watchman unmasked, and its editor, Mr. L. R. Sunderland, exposed: truth vindicated: the Devil mad, and priestcraft in danger! By P. P. Pratt, minister of the gospel. [2 lines] New-York: Printed for the publisher. 1838.

47 pp. 18.5 cm. Yellow printed wrappers.

46 PRATT, Parley Parker. Mormonism unveiled: Zion’s Watchman unmasked, and its editor, Mr. L. R. Sunderland, exposed: truth vindicated: the Devil mad, and priestcraft in danger! By P. P. Pratt, minister of the gospel. [2 lines] Second edition. New-York: Published by O. Pratt & E. Eordham. 1838.

47[1] pp. 18.5 cm. Plain blue wrappers.

47 PRATT, Parley Parker. Mormonism unveiled: Zion’s Watchman unmasked, and its editor, Mr. L. R. Sunderland, exposed: truth vindicated: the Devil mad, and priestcraft in danger! By P. P. Pratt, minister of the gospel. [2 lines] Third edition. New-York: Published by O. Pratt & E. Eordham. 1838.

47 [1] pp. 18 cm.

Three months after he published the Voice of Warning, Parley Pratt’s missionary effort in New York had become vigorous enough to draw the attention of the local clergy. Between January 13 and March 3, 1838, La Roy Sunderland, editor of the Methodist Zion ‘s Watchman, attacked the Mormons in an eight-part article which used the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Voice of Warning, and, in the last installment, the father of all anti-Mormon books, E. D. Howe’s Mormonism Unvailed [sic] (Painesville, 1834).[115] When Mormonism Unvailed first appeared, the Saints all but ignored it (see item 77). But four years later, particularly when his own work was attacked in print, Parley could only respond in kind. In April 1838, just before leaving New York for Far West, he published his reply to Sunderland—the earliest surviving response to an anti-Mormon work. Like Voice of Warning, it established a formula which would be followed by Mormon pamphleteers for another century, balancing a defense of the Church’s claims with an assault on the religion of the attacker.

Sunderland’s article, also printed separately as Mormonism Exposed and Refuted (New York: Piercy & Reed, Printers, 1838), attacks the Book of Mormon by pointing to grammatical errors and what it claims are inconsistencies and plagiarisms. Quoting from the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Voice of Warning, it argues that Mormonism is absurd, inconsistent with the Bible, and exists merely to fleece its new converts. The eighth installment repeats E. D. Howe’s Spaulding-Rigdon theory of the origin of the Book of Mormon (see item 77).

With considerable enthusiasm and a touch of vitriol, Parley Pratt responds to the bulk of Sunderland’s objections. In replying to the Spaulding-Rigdon theory, he recounts his own conversion and his part in introducing Sidney Rigdon to Mormonism (see item 80). At one point, he oversteps himself a bit when he writes (p. 15), “I will state as a prophesy, that there will not be an unbelieving Gentile upon this continent 50 years hence; and if they are not greatly scourged, and in a great measure overthrown, within five or ten years from this date, then the Book of Mormon will have proved itself false.” At another (p. 27) he anticipates the dramatic ideas outlined by Joseph Smith in the King Follett discourse (see item 271) by suggesting that the Saints will come to “have the same knowledge that God has” and hence be properly called “GODS, even the sons of God.” He further announces (p. 31), “But we worship a God, who has both body and parts; who has eyes, mouth, and ears, and who speaks when he pleases—to whom he pleases, and sends them where he pleases.” As a final thrust, he attacks some of the Methodist doctrines, particularly the concept of a God “without body or parts” and the practice of infant baptism.

These three “editions” are actually different issues of the first edition, all printed from the same typesetting, except for partially reset title pages. All three are dated March 24, 1838, on page 47. The second and third issues add Parley Pratt’s poem, “A Lamentation on Taking Leave of New-York,” on the verso of page 47, which is blank in the first issue. The last signature occurs in two states: the first is characterized by derfections in the last line of page 38 and THIER in the last paragraph of page 43, which are corrected to perfections and THEIR in the second state. All located copies of the first issue include this signature in the first state. Curiously, the second issue at Yale and the third issue at the LDS Church have the last signature in the first state, while the second issue at Brigham Young University and the third issue at the Bancroft Library have this signature in the second state. It appears that copies of the second and third issues were assembled at random from the sheets in both states. Why there are three “editions” is a mystery. One might guess that Orson Pratt and Elijah Fordham inserted their names as publishers because they became the principal distributors after Parley left New York. There are two later editions, one published in Ohio in 1838 (item 48), the other in New York in 1842 (item 146).

The copy of the first issue in the LDS Church archives is in the original yellow printed wrappers. The title page, without the place and date of publication but with the added line Price, twelve and a half cents, or $8 per hundred, is reprinted within a border on the front wrapper; advertisements for Voice of Warning and The Millennium, a Poem are on the back. The second issue at Yale is in what seems to be the original plain blue wrapper. In spite of the price on the wrapper, Orson Pratt began advertising Mormonism Unveiled: Zion’s Watchman Unmasked in the Times and Seasons in August 1841 at reduced prices, 6¢ each, or 50¢ per dozen.[116]

Item 45: Flake 6611. OClWHi, UPB, US1C. Item 46: Flake 6612. CtY, MH, MoInRC, UPB, US1C. Item 47: Flake 6613. CU-B, UPB, US1C, UU.

48 PRATT, Parley Parker. Mormonism unveiled: Zion’s Watchman unmasked, and its editor, Mr. L. R. Sunderland, exposed: truth vindicated: the Devil mad & priestcraft in danger: by P. P. Pratt, minister of the gospel. [2 lines] Re-printed for Wm. D. Pratt. Painesville, Ohio. 1838.

45 pp. 18 cm.

This is a reprint of the first issue (item 45). It does not include Parley Pratt’s “A Lamentation on Taking Leave of New-York,” which occurs on p. [48] of the second and third issues.

William Dickinson Pratt, Parley’s older brother, was a resident of Kirtland until he left for Missouri with the Kirtland Camp in July 1838.[117] It would seem, therefore, that this edition was printed before the Camp left Ohio, most likely in May or June. Since the Painesville Telegraph was unremittingly hostile to the Mormons, one might guess that it was printed at the shop of the Painesville Republican (see items 40–43).

Born in Worcester, Otsego County, New York, September 3, 1802, William Pratt converted to Mormonism in 1831, and crossed the plains to Utah in 1851. He died in Salt Lake City, September 15, 1870.[118]

Flake 6613a. UPB.

49 RIGDON, Sidney. Oration delivered by Mr S. Rigdon, on the 4th of July, 1838. At Far West, Caldwell County, Missouri. [1 line] Far West: Printed at the Journal Office. 1838.

12 pp. 19 cm.

The Fourth of July celebration at Far West in 1838 marked the beginning of the end of the Mormon colonies in Missouri. That morning, the Far West Saints, accompanied by Dimick Huntington’s band, marched in procession to the excavation for the new temple where the four cornerstones were laid by the Church authorities. The crowd then moved to the speaker’s stand to hear Sidney Rigdon deliver the day’s oration. Subsequently Rigdon’s speech was printed in pamphlet form by the Mormon print shop in Far West, and, according to Ebenezer Robinson, a hand in the Far West shop, a copy was supplied to the editor and reprinted in the Liberty Far West.[119]

Six years later, Jedediah M. Grant asserted that Sidney Rigdon’s Fourth of July oration “was the main auxiliary that fanned into a flame the burning wrath of the mobocratic portion of the Missourians.”[120] Putting the speech in print amplified its effect, for this allowed it to be read and reread, galvanizing the Mormons as well as the Missourians.

While Grant lays the responsibility for the oration squarely on Rigdon, it is clear that it must be more broadly shared. Robinson writes in his reminiscences that “Rigdon was not alone responsible for the sentiment expressed in his oration, as that was a carefully prepared document, previously written, and well understood by the First Presidency, but Elder Rigdon was the mouth piece to deliver it.”[121] A notice in the August 1838 issue of the Elders’ Journal announces that the oration is available in pamphlet form and commends it to the Saints in language echoing the oration: “for to be mobed [sic] any more without taking vengeance, we will not.” This notice is signed Editor, who was Joseph Smith, but it may have been inserted by Rigdon who assisted in editing the Journal (see item 39).

The bulk of the speech is inoffensive enough. Beginning with a statement of respect for and loyalty to American political institutions, it recounts the persecution endured by the Church, and it describes the temple about to be constructed at Far West. Only in its closing moments does it become extreme. When a mob disturbs the Saints, it proclaims,

it shall be between us and them a war of extermination, for we will follow them, till the last drop of their blood is spilled, or else they will have to exterminate us: for we will carry the seat of war to their own houses, and their own families, and one party or the other shall be utterly destroyed.

The text is also reprinted in James H. Hunt’s, Mormonism: Embracing the Origin, Rise and Progress of the Sect (St. Louis, 1844), pp. 167–80.

Flake 7284. ICHi, MH, UPB, US1C.

50 ROGERS, David White. A collection of sacred hymns, for the Church of the Latter Day Saints. Selected and published by David W. Rogers. New-York: C. Vinten, Printer, 63 Vesey-Street. 1838.

iv[5]–l 18[i]–[ii]ii[i.e. iii][iv]–[v]vi–ix pp. 10.5 cm. Ruled border on title page.

David W. Rogers, a prosperous New York chair maker, came into contact with the Mormons in the fall of 1837. He outfitted a hall with chairs from his warehouse so Parley Pratt would have a place to preach, and on Christmas Day 1837, Parley baptized him into the Church. When the Saints began to evacuate Missouri in November 1838, Rogers traveled to Illinois to meet the first group of refugees. During the next six months he helped purchase land in Illinois and Iowa, assisted the Saints in moving from Missouri, and carried messages to Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail. Rogers settled in Nauvoo, and in 1846, when most had vacated the city, he remained to assist in its defense. In 1850 he immigrated to Utah and settled in Provo. He served a mission for the Church in the mid 1850s, and in 1873 he was ordained a patriarch. He died in Provo on September 21, 1881, thirteen days before his ninety-fourth birthday.[122]

Rogers’s dedicatory hymn explains that he got the idea of publishing a hymnbook in a dream. His book takes its preface (pp. iii–iv) verbatim from the 1835 Kirtland hymnal (item 23); and like the Kirtland book, his hymn texts (pp. [5]–l18) are numbered 1 through 90—except with “Awake, O Ye People” appearing twice as no. 7 and no. 51. Forty-nine of the eighty-nine hymns are from the 1835 hymnal. Five of those remaining are from Parley Pratt’s The Millennium, a Poem (item 21). Twenty-four others are clearly of Latter-day Saint authorship: in addition to the dedicatory hymn (no. 90) written by Rogers and signed DWR, thirteen of these are by DW, eight by RB, and two by EC. Who DW, RB, and EC are is not known. Perhaps these initials represent only parts of their names, and DW, for instance, is Rogers himself. At the end, p. [i] is blank; pp. [ii]-ii [i.e. iii] have an Index to Find Hymns, Under Different Heads; p. [iv] is blank; and pp. [v]-ix contain an index of first lines. The book’s bindings include brown tree-dyed sheep, brown mottled sheep, blue pebbled or embossed cloth, and green cloth, in each case with a red leather label on the backstrip.

Rogers’s book was essentially reprinted, with additions, in 1839 by Benjamin C. Elsworth (item 61). But beyond this, of the twenty-four songs by DWR, DW, RB, and EC, only ten were used again in later hymnals. Two are in the 1841 Nauvoo book (item 103), the 1843 Hardy book (item 186), and the Wight hymnal (item 345)—RB’s “The Time Long Appointed” and “Ye Slumbering Nations Who Have Slept.” These two and eight others are included in the 1845 Adams hymnbook (item 289).[123]

Unfortunately Rogers’s initiative brought him into difficulty with the Church authorities, apparently because they felt his book infringed on the Church’s copyright. At the October 1839 general conference at Commerce, Illinois, the elders resolved to publish a new edition of the hymnbook and “the one published by D. W. Rogers be utterly discarded by the Church.” Six months later, Thomas Grover presented charges against Rogers to the general conference, one “for compiling a hymn-book, and selling it as the one compiled and published by Sister Emma Smith.” But the next day, the conference voted to forgive him and continue him in full fellowship.[124]

Flake 7405. CtY, DLC, UPB, US1C.

51 OWEN, Ephraim, Jr. Mormons. Memorial of Ephraim Owen, Jr., late of Green county, Indiana, now of Davis [sic] county, Missouri, asking of Congress to afford protection to the people called Mormons, in the enjoyment of their civil rights as citizens of the United States; and complaining of loss of property, &c. December 20, 1838. Referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and ordered to be printed. [Caption title] [At head of title:] 25th Congress, 3d Session. Doc. No. 42. Ho. of Reps. [At foot of p. 1:] Thomas Allen, print. [Washington, 1838?]

5 pp. 24 cm.

Ephraim Owen was baptized into the Church by Reynolds Cahoon and Samuel H. Smith in Green County, Indiana, September 4, 1831 (see D&C 61:31–35). Owen remained in Indiana with a small branch of the Church until he went to Missouri in 1836, one of the first Mormon settlers in Daviess County. After the difficulties in Daviess, he moved with the Mormons into Illinois, and on March 9, 1839, he read a paper at a meeting in Quincy to solicit aid for the immigrating Saints. That November he and many others presented claims to the U.S. Congress for their losses in Missouri, his amounting to $5,711.18. At this point Owen fades from view; no mention of him seems to occur in LDS Church records subsequent to 1839.[125]

Apparently Owen’s memorial was an individual effort, independent of the other Mormon petitions then being prepared for the U.S. Congress. For example, on December 19, 1838, the Far West high council and a few of the Twelve directed Edward Partridge and John Taylor to draft a petition to “the general government,” seemingly unaware that Owen had done the same.[126] Other than ordering it printed, Congress appears to have made no response to Owen’s memorial.

Memorial of Ephraim Owen deals with the violence in northern Missouri during the summer and fall of 1838. It claims that initially the Mormon settlers were welcomed by the Missourians in Daviess County, but after the election-day fight between Mormons and Missourians in Gallatin on August 6, the Missourians moved their families out and began advertising that the Saints were driving them from the county. This caused considerable excitement on both sides, until David R. Atchison and the state militia temporarily restored the peace. At this point, the memorial asserts, the Missourians in Daviess began selling out to the Mormons, but stopped after word came that the Saints had been driven out of Carroll County. The memorial summarizes the events following the battle at Crooked River which culminated in the expulsion of the Mormons from the state, and it estimates their losses at $1,332,000. It asks that those who drove the Saints from Missouri “be called to account,” and concludes, “Do us justice; restore us to our rights; and the God of justice, mercy, and truth will reward you for your good deeds.”

Flake 6026. CtY, CSmH, DLC, ICHi, ICN, MH, MoSHi, MWA, NjP, NN, OClWHi, TxDaDF, UPB, US1C, WHi.

52 A striking and remarkable vision, disclosing the real and final state of man, after the period of his existence in this world, by Joseph Smith Junr., and Sidney Rigdon. [At foot of third column:] Whittle’s, Printers, 25, Fishergate, Preston. [1838?]

Broadside 44.5 x 28.5 cm. Text in three columns, ornamental border.

This broadside contains “The Vision” (D&C 76), received by Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon at Hiram, Ohio, February 16, 1832, and published in The Evening and the Morning Star of July 1832 and in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants as section 91. The text in the broadside is that of the Doctrine and Covenants with many differences in punctuation and capitalization and eight minor word changes.[127] When the broadside was printed is not known.

Just prior to their leaving for the first British mission in June 1837 (see items 30, 35, 93), Joseph Smith instructed Heber C. Kimball, Orson Hyde, Joseph Fielding, and Willard Richards to “remain silent” concerning “The Vision,” until “the work was fully established.” That August, however, a few weeks after they arrived in Preston, their companion John Goodson publicly read it from the Doctrine and Covenants and created a small stir.[128] One might assume, therefore, that A Striking and Remarkable Vision was printed no earlier than the following year. A “few weeks” after it appeared, it was commented upon in an anonymous anti-Mormon tract Remarks on the Doctrines, Practices, &c. of the Latter-day Saints: Setting Forth the Marvellous Things Connected With This New Light From America (Preston: Printed by J. Livesey, n.d.), which was printed by the same printer who struck off Richard Livesey’s 1838 tract An Exposure of Mormonism (see item 89).

A Striking and Remarkable Vision undoubtedly preceded the 1845 British edition of the Doctrine and Covenants (item 265), and because it identifies Joseph Smith as Junr., it was probably published before the death of his father in September 1840. Moreover, Brigham Young University has a British membership certificate bearing the printed date March [blank space] 1838, with a border similar to that of the broadside. All of the foregoing seem consistent with an 1838 publication date.

Flake 2914b. US1C.

53 BISHOP, Francis Gladden. A brief history of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints, from their rise until the present time; containing an account of and showing the cause of their sufferings in the state of Missouri, in the years 1833–38. And likewise a summary view of their religious faith. By Francis G. Bishop, a minister of the order. Salem [North Carolina]: Printed by Blum & Son. 1839.

14[1] pp. 18 cm.

Baptized into the Church and ordained an elder on July 2, 1832, Francis Gladden Bishop immediately began traveling and preaching in the eastern United States and Canada. He was among those chosen for the Second Quorum of Seventy in February 1836, and by 1840 he had preached the gospel in fourteen states and had baptized 123 into the Church. Bishop, however, is mainly remembered for his schismatic activities. As early as 1835 he was temporarily disfellowshipped for teaching erroneous doctrine, and in March 1842 he was “removed from the fellowship of the Church” for receiving his own revelations. For six years he remained out of sight, until 1848, when he had some contact with James J. Strang. During the next six years he published his revelations and religious views in at least five tracts and a one-issue periodical and attracted a small following in Utah and in Kanesville, Iowa—earning the anathemas of Brigham Young and Parley Pratt from the Salt Lake pulpit in March 1853. In the summer of 1864 he slipped quietly into Salt Lake City, and there he died on November 30, 1864, fifty days before his fifty-sixth birthday.[129]

In a letter of February 4, 1840, Bishop describes the events surrounding the publishing of his pamphlet:

When in North Carolina; a most unwaranted and unparallelled persecution was raging against the saints in Missouri, meanwhile misrepresentations touching the troubbles in Missouri and our faith were spreading in every direction through the papers of the day and by letters from the hostile Missourians. . . . It was during this that I published a small pamphlet, for the purpose of correcting the misrepresentations, which had prejudiced the public against the Latter Day Saints, and then circulated this pamphlet gratis by mail in almost every direction.[130]

Even though Flake gives the place of publication as Salem, Massachusetts, Bishop’s presence in North Carolina and the printer’s name on the title page make it clear that the pamphlet was printed by John Christian Blum in Salem (now Winston-Salem), North Carolina.[131]

Generally a propaganda piece, it begins with an overview of the Mormons’ experiences in Jackson and Clay counties, briefly describes the settling of Caldwell County, and then gives a garbled account of the conflict in Daviess and Caldwell. It concludes with a summary of Latter-day Saint beliefs, followed by a poem, “The Murder in Missouri, which took place in November, A.D. 1838” (pp. 13–14). A notice on the recto of the leaf following page 14 says that Bishop intends to publish a small work entitled A Scriptural Illustration of the Peculiarities of the Religious Faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Also A choice selection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs. No copy of such a work is extant.

Flake 532. DLC

54 HYDE, Orson. A timely warning to the people of England, of every sect and denomination, and to every individual into whose hands it may fall. By an elder of the Church of Latter Day Saints, late from America. Preston, 19th August, 1837. [At end of third column:] May, 4th, 1839. Reprinted by W. R. Thomas, Spring-Gardens, Manchester. [1839]

Broadside 50.5 x 37.5 cm. Text in three columns, ornamental border.

A Timely Warning is a revision of Orson Hyde’s A Prophetic Warning (item 30). If indeed it was published in 1837 as suggested above (item 36). it was the first Mormon work published in Great Britain and the principal Latter-day Saint tract in the British Mission during the first three or four years. Two later editions are extant, one a Manchester broadside printed in 1840. the other an eight-page pamphlet printed in Norwich about 1847 (items 81, 332).

A Timely Warning and ,4 Prophetic Warning arc virtually identical for the first half of the text. But in the second half, A Timely Warning eliminates the more morbid events predicted for the last days and is less severe in condemning the sectarian clergy, even though it comments on their tendency to cry “false teachers” without examining the Latter-day Saints’ claims. It also includes a reference to “the coming of the Son of Man. which will be witnessed by this generation”—one of the few instances in which a Mormon author speculates in print about the time of the Second Advent. Unlike A Prophetic Warning, it clearly identifies itself as a Latter-day Saint tract.

Flake 4172. UPB. US1C.

55 GREENE, John Portineus. Facts relative to the expulsion of the Mormons or Latter Day Saints, from the state of Missouri, under the “exterminating order.” By John P. Greene, an authorised representative of the Mormons. Cincinnati: Printed by R. P. Brooks. 1839.

iv|5|–43 pp. 21.5 cm. Gray or tan printed wrappers.

56 GREENE, John Portineus. Facts relative to the expulsion of the Mormons from the state of Missouri, under the “exterminating order” By John P. Greene, an authorised representative of the Mormons. Cincinnati: Printed by R. P. Brooks. 1839.

iv|5|–43 pp. 21.5 cm. Plain blue or gray wrappers.

John P. Greene, a brother-in-law of Brigham Young, converted to Mormonism in April 1832 and moved with his family to Kirtland in October. From that point on, he spent much of his life traveling as a Mormon missionary throughout the eastern states and Canada. In Kirtland and Far West he served on the high council. In Nauvoo he was city marshal, a member of the city council, and a member of the Council of Fifty. As the marshall he led the posse which destroyed the Nauvoo Expositor press (see item 223). He died in Nauvoo on September 10, 1844, seven days past his fifty-first birthday.[132]

At a conference in Quincy, Illinois, May 4–6, 1939, Greene was appointed to preside over the Church in New York City and to collect funds for the relief of the destitute Saints.[133] A month later he left for this mission, and to help advertise the plight of the Saints, he stopped in Cincinnati and published his Facts Relative to the Expulsion of the Mormons. This was printed late in June or in July 1839. The pamphlet contains a summary of a meeting Greene addressed on June 24, and Franklin D. Richards, in Quincy, had received a copy by August 5.[134]

Joseph Smith’s Liberty Jail letter of March 25, 1839, urged the Saints to collect all the documentary evidence they could find of the Missouri atrocities. And the May conference, which appointed Greene to preside in New York, also designated Almon W. Babbitt, Erastus Snow, and Robert B. Thompson to gather up all “libelous reports” and other historical documents pertaining to the Church.[135] Greene’s Facts prints some of this material. The book is based on “Memorial to the Legislature of Missouri,” signed by Edward Partridge, Heber C. Kimball, John Taylor, Theodore Turley, Brigham Young, Isaac Morley, George W. Harris, John Murdock, and John M. Burk, December 10, 1838,—augmented with many annotations. (Partridge’s, Kimball’s, and Murdock’s names are printed Edward Patridge, Hehen C. Kimball, and John Munclock.) The memorial is a summary of the Mormons’ experiences in Missouri, beginning in Jackson County, with emphasis, of course, on their mistreatment at the hands of the Missourians. John Corrill presented it to the Missouri House of Representatives on December 19, 1838, evoking considerable debate in the House.[136] Adding detail and examples to the events summarized in the memorial, Greene’s annotations comprise 60 percent of the text, and include, for example, Joseph Young’s account of the Haun’s Mill massacre; Governor Boggs’s extermination order; General John B. Clark’s speech of November 6, 1838; and the petitions of Caleb Baldwin, Lyman Wight, Joseph Smith, Alexander McRae, and Hyrum Smith to Judge Tompkins, March 15, 1839.[137]

Items 55 and 56 are different issues of the same edition, both printed from the same typesetting—with a few trifling internal differences in addition to the change of title. For example, the fourth page is numbered v in some copies of item 55 and iv in others; it is numbered iv in all examined copies of item 56. The word Vide at the bottom of page 11 in item 56 appears as Vdie in item 55. On the other hand, the words at a in the first line of page 43 in item 55 read a ta in item 56, so it is not entirely clear which issue is the earlier. The two are also arranged differently in signatures: item 55 collates A–C⁶, D⁴; item 56 collates [A]–E⁴, F². The third signature of item 55 is often on slightly heavier paper. Both were originally issued in paper wrappers: the title page is reprinted within an ornamental border on the front wrapper of item 55, while the wrapper of item 56 is plain.

Flake 3710. Item 55: CSmH, CtY, CU-B, DLC, ICN, IHi, MiU-C, MoSHi, MWA, NN, TxDaDF, UPB, US1C, WHi. Item 56: CtY, ICHi, IHi, MB, MH, NN, MoHi, OClWHi, UPB, US1C, UU.

57 [Prospectus for the Times and Seasons. Nauvoo? 1839?]

Broadside?

No copy of a separately printed prospectus for the Times and Seasons is extant. Its existence is inferred from Ebenezer Robinson’s statement that after the Church leaders had turned the Far West press over to him and Don Carlos Smith in June 1839, they “issued the prospectus for the Times and Seasons, and sent it to brethren residing in different states.”[138] The text is included in the first number of the Times and Seasons. It promises that the paper will be a monthly “containing all general information respecting the church,” particularly discussions of the Missouri violence and letters from the elders abroad. (See item 60.)

58 TAY LOR, John. A short account of the murders, roberies [sicj, burnings, thefts, and other outrages committed by the mob and militia of the state of Missouri, upon the Latter Day Saints. The persecutions they have endured for their religion, and their banishment from that state by the authorities thereof By John Taylor, elder of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints. [Caption title] [Springfield, Illinois, 1839]

8 pp. 25 cm.

John Taylor, who would later serve as the third president of the Church, and Wilford Woodruff, who would serve as its fourth, left Nauvoo August 8, 1839, en route to their missions in the British Isles. John Coltrin joined them at Macomb, Illinois, where George Miller gave them a horse and saddle. On August 15 they reached Springfield, where Taylor engaged the printing of 1,500 copies of his Short Account. Five days later they sold the horse and saddle for $23, Taylor settled with the printer, and the three resumed their eastward journey. At Germantown, Wayne County, Indiana, Taylor became too sick to travel, so Woodruff and Coltrin left him there to recover while they continued on. At this point Woodruff had 460 of Taylor’s tracts in his possession. Coltrin kept some of these to sell to help support Taylor’s and Woodruff’s families while the two elders were in England.[139]

A note at the end explains that Taylor wrote A Short Account at the request of the editor of the St. Louis Gazette, who subsequently refused to print it, so Taylor published it himself. The pamphlet begins with an account of the election-day fracas in Gallatin, and then describes the Mormons’ encounter with Adam Black, who, it charges, incited anti-Mormon fervor because he coveted some of the properties of the Saints. It relates in detail the events leading up to the destruction of the Mormon colony at DeWitt, which Taylor witnessed, and it recounts the battle at Crooked River, the Haun’s Mill massacre, the Mormon surrender at Far West, and the subsequent depredations of the mob. It concludes with General Clark’s speech at Far West on November 6, 1838.

Flake 8846. CSmH, MH, US1C.

59 PRATT, Parley Parker. History of the late persecution inflicted by the state of Missouri upon the Mormons, in which ten thousand American citizens were robbed, plundered, and driven from the state, and many others imprisoned, martyred, &c. for their religion, and all this by military force, by order of the executive. By P. P. Pratt, minister of the gospel. Written during eight months imprisonment in that state. [1 line] Price 25 cents per copy, or $16 per hundred. Detroit: Dawson & Bates, Printers. 1839.

v[7]–84 pp. 19 cm.

For eight months following the surrender of the Mormons at Far West, Parley Pratt languished in the Richmond and Columbia jails before finally escaping on July 4, 1839. To relieve the tedium, he devoted himself to writing (“a priviledge which relieves my full heart like the steem blowing from an over charged boiler”), and produced a number of hymns and two significant essays. One of these essays is an account of the anti-Mormon violence in Missouri, which Parley’s wife, Mary Ann, smuggled out of Richmond Jail. As Parley describes the incident, for some time the guards had been aware of his writings, and he feared they were about to confiscate them. At this point Mary Ann and her six-year-old daughter were staying with Parley in the jail. While they were ascending the ladder from the dungeon below the cell, the trapdoor in the cell floor fell, hurting the child slightly and causing her to scream. Seizing the opportunity, Parley cried out to the guards that his little girl was dreadfully injured, and with the manuscript secured under her dress and her daughter in her arms, Mary Ann rushed past the baffled guards amidst the wails of the child and the shouts of the anxious parents.[140]

On August 29, 1839, eight weeks after his escape, Parley left Nauvoo for his mission to England with the Twelve. Traveling with him were his wife and three children, his brother Orson, and Hiram Clark. Four weeks later he reached Detroit, where he paused to visit his parents and to publish his essay on the Mormon expulsion from Missouri. On September 30 he obtained a copyright for the book, and ten days later he picked up copies from the printer.[141]

Parley’s History is largely autobiographical. After a bit of editorializing in the preface (pp. [iii]-v), it describes the destruction of the Independence press and the events leading up to the evacuation of Jackson County, and emotionally recounts the exodus from Jackson (see items 9–10). It discusses the July 4, 1838, celebration at Far West and the events in Caldwell and Daviess counties which ended in the expulsion of the Saints from Missouri. As one would expect, it includes a detailed account of the treatment of the Mormon prisoners, their trial before Austin A. King, Parley’s subsequent experiences in prison, and his harrowing escape from Columbia Jail. His poem “Pratt’s Defence” is at the end.

History of the Late Persecution was twice reprinted in 1840, in Mexico, New York, as a forty-page pamphlet under the same title, and in New York City as a hardback entitled Late Persecution of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints (items 65 and 64).

Flake 6582. CtY, DNA, US1C.

60 Times and Seasons. Nauvoo: November 1839-February 15, 1846. 6 v. (131 nos. in [l]–288[295]–582[577]–592[591]–958[1]–304[305] 305–1135 pp.) Facsms. (1 fold.) Title pages and indexes to v. 4–6. 23 cm.

The history of the Times and Seasons begins in April 1839, when Elias Smith, Hiram Clark, and others unearthed the Far West press and type and hauled them to Nauvoo. In June a council of the First Presidency and other Church leaders gave this press to Ebenezer Robinson and Don Carlos Smith with the understanding that they would publish a magazine—named by the council Times and Seasons—which would promote the interests of the Church. Robinson and Smith were to bear all of the expense of this undertaking and to keep all of the profits.[142]

Ebenezer Robinson was exactly two months younger than Don Carlos Smith and also an experienced printer. Born in New York, May 25, 1816, he began his printing career at age sixteen at the Utica Observer. Three years later, although not a Latter-day Saint, he moved to Kirtland and obtained work at the Mormon print shop. He was baptized by Joseph Smith in October 1835 and in the spring of 1837 moved to Far West. The following year he resumed his career as a printer at the Mormon press in Far West. When the Saints were driven out of northern Missouri in November 1838, he spent a short time in prison, and then joined the immigration to Illinois. For two and a half years he ran the printing business in Nauvoo, until he sold it to the Church in February 1842. Robinson followed Sidney Rigdon to Pittsburgh in June 1844, and that fall united himself with the Rigdonite church after Rigdon broke with the Twelve. In 1855 he moved to Iowa, and eight years later he joined the RLDS Church. Robinson shifted his allegiance to David Whitmer’s Church of Christ in 1888, and for two years he edited, published, and printed the Whitmerite magazine, The Return, until his death in 1891.[143]

Robinson and Smith set up their press in the basement of a former warehouse on the bank of the Mississippi. Here during June and July they cleaned the press and type. After purchasing a new font with $50 borrowed from Isaac Galland and some paper with another $50 borrowed from a friend, they struck off a prospectus and began to print the first number of the Times and Seasons, dated July 1839. After printing two hundred copies, both took sick with swamp fever, and this stopped all printing activity for four months. In the mean time, they received a few subscriptions which enabled them to move the press to a small, new, one-and-a-half-story frame building on the northeast corner of Water and Bain streets. By November they had recovered enough to begin again on the magazine. With the help of a newly hired young printer Lyman Gaylord, they reissued the first number of the Times and Seasons, now dated November 1839.[144]

Together Robinson and Smith edited and published the first fifteen numbers (November 1839–December 1, 1840). On December 14, 1840, they dissolved their partnership, with Robinson taking over the job and book printing, and Smith continuing to edit and publish the Times and Seasons.[145] Smith edited the next nine numbers alone, whole numbers 16–24 (December 15, 1840–April 15, 1841). With the issue of May 1, 1841, Robert B. Thompson joined the magazine, and together they edited whole numbers 25–31 (May 1, 1841–August 2, 1841). On August 7, 1841, Don Carlos Smith died, and Ebenezer Robinson rejoined the magazine as co-editor with Thompson and as publisher. This partnership lasted for just one issue, whole number 32 (August 16, 1841), because Thompson died twenty days after Smith. Robinson continued as sole editor and publisher for whole numbers 33–41 (September 1, 1841–January 1, 1842), assisted by Gustavus Hills, who formally joined him as assistant editor for two issues, whole numbers 42–43 (January 15, 1842–February 1, 1842).

Robert Blashel Thompson was born in Yorkshire, England, October 1, 1811. In 1834 he immigrated to Canada, and there, two years later, Parley Pratt converted him to Mormonism. The following year he moved to Kirtland and married Mercy Fielding, Joseph Fielding’s sister. Thompson moved to northern Missouri in the summer of 1838, and five months later fled with the Saints to Illinois. In Nauvoo he served as general church clerk, as Joseph Smith’s secretary, and as a colonel in the Nauvoo Legion.[146]

Gustavus Hills was born on January 29, 1804, in Connecticut. He seems to have first associated with the Church in 1841. By December of that year he was a Nauvoo alderman, a professor at the University of Nauvoo, and president of the Musical Lyceum. But his life in Nauvoo was not entirely free of controversy: in November 1841 the Twelve expressed some displeasure over the manner in which he conducted the Times and Seasons, and the following September he was accused of sexual improprieties and promoting polygamy. He survived, however, as a city alderman and associate justice of the municipal court until after the death of Joseph Smith. Hills took his family to Iowa in September 1846, and after living in a tent there for three or four weeks, he and his family became ill. Two weeks later he died.[147]

The concerns of the Twelve with the Times and Seasons were not limited to Gustavus Hills. On November 20 and 30, 1841, they met to discuss the magazine. At a third meeting in Joseph Smith’s office on January 17, 1842, they expressed their opposition to Robinson’s publishing the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants without the explicit consent of the First Presidency. Robinson, in their view, was too proprietary with what were, after all, official Church works. Beyond this, the Twelve were assuming a greater responsibility for the affairs of the Church, and it is not surprising they wanted more control over the official Church magazine. On January 28 Joseph Smith received a revelation that they should take charge of the Times and Seasons, and on February 3 they appointed John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff to edit the Times and Seasons and manage the print shop under Joseph Smith’s direction. The next day Robinson deeded the shop to Joseph Smith for $6,600—ultimately paid in cash installments, credit against temple contributions, livestock, and shares in the Nauvoo House.[148]

Joseph Smith is listed as editor and publisher for whole numbers 44–60 (February 15, 1842–October 15, 1842). But it is clear from Woodruff’s journal that he and Taylor managed the paper during this period. During the week of November 7, 1842, Joseph Smith asked them to take full responsibility for the printing office and offered to rent them the property, to which they agreed. Beginning with the first issue of vol. 4, John Taylor is listed as editor, with he and Woodruff as publishers, this continuing for whole numbers 61–71 (November 15, 1842–April 15, 1843). Woodruff’s name disappears from whole numbers 72–73 but appears again as co-publisher for whole numbers 74–86 (June 1, 1843-January 15, 1844)—perhaps a response to Joseph Smith’s comment on April 19, 1843, that Woodruff could “be spared from the printing office,” that if he and Taylor both remained there, they would “disagree.” In January 1844 Joseph Smith sold the printing office outright to John Taylor, and after this the Times and Seasons lists Taylor as “editor and proprietor,” whole numbers 87–131 (February 1, 1844-February 15, 1846). During some part of Taylor’s term as editor, he was assisted by the ubiquitous W. W. Phelps; indeed in the issue for June 1, 1845, Phelps is referred to as the junior editor.[149]

The print shop occupied the small building on the northeast corner of Water and Bain streets for about two years. In November 1841 Ebenezer Robinson moved it across the street into a two-story brick building on the northwest corner of Water and Bain. John Taylor moved the shop again in May 1845 to the northwest corner of Main and Kimball streets, where the Times and Seasons was published until it terminated in February 1846.[150]

Each issue of the Times and Seasons contains sixteen pages, in double columns, the first three volumes and the last three more or less continuously paged. The first eighteen whole numbers are continuously paged [1]–288. Whole number 19 (vol. 2, no. 7), however, begins with page [295], and whole numbers 19–36 are paged [295]–582. This error is compensated for in vol. 3, no. 1 (whole no. 37) which is paged [577]–592. But vol. 3, no. 2, begins with page [591], and the rest of vol. 3 (whole nos. 38–60) is paged [591]–958. Vol. 4 begins again with page [1], and the next nineteen issues (whole nos. 61–79) are paged [1]–304. As usual the first page of vol. 4, no. 20 (whole no. 80) does not have a page number, but the verso of this leaf is erroneously numbered 305; and from vol. 4, no. 20, on (whole nos. 80–131), the file is continuously paged [305]305–1135, causing the even page numbers to fall on the rectos of the leaves after p. 305.

The first number actually occurs in three states: (1) dated July 1839; (2) dated November 1839 and with the word PREVAIL in the masthead spelled correctly; and (3) dated November 1839 and with the word PREVAIL spelled PREVAIL. All three are textually the same with one exception: the summary of a council meeting at Far West, April 26, 1839, which occurs on pp. 15–16 of the first state is replaced in the second and third by To the Patrons of the Times & Seasons, which explains the reissuing of the first number. Except for this change, states 1 and 2 are printed from the same typesetting. State 3 is a different setting. Apparently Robinson and Smith struck off about two hundred copies in July 1839 and then stopped when they became sick; but they saved the setting and used it again in November to print more copies now with a November 1839 date. Subsequently they reset the type and printed most of the copies that have survived of the first number from this second typesetting, also dated November 1839. Two copies of state 1 are located at the LDS Church and RLDS Church, and one copy of state 2 is located at the Utah State Historical Society.

The second and third numbers of vol. 1 also exist in two printings from different settings, distinguished, in the case of each number, by the word TERMS in capital letters at the bottom of the right-hand column on the last page: (1) in bold face type, and (2) in open face type. The same setting was used to print most of the final five column-cms. of no. 1 (states 1 and 2), nos. 2 and 3 (state 1), and nos. 4 and 5—suggesting that state 1 of the second and third numbers is the earlier. Four copies of each of the second and third numbers in state 1 are located at the Huntington Library, Utah Historical Society, and the LDS Church. One might guess that when subscriptions increased, Robinson and Smith reprinted the first three numbers so that later subscribers could have a complete first volume.

Commerce, the original name of Nauvoo, appears as the place of publication on the masthead of the first six numbers; all subsequent numbers show Nauvoo. For the first twelve numbers the Times and Seasons was a monthly. An annual subscription cost $1, which was raised to $2 after the first year. The apology printed in the issue of November 1, 1840, shows that, during this first year, the paper was late on more than one occasion.

Beginning with the first number of vol. 2 (November 1, 1840), the Times and Seasons issued on the 1 st and 15th of each month, with, expectedly, a few exceptions. There is no number for November 1, 1842; the first issue of vol. 4 is dated November 15, 1842. The last number of vol. 4 is dated November 1, 1843, and the first number of vol. 5 is January 1, 1844. One guesses that John Taylor was adjusting for more late appearances of the paper. There is no issue for June 15, 1844, undoubtedly because of the events surrounding the murders of Joseph and Hyrum Smith and the wounding of Taylor at Carthage Jail. Consequently, the last number of vol. 5 is dated January 1, 1845, and vol. 6 begins with the issue for January 15, 1845. Vol. 6, no. 15, is dated August 15, 1845, while no. 16 is dated November 1, 1845, this gap occurring because of the anti-Mormon violence that September. Vols. 2–5 each contain twenty-four numbers; vol. 6 has twenty-three. Seven issues are dated the 2nd or the 16th of the month rather than the 1st or 15th: vol. 2, nos. 19–20; vol. 3, nos. 13–14; vol. 4, nos. 4–5; vol. 5, no. 16. In each of these instances, the 1st and the 15th fell on Sundays. The first number of vol. 3 (November 1, 1841) is erroneously dated November 15. The issue for March 15, 1842 (vol. 3, no. 10) has an inserted folding plate containing Facsimile No. 2 from the “Book of Abraham” (see item 141).

Vols. 4–6 each have a title page and index; title pages and indexes were not printed for the first three volumes. The title page to vol. 4 reads: The Times and Seasons, containing a compendium of intelligence pertaining to the upbuilding of the kingdom of God and the signs of the times, together with a great variety of useful information, in regard to the doctrines, history, principles, persecutions, deliverances, and onward progress of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Volume IV. [1 line] Edited by John Taylor, printed and published by Taylor and Woodruff at the corner of Water and Bain streets, Nauvoo. MDCCCXLIII.[151] Vols. 5 and 6 follow this format, with a few changes.

One cannot hope to understand the Nauvoo period of Mormonism without the Times and Seasons. More than its predecessors, it captures the spirit of the Latter-day Saints as it chronicles their day-to-day efforts to spread their message and gather the converted. Its pages reflect the optimism which fueled the building of the City of Joseph and the sorrow which accompanied its abandonment.

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61 ELSWORTH, Benjamin C. A collection of sacred hymns, for the Church of Christ of the Latter Day Saints. Selected and published by Benjamin C Elsworth. Printed for the publisher. 1839.

iv[5]–152[i]–vii pp. 10.5 cm.

Little is known about Benjamin C. Elsworth. On November 16, 1836, John E. Page ordained him a teacher at a conference in South Crosby, twenty-five miles north of Kingston, Canada, and fifteen months later he was chosen a member of the Second Quorum of Seventy. Elsworth reported on October 18, 1840, that he had been laboring in the vicinity of Oswego County, New York, and had baptized one hundred or so people during the preceding year. In April 1844 he was assigned to stump for Joseph Smith’s presidential campaign in New York. One year later he was excommunicated, apparently because he had aligned himself with James J. Strang (see items 303, 310). Elsworth was appointed to the office of apostle in the Strangite church in 1847 but was never ordained, and later that year Strang excommunicated him “for teaching and practicing the spiritual wife system.” The following year Elsworth joined another Strangite dissident Joseph Robinson in a new church in Franklin, Illinois, which apparently had a short life. At that point he seems to have dropped from sight, until 1871, when he was baptized into the RLDS Church, on McKisick Island, ten miles down the Missouri River from Nebraska City, where he had been living for a number of years.[152]

Since Elsworth is known to have been laboring in the vicinity of Oswego County, New York, during the latter part of 1839, it is likely he published his hymnal in that area. Parley Pratt’s History of the Late Persecution (item 65) was reprinted in 1840 at the office of the Oswego County Democrat in Mexico, and it is conceivable that Elsworth had his book printed there also.

Elsworth’s hymnal is based almost totally on the two earlier ones (items 23, 50). Its preface (pp. [iii]–iv) is verbatim that of the 1835 Kirtland hymnbook. It contains the texts of 112 songs, numbered 1–114 (pp. [5]–152), with “Awake O Ye People” appearing twice as nos. 7 and 51, and “My Soul is Full of Peace and Love” appearing twice as nos. 49 and 92. Its first eighty-eight songs are those of the Rogers hymnal (item 50), in the same order; only Rogers’s dedicatory hymn is not included. Seventeen others are taken from the 1835 hymnbook. Of the remaining seven hymns, four appear in the Messenger and Advocate; one is a part of Parley Pratt’s “The Millennium” reprinted in Voice of Warning, pp. 121–22; and the other two are Charles Wesley’s “Come Let Us Anew Our Journey Pursue,” and “Farewell, All Earthly Honors I Bid.” At the end are Index to Find Hymns, Under Different Heads (p. [i]) and an index of first lines (pp. [iii]–vii). The book’s original binding is plain brown sheep, a red or black leather label on the backstrip.

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62 PRATT, Parley Parker. A voice of warning, and instruction to all people, or an introduction to the faith and doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints. By P. P. Pratt, minister of the gospel. [4 lines] Second edition, revised. New-York: J. W. Harrison, Printer, 28 Catharine-St. 1839.

viii[9]–216 pp. 15 cm.

Leaving Detroit the middle of October 1839, Parley Pratt and his family traveled to New York City, where they would live until he sailed for England on March 9, 1840. Upon reaching the city, Parley set about to republish his Voice of Warning, History of the Late Persecution, and his poems with the intention of using the books in his proselytizing efforts and to finance his mission in Great Britain (see items 63, 64). When he sailed for England, he left most of these three books, some still in sheets, in the care of Mary Ann Pratt and Lucian R. Foster, the presiding elder in New York. Foster was to sell the books in the United States and out of the proceeds pay the printers and binders and support Pratt’s family while he was abroad. “Do not let the Books go without the pay in hand,” Parley emphasized to his wife, “for they have cost me much money and I owe for them; and I need the remainder after the debt is paid, to support my family.”[153]

Parley began his New York republishing effort with a second edition of Voice of Warning, in 2,500 copies.[154] This second edition obviously differs from the first (item 38) at two points: chapter four is expanded with excerpts from Elias Boudinot’s A Star in the West, Josiah Priest’s American Antiquities, and other books as confirmation of the Book of Mormon’s account of ancient American civilizations; and chapter five, “A Proclamation,” is eliminated. Textual changes are intriguing in view of Joseph Smith’s speech on September 1, 1839, “concerning some errors in Br P. P. Pratt’s works.”[155] A few which are apparent at first glance: a reference to the ten tribes being assembled from the four quarters of the earth (p. 57) is deleted; the statement that Ezekiel 36–39 refers to the Second Coming (p. 78) is eliminated; the phrases “Gog and his army” and “armies of Gog” (pp. 80–81) are either removed or rewritten “armies of the Gentiles”; the identification of the American Indians with the “remnant of Joseph,” although maintained in the second edition, is made less explicit, e.g., “remnant of Joseph (the Indians)” is rewritten “remnant of Joseph” (pp. 180–90); a reference to the dwelling places of the Gentiles becoming desolate except for those who dwell with the remnant of Joseph (p. 191) is removed; and the reference to the “unimpeachable characters” of Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris (p. 136) is omitted, an expected change in view of the excommunications of these men in 1838. The preface (pp. [iii]–viii) is that of the 1837 edition with the word seven changed to nine in the first line.

Another change is the added notice, dated at New York, November 1839, on the verso of the title page:

$300 Is offered, by the author of this work, to any one who will successfully refute the principles of Theology herein set forth. The Scriptures being the test; and the decision to be made by three disinterested persons, who are not attached to any religious party.

Given the latitude of scriptural interpretation, this notice must have caused Parley some anxious moments. At any rate it does not appear in any of the subsequent editions.

The 1839 Voice of Warning exists in several bindings, a consequence of it being bound at different times: blue or brown cloth, ribbed or embossed (flower or diamond pattern), the title in gilt on the backstrip. In England Parley advertised the book himself at 1 s. 6d. Erastus Snow and Benjamin Winchester advertised it in 1841 for 44¢.[156]

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63 PRATT, Parley Parker. The millennium, and other poems: to which is annexed, a treatise on the regeneration and eternal duration of matter. By P. P. Pratt, minister of the gospel. New York: Printed by W. Molineux, cor. of Ann and Nassau streets. MDCCCXL.

iv[v–viii][1]–148 pp. 18 cm.

While the second edition of Voice of Warning was being printed, Parley expanded his 1835 book of poems (item 21), and by January 6, 1840, the new edition entitled The Millennium and Other Poems was out of press (see item 62).[157]

Following the preface (pp. [iii]–iv), table of contents (p. [v]), and advertisements for Late Persecution and Voice of Warning (p. [vii]), this book includes “The Millennium” (pp. [1]–29); twenty-nine poems (pp. [31]–100); “Visit to the White Mountains of New Hampshire,” a description taken from Parley’s journal (pp. 101–4); and “The Regeneration and Eternal Duration of Matter” (pp. [105]–148). Eleven of the shorter poems are in the 1835 edition. Eight others Parley wrote while he was a prisoner in Richmond and Columbia jails. Some had appeared earlier; “A Lamentation on Taking Leave of New York,” for example, is included at the end of the second and third issues of Mormonism Unveiled: Zion’s Watchman Unmasked (items 45–47), and “Pratt’s Defence” is printed at the end of History of the Late Persecution (item 59).

The importance of the book, however, lies in the essay “The Regeneration and Eternal Duration of Matter.” It is Parley’s second prison essay (see item 59), composed, as he explains in the preface, more “to comfort and console myself and friends when death stared me in the face, than as an argumentative or philosophical production for the instruction of others.” Its concepts were certainly discussed in Kirtland years before; hints of them occur in the Messenger and Advocate (e.g., December 1836) and in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants (“the elements are eternal,” p. 212). But here, explicitly in print for the first time, were such ideas as: matter and spirit can neither be created nor annihilated; the world was not created ex nihilo but organized out of existing matter; and God is bound by certain overriding principles. In short, Parley’s essay announced that the “omnis” of traditional Christianity did not apply to Mormonism.

The Millennium and Other Poems most often occurs in brown ribbed cloth, the title in gilt on the front cover. Other bindings, reflecting that copies were bound at different times, include maroon embossed ribbed cloth (mosaic pattern), brown embossed cloth (fleur-de-lis pattern), brown diced cloth, and green patterned cloth, in each case the title in gilt on the front cover.

In England Parley first advertised the book at 2s., and in October 1841 he reduced the price to 1 s. 6d.[158] Orson Pratt offered it in Nauvoo in August 1841 at 37½¢ each or $28 per hundred; Lucian R. Foster advertised it in New York the following year at 50¢; and in November 1845, as the Saints were preparing to move west, the New-York Messenger listed it at a remainder price of 12¢ a copy.[159] Parley reprinted “The Regeneration and Eternal Duration of Matter” as a separate publication in Liverpool in 1842 under the title The World Turned Upside Down, Or Heaven on Earth (item 150).

Flake 6609. CSmH, CtY, CU-B, DLC, MH, MoInRC, NjP, OClWHi, RPB, UPB,US1C, UU, WHi.

64 PRATT, Parley Parker. Late persecution of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints. Ten thousand American citizens robbed, plundered, and banished; others imprisoned, and others martyred for their religion. With a sketch of their rise, progress and doctrine. By P. P. Pratt, minister of the gospel: written in prison. [2 lines] New-York: J. W Harrison, Printer, 28 Catharine-St. J840.

xx [21]–215 [1] pp. 15 cm.

With the second edition of Voice of Warning out of press, the printer Joseph W. Harrison turned his attention to a new edition of Parley Pratt’s account of the anti-Mormon violence in Missouri (see items 59, 62). On December 10, 1839, Parley took out a New York copyright for this edition now entitled Late Persecution of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints.[160] During his mission in England, he advertised the book at Is. 6d. Orson Pratt in Nauvoo in 1841 and Lucian R. Foster in New York in 1842 advertised it at 37½¢. In 1845 the New-York Messenger listed the book at 150 a copy or $1.50 a dozen; then at the end of the year it dropped the price to 12¢.[161]

The text of Late Persecution including the preface (pp. [xvii]–xx) is reprinted essentially without change from the Detroit edition (item 59)—except that it adds two newspaper excerpts (pp. 144–63) and an appendix (pp. 178–215) consisting of extracts from John P. Greene’s Facts Relative to the Expulsion of the Mormons (items 55–56), including Joseph Young’s account of the Haun’s Mill massacre. An advertisement for Voice of Warning and Millennium and Other Poems is on the verso of p. 215.

More important is an added introduction (pp. [iii]–xvi) which gives some of the early history of the Church and a summary of its most fundamental doctrines. None of the doctrinal concepts here were new to the printed record; all are discussed at length, for example, in Voice of Warning. What was new is the formulation of these ideas in a few pages. Indeed Parley’s introduction marks an important step in the development of a summary of Mormon belief which began with Oliver Cowdery’s one-page doctrinal outline in the Messenger and Advocate of October 1834 and culminated in Joseph Smith’s “Articles of Faith,” now canonized as part of the Pearl of Great Price. In February 1840 Parley reworked the doctrinal part of his introduction into a four-page address to the citizens of Washington (item 67), and during the next three years this address was republished six times as a missionary tract in England and the United States (items 72, 73, 111, 112, 124, 184). Eight months after the appearance of Late Persecution, Orson Pratt used the introduction in composing the “sketch” of Latter-day Saint beliefs that concludes his Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions (item 82), a text generally considered to be the precursor of the “Articles of Faith” (see item 199).

Late Persecution is originally bound in blue or brown ribbed cloth, or in blue or brown embossed cloth (flower pattern), the binder’s title Persecution L. D. Saints in gilt on the backstrip.

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65 PRATT, Parley Parker. History of the late persecution inflicted by the state of Missouri upon the Mormons, in which ten thousand American citizens were robbed, plundered, and driven from the state, and many others imprisoned, martyred, &c, for their religion, and all this by military force, by order of the executive. By P. P. Pratt, minister of the gospel. Written during eight months imprisonment in that state. [1 line] Mexico, N. Y. Re-printed at the Office of the Oswego Co. Democrat. 1840. iv[5]–39[1]pp. 20 cm.

Why was this edition of History of the Late Persecution published in a small north-central New York town about the same time Parley Pratt himself published an enlarged edition in New York City? The answer, perhaps, lies in the relationship between the Pratts and other Church members in north-central New York.

Orson Pratt’s wife’s family lived in Henderson, twenty-five miles north of Mexico, New York, and Orson and his wife Sarah lived there during the fall and winter of 1837–38. Orson, Parley Pratt, and Hiram Clark started east in August 1839 and traveled together as far as Detroit. The day the first edition of History of the Late Persecution came off the press, Orson left Detroit in company with Hiram Clark en route to New York City (see item 59). Both Clark and Parley Pratt reached New York City three weeks before Orson, so it would appear that Orson Pratt spent some time visiting other New York branches of the Church, including, most likely, the branch at Henderson. Since he undoubtedly had copies of History of the Late Persecution with him, it seems reasonable to conjecture that he left a copy with his in-laws in Henderson, and because of the importance of the book and their ties with the Pratts, they or some members of the Henderson congregation reprinted it for local consumption.[162]

The Mexico edition is a reprint of the Detroit edition (item 59) with a few changes in punctuation and capitalization, and an occasional minor modification in the text. It exists in two states, both typographically identical except for pages 9–10 which are printed from different typesettings. These states are distinguished by (1) gentleman or (2) tleman as the first word in the last line, second paragraph, of page 9. The pamphlet’s price is given at the foot of the last page: “18 pence per copy—$ 12.50 per hundred.”

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66 RIGDON, Sidney. An appeal to the American people: being an account of the persecutions of the Church of Latter Day Saints; and of the barbarities inflicted on them by the inhabitants of the state of Missouri. By authority of said church. Cincinnati: Glezen and Shepard, Stereotypers and Printers. 1840.

84 pp. 17 cm.

Appeal to the American People does not identify its author, but Sidney Rigdon is so designated in a reference to the book in the Times and Seasons of May 1840 and in the advertisements for it in the Times and Seasons of January and February 1841.

On November 1, 1839, three days after Rigdon, Joseph Smith, and Elias Higbee left for Washington, D.C. (see the next item), the manuscript of Appeal to the American People was read to a conference of the Saints in Quincy, Illinois, which authorized it to be published in the name of the Church.[163] Orson Hyde had discussed the book with Rigdon in Nauvoo in the fall of 1839, and when he met George W. Robinson, Rigdon’s son-in-law, in Springfield that November and learned that Robinson had Rigdon’s manuscript, he joined forces with him to put the book in print. Together they journeyed to Indiana where Hyde paused to raise money for the publication while Robinson continued on to Cincinnati to engage a printer. On January 6, 1840, Hyde started for Cincinnati with sufficient funds in hand. Upon arriving there he learned that the books would not be finished for ten days, so he went on to Nauvoo without them. Exactly when the books were obtained from the printer is not known, but by May 1840 Robinson had copies in Nauvoo and was advertising them in the Times and Seasons at 250 each, ten copies for $2, or thirty for $5.[164] It would seem that Joseph Smith and Elias Higbee also made some attempt early in December 1839 to raise funds to publish the book, with the expectation that the proceeds from its sale would underwrite their trip to Washington (see the next item).[165]

Contrasted with John P. Greene’s Facts (items 55–56) and Parley Pratt’s Late Persecution (items 59, 64), Appeal to the American People is more of a propaganda piece, and at places it is clearly overdrawn (e.g., pp. 9–10, 19, 50). It does, however, print some documents not found in either of the other two: the statements of Samuel Brown, Hiram Nelson, and James Nelson concerning the 1838 election day fight at Gallatin (pp. 20–22); Joseph Smith’s September 5, 1838, affidavit on the Adam Black affair (pp. 26–28); David Lewis’s account of the Haun’s Mill massacre (pp. 56–62); and Amasa Lyman’s statement regarding mob activity at Far West (pp. 83–84).[166] Curiously, the version of Joseph Young’s account of the Haun’s Mill massacre printed in Appeal to the American People differs in the last four paragraphs from that printed in Greene’s Facts, which follows the original manuscript now at Brigham Young University. George W. Robinson may have contributed to Appeal to the American People since, in his capacity as general church recorder, he gathered affidavits from some who had been involved in the Missouri violence.

Orson Hyde published a second edition of Appeal to the American People in July 1840 as a fund-raiser for his mission to Jerusalem (item 79).

Flake 7279. CtY

67 HIGBEE, Elias, and Parley Parker Pratt. An address by Judge Higbee and Parley P. Pratt, ministers of the gospel, of the Church of Jesus Christ of “Latter-day Saints,” to the citizens of Washington, and to the public in general. [Caption title] [At end:] E. Higbee, P. P. Pratt. Washington, February 9, 1840. [Washington? 1840]

4 pp. 21.5 cm.

This tract grew out of the Mormons’ effort during the winter of 1839–40 to secure federal assistance in recovering their losses in Missouri, an effort in which Elias Higbee played the principal role. Higbee, born in New Jersey, October 23, 1795, was one of those able converts who served the Church well but never rose to the highest levels of the hierarchy. After joining the Church in 1832 in Ohio, he settled in Jackson County, labored on the Kirtland Temple, served on the high councils in Clay and Caldwell counties and as a judge in Caldwell, and participated in the exodus from Missouri. For three years he superintended the construction of the Nauvoo Temple, until June 8, 1843, when he died of cholera.[167]

Higbee’s call to accompany Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon to Washington came at the October 1839 general conference in Nauvoo, and on the 29th the three left for the capital, armed with a memorial and a sheaf of affidavits. Smith and Higbee reached Washington on November 28, and immediately began to lobby the President and members of Congress while a friendly Illinois delegation introduced the memorial in the Senate. Parley Pratt was en route to England with others of the Twelve (see items 68, 70–71), and at some point he spent a few days with Joseph Smith in Philadelphia. Smith left Washington for Nauvoo about February 6, leaving Higbee to press the Saints’ cause in Congress. Finally on February 26 Higbee learned that, consistent with the prevailing doctrine of states’ rights, the Senate Judiciary Committee would recommend that the federal government not become involved with the Mormons’ claims against Missouri.[168]

Pratt and Higbee undoubtedly viewed An Address as a warning to the inhabitants of the nation’s capital (see, e.g., D&C 1:4–5; 38:41; 63:37, 57–58; 88:81; 109:41; 112:5). On February 5, Joseph Smith preached a public sermon on the basic tenets of Mormonism, and the next day he learned that a congressman who had attended was favorably impressed. This too may have prompted them to publish An Address, which is dated at the end February 9, 1840, about ten days before Parley left Washington for New York.[169] Actually composed by Parley, it is a reworking of the doctrinal part of his introduction to Late Persecution (item 64). All of the principal points in the introduction are incorporated in An Address, but with a slightly different emphasis. An Address, for example, explains the concept of authority to administer baptism with an example of the English ambassador to the U.S., a device calculated to appeal to the Washington citizenry. Though originally written for a specific audience, it was soon after transformed into a general missionary tract and republished six times during the next three years under slightly different titles (items 72, 73, 111, 112, 124, 184). It was also reprinted in the Times and Seasons of March 1840.

Flake 3992. NN, US1C.

68 PRATT, Parley Parker. Farewell song. By P. P. Pratt. Sung at the general conference of the Latter Day Saints, in the city of New-York, as six of their elders, viz: B. Young, H. C. Kimball, O. Pratt, G. A. Smith, R. Hadlock [sic], and P. P. Pratt, were about to sail for Europe. They took passage on board the ship Partick Henry, for Liverpool, and sailed on 7th [sic] March, J840. [New York? 1840?]

Broadside 25 x 20 cm. On yellow paper, vignette of a sailing ship at the top, ornamental border.

On March 4, 1840, five days before they sailed to England, Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Parley P. Pratt, Orson Pratt, and George A. Smith convened a conference of the Latter-day Saints in the Columbian Hall in New York City. Parley composed “Farewell Song” for the occasion. It seems reasonably clear that this broadside was struck off for use at the conference. G. A. Smith faithfully reproduces it—including the vignette and the various type styles—in a letter dated March 5 and postmarked New York, March 10, 1840. This and the erroneous date of sailing in the title indicate that the broadside was printed in New York prior to the apostles’ departure for England.[170]

Helen Hanks Macare has suggested that Parley’s song was inspired by a well-known camp meeting song.[171] Written in 5 six-line verses, its theme is the millennial kingdom of God, a concept which had taken on a sharper political focus since the expulsion of the Mormons from Missouri in 1838 (see item 108). In answer to the question in the opening line, “When shall we all meet again?” the third verse responds, “Of that bright Millennial morn, / When the Saints shall rise and reign,- / Then may we all meet again.”

Farewell Song is printed in the Times and Seasons for May 1840 and in the Millennial Star for June 1840. It is included in both the 1840 Manchester and 1841 Nauvoo hymnals (items 78, 103), in the official LDS hymnal thereafter until 1948, and in the Merkley, Adams, and Wight books (items 132, 289, 345). It was also republished in what seems to be a later broadside with the title Farewell Hymn (next item).

Reuben Hedlock (or Hadlock), the only elder named in the title who was not one of the Twelve, later served as president of the British Mission, and yet little is known about him. He was a member of the Kirtland elders quorum in January 1836, its president in November 1837, and a member of the Kirtland Camp the following year. In September 1839 he located his family in Nauvoo and then left for his mission with Brigham Young and others of the Twelve, arriving at Liverpool on April 6, 1840, and returning to Nauvoo a year later (see items 76, 141). He sailed to England again in September 1843, this time to preside over the British Mission. When Wilford Woodruff reached Liverpool in January 1845, Hedlock became his counselor and then resumed the leadership of the mission when Woodruff returned to the United States the following January (see items 71, 234, 237). Hedlock was a principal instigator of the British and American Commercial Joint Stock Company as well as its principal beneficiary, so when the company floundered, he took much of the blame. At Council Bluffs, the Twelve disfellowshipped him in July 1846, and that October Orson Hyde and John Taylor released him as mission president (see item 273). What became of him thereafter is not known.[172]

Flake 6578. US1C.

69 PRATT, Parley Parker. Farewell hymn. By Parley P. Pratt—minister of the gospel. Sung at a general conference in New York, when six elders of the Church, of the Later-day [sic] Saints, were about to take their departure for England. [N.p., n.d.]

Broadside 19x12 cm. Ornamental border.

When, where, or under what circumstances this edition of item 68 was struck off is not known. The fact that it is titled Farewell Hymn suggests it was published after the song appeared in the 1840 hymnal (item 78).

Flake 6577. CU-B.

70 PRATT, Parley Parker. Prospectus of the Latter-day Saints Millennial Star. [At end of second column:] Manchester, April, 1840. P. P. Pratt. [At foot below border:] W. R. Thomas, Printer, 61, Spring Gardens, Manchester. [1840]

Broadside 29 x 22 cm. Text in two columns, ornamental border.

71 The Latter-day Saints Millennial Star. Manchester: May 1840–March 1842; Liverpool: April 1842–March 3, 1932; London: March 10, 1932–December 1961; Mitcham: January 1962–January 1966; Reading: February-August 1966; Mitcham: September 1966–August 1970; Manchester: September-December 1970.

132 v. 21 and 27 cm.

Brigham Young and his fellow members of the Twelve landed in Liverpool on April 6, 1840, the tenth anniversary of the Church. Eight days later they began a series of meetings in Preston in which they resolved to publish a monthly periodical to be called the Latter-day Saints Millennial Star, and edited by Parley Pratt, who was designated to determine the size and format of the magazine. On April 21 Parley and William Clayton began searching Manchester for a printer, and on the 23rd, Pratt engaged W. R. Thomas, who a year before had printed an edition of A Timely Warning (item 54). Thomas agreed to print the first issue of the Star, with printed covers, at a cost of £6 12s. for the first thousand, £3 6s. for each additional thousand, and the prospectus gratis. The next day Clayton checked the proof for the prospectus, and on the 27th picked up the finished copies. A week later he went to the printing office to “start the printer” on the Star, and on May 20 obtained two hundred copies of the first number.[173]

The prospectus, also reprinted in the first number of the Star, announces that the magazine “will stand aloof from the common political and commercial news of the day.—Its columns will be devoted to the spread of the fulness of the gospel . . ..It will be neatly executed on good paper, each No. containing 24 demy 8vo. pages, double columns, with a neat cover . . . price 6d. each No. Subscriptions are to be paid quarterly or yearly in advance, as may best suit the circumstances of the subscribers.”

Parley Pratt served as the founding editor until mid-July 1840, when he went back to the United States to get his family. Brigham Young and Willard Richards then took charge of the Star, with Richards doing most of the work. Parley resumed the editorship when he returned in October, laboring alone until April 1842 when he was joined by a British convert, Thomas Ward.[174]

Born in Shropshire, September 5, 1808, Ward joined the Church about 1840 and immediately assumed positions of leadership in the local branches. He was an educated man, a schoolteacher, and a Baptist preacher before his conversion to Mormonism. Following Parley Pratt’s return to America in October 1842, Ward served for a year as president of the British Mission and then as a counselor to Reuben Hedlock, his successor. Ward was a founder and president of the British and American Commercial Joint Stock Company (see item 273). Thus when the company floundered, he and Hedlock assumed most of the blame, and the Twelve, at Council Bluffs, disfellowshipped them in July 1846. That October he and Hedlock were released from the mission presidency. Five months later he died, still loved and respected by the British Saints in spite of the action against him.[175]

When Parley Pratt left England in October 1842, Ward replaced him as editor, and at this point the Star came close to losing its life. On November 21, 1842, in Nauvoo, the Twelve agreed to terminate the magazine, apparently because they felt its circulation too low, and on January 3, 1843, they wrote to Ward informing him of this decision. Ward and his counselor Hiram Clark responded in a letter of March 1, 1843, urging the Twelve to keep the Star alive. Reuben Hedlock reached Liverpool on September 30, 1843, to take over the presidency of the mission, and he repeated the Church leaders’ desire to close the Star. This drew a second letter to the First Presidency from Ward and Clark, dated October 3, 1843, in which they explained that they had complied with the request to stop the magazine for about four months, but because of the need to communicate with the Saints, they had begun issuing it again and had published five more numbers. At this point the circulation of the Star stood at 1,600, the lowest in its history. Hedlock also wrote the First Presidency and the Twelve the next day, reiterating the need to keep in communication with the British Saints and suggesting that the Twelve reprint the Times and Seasons in England. Twelve days later he wrote a second letter in which he noted that the demand for the Star was increasing and that the Saints were “much troubled” for fear it would be stopped. He reported that he had concluded to publish one other number. On January 10, 1844, he advised Joseph Smith and the Twelve that he would continue the Star until the end of the fourth volume (April 1844), unless they directed otherwise. Three months later the general conference in Liverpool also petitioned the Twelve to reconsider their decision. When Brigham Young wrote Hedlock on May 3 that he was at liberty to print as many copies as he could sell, the survival of the Star was assured.[176]

Wilford Woodruff assumed the presidency of the British Mission in January 1845, and the twelve issues of the sixth volume (June 15, 1845–December 1, 1845) list Ward as editor and Woodruff and Ward as publishers. Ward is designated as editor and publisher for all of volume seven and the first five numbers of volume eight (January 1, 1846–October 1, 1846). Orson Hyde replaced Ward as editor with the issue of October 15, 1846. Thereafter, the British Mission president served as the editor and publisher: Orson Hyde (October 15, 1846–January 15, 1847); Orson Spencer (February 1, 1847–August 1, 1848); Orson Pratt (August 15, 1848–December 15, 1850); Franklin D. Richards (January 1, 1851–May 1, 1852); Samuel W. Richards (May 8, 1852–June 24, 1854); Franklin D. Richards (July 1, 1854–August 2, 1856); Orson Pratt (August 9, 1856–October 24, 1857); Samuel W. Richards (October 31,1857–March 6, 1858).

Orson Spencer was one of the few formally educated early Saints. Born in Massachusetts, March 14, 1802, he graduated from Union College in 1824, subsequently studied theology, and labored twelve years in the Baptist ministry before joining the Church in 1841. Four years later he was elected mayor of Nauvoo. After presiding over the British Mission (see items 334–35, 339, 340), he immigrated to Utah, where he served in the territorial legislature. In 1852 he returned to Europe on another mission. Two years later he was again called away from his Utah home to labor in the Midwest, and in 1855, during this last mission, he died in St. Louis.[177]

Samuel Whitney Richards, the younger brother of Franklin D. Richards, was born in Massachusetts, August 9, 1824. He converted to Mormonism at age fourteen, began his missionary career at fifteen, and went to Great Britain on his first foreign mission at twenty-two (see item 331). In addition to presiding twice over the British Mission, he served as president of the Eastern States Mission, 1895–97. In Utah he was on the Salt Lake City council and a member of the territorial legislature. He died in Salt Lake City, November 26, 1909.[178]

Andrew Jenson reminds us that it was the assistant editors who did most of the work on the Star, and he lists some of them: Thomas Ward (1842), Reuben Hedlock (1843–44), Franklin D. Richards (1846–48, 1850), Lyman O. Littlefield (1847–48), James Linforth and Cyrus H. Wheelock (1851–52), Daniel Spencer (1852–54), James A. Little (1854–57), Edward W. Tullidge (1854–57), John A. Ray (1856–57), Henry Whittall (1857–60). John Jaques also helped edit the Star (1852–56).[179]

All twelve numbers of the first volume and numbers 1–11 of the second volume were printed and published in Manchester (May 1840-March 1842); thereafter, for the rest of the century, the Star was printed and published in Liverpool.[180] W. R. Thomas printed numbers 1–8 of the first volume, and W. Shackleton and Son printed numbers 9–12. Dalton and Wrigg printed vol. 2, no. 1. Parley Pratt “printed and published” vol. 2, no. 2-vol. 3, no. 1; but exactly who the job printer was is not known. James and Woodburn printed vol. 3, no. 2-vol. 7, no. 6 (June 1842–March 15, 1846). Beginning with the issue of April 1, 1846, Richard James printed the Star until 1861, when the Church acquired its own press.

At its inception, the Star was published in 2,500 copies. Its price was 6d. per number. By the fifth number the run had fallen to 2,000, and with the second volume the price was dropped to 3d., apparently because the magazine was no longer issued with paper wrappers. The notes in Franklin D. Richards’s set now in the Brigham Young University Lee Library suggest that each number of vol. 4 (May 1843–April 1844) was issued in 1,600 copies; the first six numbers of vol. 5 in 2,000; the last six numbers of vol. 5 and the first six numbers of vol. 6 in 2,300; and the seventh number of vol. 6 through the second number of vol. 8 (September 15, 1845–August 1, 1846) in 2,500 copies. This is consistent with Reuben Hedlock’s report in October 1843 that the magazine then circulated in 1,600 copies. The first number of vol. 9 (January 1, 1847) announced that the price thereafter would be 5 half-pence an issue. With the tenth volume, the circulation improved to almost 4,000, and by the beginning of vol. 12 it had reached about 5,000. In February 1850, Orson Pratt challenged his book agents to quadruple the circulation of the Star, and promised that if they did, he would drop the price from 5 half-pence to Id. per issue. At the end of that year the circulation stood at 22,000, and at the end of the next year, at 23,000.[181]

Each volume of the Star has a title page and index. Each number of the first volume (May 1840–April 1841) contains 24 pages, except nos. 4–6 which have 32, making a volume of 312 pp. In December 1844, in order to make up complete volumes, the first number was reprinted, in single column format, paginated [5]-24 to conform with the four pages of title and index.[182] The individual numbers of the first volume were originally issued in colored printed wrappers. The Brigham Young University Lee Library has the wrappers for nos. 2–7, 9, and 11–12, which occur in a variety of colors: pink, green, yellow, blue, brown, purple, and gray. The front wrapper for no. 2, for example, has printed within an ornamental border: The Latter-day Saints Millennial Star, edited by Parley P. Pratt. No. 2, Vol. 1. June, J840. Price Sixpence. Contents. [Table of contents] Published Monthly at Manchester, England; and for Sale by P. P. Pratt, No. 149, Oldham Road, and by Agents throughout the Kingdom. Manchester: Printed by W. R. Thomas, 61, Spring Gardens. The inside front wrapper contains the poem, “The Nephite Records”; the inside back wrapper carries advertisements for books; and the verso of the back wrapper bears the poem “Stranger and His Friend” (“A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief’). The other numbers follow this format, with notices, book ads, or poems on the inside of the wrapper. The 9th number replaces Printed by W. R. Thomas, 61, Spring Gardens with Printed by W. Shackleton and Son, Ducie-Place; the 11th changes Parley’s address to No. 47, Oxford-street.

The second volume (May 1841–April 1842) consists of twelve numbers of 16 pages each, making a volume of 192 pp. The third volume (May 1842–April 1843) has 11 sixteen-page numbers and a double number of 32 pp., no. 4 (August 1842), comprising a total of 208 pp. Likewise the fourth volume (May 1843–April 1844) has 11 sixteen-page numbers and a double number of 32 pp., no. 12, for a volume of 208 pp. Some of these numbers appeared late, as explained above.

Volume 5 (June 1844–May 1845) begins with the June issue; there is no issue for May 1844. Eleven of its twelve numbers have 16 pages, and no. 11 has 24 pp., making a volume of 200 pp. Volume 5 also includes two supplements: the first, Address to the Saints, in 16 pp., dated August 1844, is printed in black bands and announces the assassination of Joseph and Hyrum Smith (item 233); the second, Conclusion of Elder Rigdon’s Trial, in 8 pp., dated December 1844, continues the report of Sidney Rigdon’s trial before the Twelve, begun in the Star of December 1844 (item 240). These are routinely bound with the volume.

With vol. 6 (June 15, 1845–December 1, 1845) the Star became a semimonthly. Both vol. 6 and vol. 7 (January 1, 1846–June 15, 1846) consist of 204 pp., nos. 1–11 in 16 pp., no. 12 in 28 pp. Volume 8 is more complicated. It has only eleven numbers, 1–10 in 16 pp. and no. 11 in 20 pp., for a total of 180 pp. The first four numbers are dated July 15, August 1, August 15, and September 1,1846; there is no issue for September 15; nos. 5–8 are dated October 1-November 15, 1846; and nos. 9–11 are dated, respectively, November 20, December 6, and December 19, 1846.

Volumes 9–13 all have the same format. Each consists of twenty-four numbers, January 1-December 15, the first twenty-three in 16 pp., the last in 12 pp., making a volume of 380 pp. Volume 14 was a semimonthly for the first eight numbers (January 1–April 15, 1852) and a weekly thereafter (April 24–December 25, 1852); so it consists of forty-four 16-page issues, 704 pp. in the volume. Starting with the issue of April 24, 1852 (vol. 14, no. 9), the Star issued every Saturday until September 29, 1869, and those volumes after vol. 14 contain either 52 or 53 numbers, depending on whether Saturday fell on December 31. Both vol. 14 and vol. 15 include supplements, usually bound at the end of the volumes: The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star. Vol. XIV. Supplement, 1852. History of Joseph Smith, in 88 pp., which reprints the history of Joseph Smith up to November 1831, where it is picked up in the 8th number of vol. 14; and The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star. Vol. XV. Supplement, 1853. Minutes of a Special Conference, in 64 pp., which reprints a summary of the conference of August 28, 1852, where the Mormon practice of polygamy was publicly acknowledged. Volume 19 includes a folded sheet with Facsimile No. 2 from the “Book of Abraham” (see item 141).

It is difficult to overestimate the value of the Millennial Star. Even though it was published for the British Saints, its pages contain a continuous record of the progress of the Church in every corner of the globe, in some instances the only such record.

Item 70: Flake 6619. US1C. Item 71: Flake 4779. CSmH, CtY, CU-B, MH, MoInRC, NjP, NN, ULA, UPB, US1C, UU, WHi.

72 PRATT, Parley Parker. An address by a minister of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to the people of England. [Caption title] [At end: J Manchester, May 18, 1840. Parley P. Pratt. [At foot of p. 4: ] Printed by W. R. Thomas, 61, Spring Gardens. [Manchester, 1840]

4 pp. 19.5 cm.

73 PRATT, Parley Parker. An address by a minister of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to the people of England. [Caption title] [At end:] Manchester, May 28,1840. Parley P. Pratt. [At foot of p. 4:] Printed by W. R. Thomas, 61, Spring Gardens. [Manchester, 1840]

4 pp. 19 cm.

Not surprisingly, the first tract Parley Pratt published in England after he arrived in April 1840 was the four-page summary of beliefs he had composed in Washington the preceding February. Apart from the new title, it is textually the same as An Address by Judge Higbee and Parley P. Pratt (item 67) except for a few minor changes—two occasioned by the British audience—and the deletion of two sentences dealing with the predictions of William Miller.

Items 72 and 73 are different editions. They are textually identical, differing only in a few changes of punctuation. The May 28 edition adds, at the end, a note that the hymnal is just published and the times and locations of the Latter-day Saints’ meetings in Manchester. The back wrappers of the August, September, and October issues of the Star announced that 10,000 copies of An Address had been “just received from the press,” and in November the Star began advertising them at 2s. per hundred. Parley’s letter in the Times and Seasons of April 15, 1843, suggests that this number is the total for the two editions. Most of these, he indicates, were distributed gratis.

Why there were two editions seemingly within ten days of each other is not clear. The hymnal, noted as just published in the May 28 edition, was not completed until July; indeed Brigham Young, John Taylor, Parley Pratt, and William Clayton began compiling the hymns on May 27 (see item 78). So either the second edition anticipated the hymnbook or it was printed after the hymnbook was out and the May 28 date is a misprint of May 18. Under any circumstances, the second edition was printed before August 1840, when the Star began advertising 10,000 copies of the tract.

An Address was twice reprinted in New York in 1841 (items 111–12), in Bristol that same year (item 124), and in Philadelphia in 1843 (item 184).

Item 72: Flake 6553. US1C. Item 73: Flake 6554. CSmH, CtY, NjP, UPB, US1C, UU.

74 BENNETT, Samuel. A few remarks by way of reply to an anonymous scribbler, calling himself a philanthropist, disabusing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints of the slanders and falsehoods which he has attempted to fasten upon it. By S. Bennett. Philadelphia: Brown, Bicking & Guilbert, Printers, No. 56 North Third St. 1840.

16 pp. 18 cm.

Samuel Bennett, a physician, was born in England, August 10, 1809. He converted to Mormonism in 1839 and was chosen to preside over the Philadelphia branch when Joseph Smith organized it on December 23. Benjamin Winchester replaced him in April 1840, and that October, Bennett was called to lead the branch in Cincinnati. In Nauvoo, he served as a city alderman and as a regent of the University of Nauvoo. When Sidney Rigdon contended for the leadership of the Church after the death of Joseph Smith, Bennett sided with him, and on September 8, 1844, the day Rigdon was excommunicated, Bennett was also excommunicated. He followed Rigdon to Philadelphia, edited the Rigdonite Messenger and Advocate for a time, and rose to the office of apostle in Rigdon’s church (see items 240, 242). By the summer of 1846 he had shifted his allegiance to James J. Strang, and that September he was ordained a Strangite apostle, a position he held until July 1853 (see items 303, 310). Bennett left the Strangite colony at Beaver Island and moved to Pennsylvania in 1851, and by the mid-1870s he was living in Cleveland. Yet he seems to have remained loyal to Strang. He died in Cleveland, May 16, 1893.[183]

Bennett’s A Few Remarks responds to an anonymous tract by “A Philanthropist of Chester County” which appeared early in the spring of 1840—no copy of which is extant. That fall, after Bennett had left Pennsylvania, Philanthropist published a second piece in reply to A Few Remarks, which, in turn, drew a response from Erastus Snow in December (item 90). In his pamphlet Snow identifies Philanthropist as the Methodist preacher Caleb Jones.[184]

It is helpful to view these tracts in the context of Joseph Smith’s visit to Washington and Philadelphia in the winter of 1839–40, when he began to teach publicly some of the Church’s more distinctive doctrines. Parley Pratt, for example, reports that during this visit Joseph Smith first taught him the doctrine of eternal marriage, and that in Philadelphia about three thousand people assembled to hear Smith preach and bear “testimony of the visions he had seen.” A Few Remarks makes it clear that the Saints in the eastern states were then openly discussing these doctrines, inevitably making them the targets of attacks from the sectarian clergy.[185]

Much of Bennett’s tract deals with mistakes in logic and misrepresentations of Mormon beliefs, and it employs the usual invective which then characterized religious polemic. But it affirms, for example, Philanthropist’s assertion that “the Mormons, maintain, that God the Father, has a body exactly in shape like that of a man,” and further on it remarks that “especially in these last days hath his bodily presence been manifested, and his voice hath sounded in the ear of mortal man, without consuming him”—a clear allusion to Joseph Smith’s 1820 vision. It quotes Philanthropist that “the Mormon religion, is, 1st. Faith; 2nd. Repentance; 3d. Immersion; 4th. Laying on of hands, for the reception of the Holy Ghost; 5th. Sacrament,” and it continues, “add the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment, and you have the whole of the first principles of the doctrine of Christ.” To Philanthropist’s claim that Mormons teach of “a carnal Paradise, unrestrained sensual indulgence, and promiscuous intercourse between the sexes,” it responds by calling him “a base, unblushing liar.” Yet this charge certainly arose out of Joseph Smith’s teachings about the eternal nature of marriage.

Flake 406. CtY, CU-B, DLC, MH, US1C.

75 WINCHESTER, Benjamin. An examination of a lecture delivered by the Rev. H. Perkins, on the religious opinions and faith of the Latter-day Saints, and some of his most prominent errors and misstatements corrected. By B. Winchester, minister of the gospel. [Caption title] [N.p., 1840?]

12 pp. 18.5 cm.

Benjamin Winchester, as later entries will show, was one of Mormondom’s stormy petrels. Born in Erie County, Pennsylvania, August 6, 1817, he joined the Church with his parents in Erie County in January 1833 and soon after moved to Kirtland. The next year he marched to Missouri with Zion’s Camp, and in December 1836 he was ordained a seventy and sent out as a missionary. In the summer of 1838 he transferred his missionary activity to New Jersey, where he remained until assigned to Philadelphia in August 1839. When he arrived there in September, there were few Church members and no organized Mormon branch. During the next seven months he added about a hundred new converts to the Church in Philadelphia, and in April 1840 he was called to be the presiding elder (see items 125–26, 155, 183).[186]

On May 7, 1840, Winchester left Philadelphia to visit the Saints in New Jersey. When he reached Cream Ridge, he learned that Henry Perkins, a Presbyterian minister from Allentown, was scheduled to deliver an anti-Mormon lecture on the 10th. Winchester attended the lecture, took notes, and then set to work to publish a response. Just when or where this tract was published is not clear; Winchester’s comments suggest it was printed soon after Perkins’s lecture, somewhere in the vicinity of Cream Ridge.[187]

Neither Perkins’s lecture, if we can judge from Winchester’s report, nor Winchester’s response was a forceful polemic. Much of the exchange involves little more than mutual vituperation. Winchester’s most substantive comments deal with Perkins’s objection to the Mormons’ belief in the continuation of prophets, the necessity of baptism for salvation, and the disappearance of Christ’s true church through apostasy. Perkins’s assertion that they “believe in the doctrine of the pre-existence of the spirits”—another indication that the distinctive doctrines were being openly discussed—is passed over essentially without comment.

Flake 9939. MH.

76 PRATT, Orson? The fulness of the gospel has been restored by the ministry of a holy angel; by whose ministry also, ancient American records have been discovered, giving the history of almost half a world for more than 1000 years. A minister of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latterelay [sic] Saints, respectfully informs the inhabitants of this place, that there will be preaching in [blank space] where the following subject will be illustrated: viz.—the gospel in its ancient fulness and glory, showing that the coming of the Lord is near at hand. And also a relation will be given concerning the ministry of a holy angel, and the discovery of sacred records as mentioned above. [Edinburgh? 1840?]

Broadside 19 x 23 cm.

Following the meetings in Preston, April 14–16, 1840, Orson Pratt paused for a few days in Alston, Northumberland, and then headed for Scotland, where he would serve out his mission. On May 8 he organized a branch of the Church in Paisley, and ten days later, in company with another Mormon missionary, Samuel Mulliner, he left for Edinburgh, the home of Mulliner’s parents. Upon arriving in the city he rented a hall for six months and put up handbills advertising his lectures. On Sunday, May 24, he preached his first public sermon in Edinburgh. For the first few weeks he was all but ignored, but eventually he began to make a few converts, and when he left Edinburgh on March 30, 1841, he bade farewell to a branch of two hundred members.[188]

In a letter to George A. Smith of October 17, 1840, Orson Pratt explains:

I had one thousand hand bills printed which were about the size of one page of this sheet on which I am now writing. I had about 200 of these posted up the first week then for a few weeks I posted up about 100 since which I have had posted up no more than a Dozen a week[.] 1 also have some pasted on to paste board & hung up in the most conspicuous places & keep two hanging up every sabbath in front of the Chapel[.][189]

Item 76 appears to be the handbill Pratt describes in this letter. It conforms to his physical description—his letter measures 18.5 x 23 cm., and the phrase ancient American records also occurs in the title of his Remarkable Visions published in September (item 82).

It would seem that this handbill was also used by Reuben Hedlock in Glasgow. In a letter in the Millennial Star of October 1841 he writes:

Feeling led by the spirit to preach in the city of Glasgow, I went into the city on the 12th of June [1840] to procure a place to preach in. I first went to the house of Mr. John M’Auley, who received me very kindly, and assisted me to look for a place to preach in. After looking at several places, we finally agreed for the large hall in Anderson University. . . . Having procured a place to preach in, I put up bills through the city that an angel of God had appeared and restored the everlasting Gospel again to the earth. This excited the curiosity of about 100 to come and hear. After the first Sabbath my hearers dwindled to about 20 in number; but having agreed for the hall for five months I was determined to preach my time out, if I had only two hearers. I soon began to baptize; and on the 8th of August I organized the church with 12 members.

It is possible, of course, that Hedlock refers to a different handbill. But his reference to “an angel of God” and the fact that Orson’s handbills were printed with blank spaces for different meeting locations suggest that he used some of Orson’s bills.

US1C.

77 WINCHESTER, Benjamin. The origin of the Spaulding story, concerning the Manuscript Found; with a short biography of Dr. P. Hulbert, the originator of the same; and some testimony adduced, showing it to be a sheer fabrication, so far as its connection with the Book of Mormon is concerned. By B. Winchester, minister of the gospel. [2 lines] Philadelphia; Brown, Picking & Guilbert, Printers, No. 56 North Third St. 1840.

24 pp. 20 cm.

The Spaulding-Rigdon theory of the origin of the Book of Mormon was the offspring of Eber D. Howe and Doctor Philastus Hurlbut (or Hulbert or Hurlburt). Not a physician, Doctor was Hurlbut’s Christian name, bestowed in consequence of his being a seventh son. In June 1833 he was excommunicated from the Church, and immediately he set out to lecture against the Latter-day Saints. A few months later he was touring Pennsylvania when he heard of an unpublished historical novel written by Solomon Spaulding, a graduate of Dartmouth College and an ex-preacher, which seemed to bear some resemblance to the Book of Mormon. Spaulding had written his novel during 1809–12, and after his death in 1816 it had remained in the possession of his family. Hurlbut quickly grasped its potential for an anti-Mormon expose and went to Kirtland and advertised what he had learned. Some of the local anti-Mormons contributed funds toward his effort, and Hurlbut traveled to Conneaut, Ohio, where he gathered a series of affidavits from Spaulding’s acquaintances attesting to certain similarities between the novel and the Book of Mormon. Next he approached Spaulding’s widow, Matilda Davison, in Massachusetts and offered her half of the profits for the rights to publish Spaulding’s manuscript. Mrs. Davison could only recall that Spaulding had a “great variety” of papers stored in a farmhouse in New York, but she gave him permission to examine them and take whatever might be of use to him. To his dismay, Huiibut found a single manuscript, a turgid romance obviously unrelated to the Book of Mormon. Returning to Ohio, he sold the Spaulding manuscript, the affidavits of Spaulding’s friends, and a group of uncomplimentary affidavits from Joseph Smith’s Palmyra neighbors, to Eber D. Howe, editor of the Painesville Telegraph. Howe used the affidavits in his book Mormonism Unvailed [sic] (Painesville, 1834). As the Spaulding manuscript was useless to him, it lay in his files imprinted. In its place, Mormonism Unvailed advanced the theory that there was a second Spaulding manuscript which Sidney Rigdon transformed into the Book of Mormon while he was living in Pittsburgh during the period 1822–26.[190]

When it first appeared, Mormonism Unvailed seems to have had little impact, and the Mormons all but ignored it. La Roy Sunderland’s serial article in Zion’s Watchman mentions the Spaulding-Rigdon theory, and this brought a passing response from Parley Pratt in his Mormonism Unveiled: Zion’s Watchman Unmasked (items 45–48). What popularized the theory was a letter purportedly written by Matilda Davison, first published in the Boston Recorder of April 19, 1839, and reprinted in numerous newspapers and magazines throughout the United States and Great Britain. This letter drew Winchester into the fray.[191]

Parley Pratt seems to have been unaware of Origin of the Spaulding Story when he wrote his Reply to C. S. Bush (item 80) in July 1840, and Winchester apparently was unaware of Pratt’s tract when he wrote his pamphlet. Most likely, therefore, Winchester published Origin of the Spaulding Story before he left for England in July and after Parley Pratt sailed for England in March 1840.[192]

The Spaulding-Rigdon theory had two fundamental weaknesses: there was little evidence a second manuscript existed and no evidence that Rigdon had had contact with any Spaulding work. Drawing on both the Davison letter and Mormonism Unvailed, Winchester attacks the theory at these two points. His biographical sketch of Hurlbut—much of whose recent history he seems to have known firsthand—adds a patina of unsavoriness to the whole affair. As a final stroke, he reprints a letter from John Haven reporting his son Jesse’s interview with Matilda Davison which revealed that her letter was actually composed by a clergyman D. R. Austin from notes he took during a conversation with her. Haven’s letter first appeared in the Quincy Whig of November 16, 1839, and was reprinted in the Times and Seasons of January 1840.[193] Winchester adds Parley Pratt’s account of his introducing Sidney Rigdon to Mormonism, taken from Mormonism Unveiled: Zion’s Watchman Unmasked.

The Spaulding manuscript remained in the files of the Painesville Telegraph until it was brought to light in 1885 by L. L. Rice, who, in the winter of 1839–40, had purchased the Telegraph along with its files. In 1885 the RLDS Church published the manuscript under the title The “Manuscript Found” or “Manuscript Story,” and the LDS Church published it a year later. The original manuscript is now at Oberlin College.[194]

Origin of the Spaulding Story exists in two states, typographically identical except for the following differences on the title page: (1) with a rule of twenty dots above the date of publication, and without rules above and below the two-line quotation; and (2) with a rule of six dots above the date of publication, and with a 2 cm. rule above and below the quotation. George J. Adams published a second edition in Bedford, England, in June 1841 under the title Plain Facts, Shewing the Origin of the Spaulding Story (item 114).

Flake 9941. CtY, MoInRC, MoK, NN, ULA, UPB, US1C, UU.

78 A collection of sacred hymns, for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in Europe. Selected by Brigham Young, Parley P. Pratt, and John Taylor. Published by order of a general conference, and for sale at 149, Oldham Road, Manchester, and by agents throughout England. Manchester: Printed by W. R. Thomas, Spring Gardens. 1840.

336 pp. 10.5 cm.

Although it was intended for the Church in the British Isles, the 1840 hymnal became the basis of all the official LDS hymnals during the second half of the nineteenth century. Because of the large number of British converts and the expense of book printing in the Great Basin, thirteen editions were published in England before one was finally printed in Salt Lake City in 1871. Thereafter Liverpool and Salt Lake City editions continued to be published as parts of the same series until 1912.

With the Kirtland edition exhausted, Joseph Smith and the Twelve met July 8–10, 1839, to select hymns for a new songbook, just before the Twelve left for their missions to England. Three months later, the general conference in Nauvoo resolved to print a new edition of the hymnbook immediately, and on October 27, the Nauvoo high council voted that “Emma Smith select and publish a hymn-book for the use of the Church, and that Brigham Young be informed of this action and he not publish the hymns taken by him.” Hyrum Smith, however, in a response of December 22, 1839, to a letter from Parley Pratt, wrote that he did not want the hymnal or Book of Mormon published in New York, but he approved of the Book of Mormon being published in England. This, undoubtedly, served as tacit approval for publishing a hymnal in England as well. Yet Brigham Young would proceed with some anxiety over his authority to publish the book, and two months after it was out he would write to Joseph Smith and ask if the Twelve had “done right in Printing a hymn book.”[195]

At the April 1840 conference in Preston, the Twelve resolved to publish a hymnal in England, and on the 16th they appointed Brigham Young, John Taylor, and Parley P. Pratt to select the hymns and publish the book. Parley wrote to Young on May 4 suggesting an edition of 3,000, and he added, “As to hymns, I am writing several new ones every day, And am in hopes to contribute 100 new ones to the vollume we now print.” In a postscript he estimated that 3,000 copies could be printed, including paper, for £58. Two British Saints, John Benbow and Thomas Kington, contributed £250 and £124 toward the hymnbook and Book of Mormon. On May 20, with this money in hand, Brigham Young, Wilford Woodruff, and Willard Richards walked to the top of Herefordshire Beacon, and there they agreed that Young should go to Manchester and publish 3,000 copies of the hymnal and 3,000 of the Book of Mormon (item 98). Five days later, Brigham Young got bids for the hymnbook from several Manchester printers. Ultimately he contracted with W. R. Thomas, who, at the time, was printing the Millennial Star.[196]

On May 27 Young, Taylor, Pratt, and William Clayton began compiling the songs. “I have been here with Brother P. Pratt some 2 or 3 weaks,” Brigham wrote to his wife on June 12,

I have now got through with the hym book. I have had perty much the whole of it to doe my self—Br J. Taylor has been sick. Por P.P.P. has had as much as he could doe to attend to the Star[,] preparing matter[,] reading proof for Star and hyms, so it has made my labor so hard that it seemes as though it would be imposable for me ever to regane my helth.

Pratt and Young paid W. R. Thomas £10 on June 19, and made a second payment of £25 on June 27. The next day, Sunday, they “prepared the index for the press.”[197]

Wilford Woodruff watched a form of the book—probably the index—being printed on July 3, 1840, and five days later he wrote to his wife, “We have 3000 copies of the Hymn book just out of press, which is a good selection.” The Millennial Star of July 1840 advertised the book on its back wrapper as “just completed . . . Price Two Shillings.” Between July 23 and September 12, 1840, two Manchester firms, John Winstanley and S. Hatton & Son, bound 2,465 copies at a total cost of about £43.[198]

Like the earlier books (items 23, 50, 61), the 1840 hymnal has only hymn texts. It contains 271 songs (pp. [5]–324), numbered 1–271, with “Let All the Saints Their Hearts Prepare” included twice as no. 176 and no. 191, and with “When Israel Out of Egypt Came” and “I’ll Praise My Maker While I’ve Breath” both numbered 52. It retains 78 of the songs in the 1835 hymnbook and adds 193 others. Thirty-eight of the added hymns are by Parley Pratt, sixteen from his Millennium and Other Poems (item 63). Charles Wesley accounted for forty-one of the added hymns, Isaac Watts for twenty-one others. The book opens with “The Morning Breaks, the Shadows Flee,” which Parley composed to introduce the Millennial Star and printed on the wrapper of the first issue.[199] The undated preface (p. [3]) is signed by Brigham Young, Parley Pratt, and John Taylor. An index of first lines at the end (pp. [325]–336) actually has 277 entries, six more than the number of hymns, because five of the hymns—all by Pratt—have more than one part, and the first lines of these parts are also included in the index. The hymnal is bound in brown or black striated sheep with a blind stamped ornamental border on the front and back covers, six single bands and L. D. Saints’ Hymns in gilt on the backstrip.

Flake 1762. MH, MoInRC, NcD, UPB, US1C.

79 RIGDON, Sidney. An appeal to the American people: being an account of the persecutions of the Church of Latter Day Saints; and of the barbarities inflicted on them by the inhabitants of the state of Missouri. By authority of said church. Second edition, revised. Cincinnati: Printed by Shepard & Stearns 1840.

vi[7]–60 pp. 18.5 cm. Yellow printed wrappers.

Orson Hyde and John E. Page published this edition of An Appeal to the American People to raise funds for their mission to the Holy Land (see item 144). On April 15, 1840, Hyde started east from Nauvoo, and the next day he met Page in Lima, Illinois. By the first of May they were in Ohio, where they would tarry for the next four months. In June, having obtained sufficient donations to pay the printer, Hyde left Page in Dayton and went to Cincinnati, where he arranged for the printing of 2,000 copies of a second edition of An Appeal to the American People at the shop that had printed the first edition (item 66) and was stereotyping the Book of Mormon (see item 83). When he departed for the east coast that August, he left “fourteen or fifteen hundred” copies with Page to sell in Ohio.[200] Two years later Lucian R. Foster was still advertising the book in New York at 12½¢ a copy.[201]

Despite the “revised” notation on the title page, the second edition is a faithful reprint of the first (item 66), except for a few minor grammatical improvements and an occasional spelling correction. The only significant difference between the two editions is the preface added to the second (pp. [iii]–vi). Signed by Hyde and Page and dated at Cincinnati, July 11, 1840, it describes the genesis and purpose of the mission to Jerusalem, and includes endorsements from Joseph Smith and Thomas Carlin, governor of Illinois. This edition was issued in yellow wrappers, the title page reprinted within an ornamental border on the front, the rest of the wrapper plain.

Flake 7280. CtY, DLC, ICHi, UPB, US1C.

80 PRATT, Parley Parker. Plain facts, showing the falsehood and folly of the Rev [sic] C. S. Bush, (a church minister of the parish of’Peover,) being a reply to his tract against the Latter-day Saints. [Caption title] [At foot of p. 16:] W. R. Thomas, Printer, 61, Spring Gardens, Manchester. [1840]

16 p. 18.5 cm.

Plain Facts marks a small bibliographical milestone: it is the first reply published in England to an anti-Mormon tract. Even though the pamphlet does not identify its author, it is clear it was written by Parley Pratt. He refers to it as his in Reply to Taylor and Livesey (item 89), and he is listed as the author in the catalogue of publications in the Millennial Star of July 1, 1847.[202]

Plain Facts was first advertised on the back wrapper of the Star for August 1840 and was probably published in July before Parley left England for the United States the middle of that month. The tract is known in two states, both typographically identical except for the presence or absence of Price One Penny Wholesale, and Three Half-pence Single on p. 16 following the last line of text. Since it was advertised at these prices on the wrappers of the Star for August–November 1840, one might guess that the state without the price is the earlier. The September and October advertisements also indicate that the Millennial Star office had “a few thousand copies.” The tract was still in print seven years later, at a reduced price of 1d. each.[203]

As its title suggests, Parley wrote Plain Facts in reply to the Rev. C. S. Bush’s Plain Facts, Shewing the Falsehood and Folly of the Mormonites, or Latter-day Saints (Macclesfield: Printed by J. Swinnerton, Courier Office, 1840), which is dated at the end, “Over Peover, Feb. 5, 1840.”[204] Most of it deals with two points. In response to Bush’s assertion that all of God’s revelations are included in the Bible, it lists ten prophetic books referred to in the Bible but not included in it—a device which would be borrowed by many other Mormon writers. Bush’s principal weapon was the letter of Matilda Davison to the Boston Recorder, which he reprinted in his tract (see item 77). Parley first saw the Davison letter in the New York New Era of November 25, 1839, and two days later he wrote to the New Era describing his role in introducing Sidney Rigdon to Mormonism. Plain Facts reprints Parley’s letter to the New Era along with those of Davison and John Haven (see item 77). It concludes with a letter from Sidney Rigdon, dated May 27, 1839. Rigdon’s letter, first published in the Quincy Whig of June 8, angrily responds to the Davison letter, which appeared in the Whig of May 18.

Flake 6615. CSmH, CtY, CU-B, MH, MoInRC, NjP, NN, UHi, ULA, UPB, US1C, UU.

81 HYDE, Orson. A timely warning to the people of England, of every sect and denomination, and to every individual into whose hands it may fall, by an elder of the Church of Latter Day Saints, late from America. Preston, 19th August, 1837. [At end of third column:] August, 22nd, 1840. [2 lines] Reprinted by W. R. Thomas, Spring-Gardens, Manchester. [1840]

Broadside 47.5 x 38 cm. Text in three columns, ornamental border.

This is a reprint of the 1839 Manchester edition (item 54), published in 3,000 copies. It is textually identical to the 1839 edition except for a number of improvements in punctuation and capitalization. An advertisement for it appears on the back wrapper of the Millennial Star of November 1840: “A new edition of this valuable little sheet is published and for sale. Price One Halfpenny, as usual.” In spite of the “usual” price, Parley Pratt reported that most of the edition was distributed gratis.[205]

Flake 4173. US1C, UPB.

82 PRATT, Orson. A [sic] interesting account of several remarkable visions, and of the late discovery of ancient American records. By O. Pratt, minister of the gospel. [2 lines] Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, MDCCCXL.

31 pp. 18 cm. Yellow printed wrappers.

Orson Pratt’s Remarkable Visions includes the first printed account of Joseph Smith’s 1820 vision and is therefore a signal book. Three manuscript accounts antedating Remarkable Visions exist in the LDS Church archives, the earliest in the handwriting of Joseph Smith and Frederick G. Williams and dating no later than 1832.[206] But during the Church’s first decade Joseph Smith discussed this transcendent vision only privately with a few trusted friends.[207] He did not commit it to print himself until 1842, when he included it in his letter to John Wentworth published in the March 1 issue of the Times and Seasons, and again as part of his official history in the Times and Seasons one month later.

Orson Pratt reached New York City en route to his mission to the British Isles in November 1839, and for the next four months he proselytized throughout the eastern states. On December 21 he met Joseph Smith in Philadelphia and traveled with him until the first of the year. It is clear that Joseph Smith openly discussed his 1820 vision during this stay in Philadelphia (see item 74). Six months earlier he had begun dictating his personal history, and at that time he undoubtedly concluded to make the vision a part of the public record. It seems reasonable to conjecture, therefore, that this open discussion of the vision provided Orson Pratt with tacit approval to publish an account of it, if indeed he did not receive Joseph Smith’s explicit permission.[208]

Orson published Remarkable Visions four months after he arrived in Edinburgh (see item 76). In a letter to George A. Smith of September 24, 1840, he discusses his new tract:

I shall be at conference on the 6th of Oct. if the Lord will. I shall bring about 2000 pamphlets with me which are now in the press. It contains 24 pages with a cover & the title page reads as follows “An interesting account of several remarkable visions and [of] the late discovery of Ancient American Records which unfold the history of that continent from the earliest ages after the flood to the beginning of the fifth century of the Christian era; with a sketch of the rise, faith & doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.” Price 4d. single copy or 25 shillings per hundred.[209]

The October issue of the Millennial Star carries a notice on its back wrapper that the office had just received 2,000 copies. Since Pratt undoubtedly kept some copies for distribution in Scotland, one might guess that he published the tract in an edition of 3,000. In November the Star began advertising it at 4d. each or 3s. per dozen.[210]

Remarkable Visions breaks into five sections. The first (pp. 3–5) recounts the 1820 vision. Pratt’s description here includes some dramatic detail not found in either of Joseph Smith’s 1842 published versions, but at key points Orson Pratt’s account coincides word-for-word with that in the Wentworth letter (see item 199).

The second part (pp. 6–12) tells of the appearance of the angel to Joseph Smith in 1823 and Smith’s receipt of the Book of Mormon plates. This is taken mainly from Oliver Cowdery’s letters to W. W. Phelps printed in the first volume of the Messenger and Advocate, most of it quoted directly (see item 197). The middle section (pp. 12–14) summarizes Joseph Smith’s efforts to translate the record, and draws its description of the plates from Parley Pratt’s article in the Star of June 1840. This is followed by a summary of the Book of Mormon and the testimonies of the three and the eight witnesses (pp. 14–23).

The final section (pp. 24–31) consists of “a sketch of the faith and doctrine” of the Latter-day Saints. This text lies midway between Parley Pratt’s introduction to his Late Persecution (item 64) and the “Articles of Faith” which conclude the Wentworth Letter and are now canonized in the Pearl of Great Price. Orson’s “sketch” clearly shows the influence of Parley’s introduction; at one point it quotes it directly. And the strikingly similar phraseology in the “Articles of Faith” suggests that they were composed with Orson Pratt’s “sketch” in mind.

Remarkable Visions exists in two states, both typographically identical except for the presence or absence of the incorrect article A at the beginning of the title. Apparently after some copies with the A in the title had been struck off, the error was discovered and corrected simply by eliminating the A. It was issued in yellow printed wrappers with the following wrapper title within an ornamental border on the front: An interesting account of several remarkable visions, and of the late discovery of ancient American records, which unfold the history of that continent from the earliest ages after the flood, to the beginning of the fifth century of the Christian era. With a sketch of the rise, faith, and doctrine, of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. By O. Pratt, minister of the gospel, [two lines] Price fourpence, or three shillings and sixpence per dozen. The verso of the front wrapper has a list of “Latter Day Saints’ Books for Sale, by Miss Sutherland, No. 40, North Richmond Street, Edinburgh” and by P. P. Pratt in Manchester.

The success of Remarkable Visions as a missionary tract is reflected in its numerous editions. Three times it was reprinted in New York, in 1841 and 1842 (items 109, 110, 147). And beginning in 1848, it was repeatedly republished in English, Danish, Dutch, and Swedish.

Flake 6501. CtY, CU-B, MoInRC, MoK, UHi, UPB, US1C.

83 The book of Mormon. Translated by Joseph Smith, Jr. Third edition, carefully revised by the translator. Nauvoo, III: Printed by Robinson and Smith. Stereotyped by Shepard and Stearns, West 3rd St. Cincinnati, Ohio. 1840.

[i–iv][7]–571[2] pp. 14.5 cm.

By December 1839 the Book of Mormon was again out of print, and on the 29th the Nauvoo high council voted to publish a new edition under the supervision of the First Presidency as soon as funds could be raised.[211] In April and May 1840 the Times and Seasons advertised for loans of $1,000 and $500 to publish the Book of Mormon, but without success. Then in May Ebenezer Robinson had an inspiration: he and Don Carlos Smith would raise $200, stereotype the book, and give the stereotype plates to Joseph Smith, if Joseph would contribute an additional $200 and grant them the rights to publish 2,000 copies. Joseph Smith consented, and in a few days Robinson and Don Carlos Smith had collected $145. When Joseph Smith reported that he could not raise his $200, Robinson proposed that he and Don Carlos underwrite all of the stereotyping and printing in exchange for the rights to publish 4,000 copies. To this Joseph Smith agreed.[212]

In June Robinson went to Cincinnati and engaged Shepard and Stearns—who had printed An Appeal to the American People (item 66)—to do the stereotyping for $550, $100 of which he paid down in cash, the balance to be paid in two installments within three months after the job was completed. He also arranged to work for Shepard and Stearns at 250 an hour while they made the stereotype plates, his wages to be applied against his note. Next he contracted with a binder to bind 2,000 copies in leather for $250, $80 to be paid during the job, the balance to be paid within six weeks after the work was done. And he purchased enough paper for 2,000 copies, at $250, again on terms similar to those with the binder.[213]

Robinson wrote of his efforts to Don Carlos Smith and to several men in the eastern states, offering them 120 books for each $100 sent in advance. In July the Nauvoo high council appointed Samuel Bent and George W. Harris to raise money and collect subscriptions for the book, and that month the Times and Seasons began advertising the new edition. From advance subscriptions Robinson received enough to pay off the stereotyper, binder, and paper dealer, and to pay the printer in cash. As soon as the stereotyper finished the first plate, Robinson handed it to the printer; and at the time the stereotyping was completed, the printer had struck off all but the last signature. By October 1840 Robinson had 2,000 bound copies in hand. About half of these he sent to the advance subscribers; the rest he took with him to Nauvoo. After his return, he advertised the new edition in the Times and Seasons at $1 wholesale, $1.25 retail.[214]

The 1840 Book of Mormon exists in three states, all printed from the same stereotype plates: (1) the testimony of the three witnesses on p. [572], that of the eight witnesses on p. [573], the e in spake (p. 9, line 23) unbroken; (2) the testimony of the three witnesses on p. [572], that of the eight witnesses on p. [573], the e in spake (p. 9, line 23) broken; and (3) the testimony of the three witnesses on p. [573], that of the eight witnesses on p. [574], the e in spake (p. 9, line 23) broken. The second and third states are printed on softer paper, the page size (approximately 14.7 x 9.3 cm.) slightly larger than that of the first state (approximately 14.3 x 8.6 cm.). Why the testimonies of the three and eight witnesses are arranged differently in the third state—printed from the same stereotype plates—is a mystery.

One might guess that the second and third states represent later impressions which Robinson struck off in Nauvoo. He apparently printed additional copies in the spring of 1841, for the Times and Seasons of March 15, 1841, reported, “We would just say to those who have been calling for books, that they can be served, with pleasure, at the coming April conference, as there will be received previous to that time, several hundred copies of the books of Mormon, and for sale by E. Robinson.” He advertised the Book of Mormon again in the Times and Seasons in January and February 1842, suggesting that he also reprinted the book early in 1842. The Mormon manuscripts in the Huntington Library include a photostat of a document signed by Joseph Smith and dated February 24, 1842, giving Robinson the rights to print 1,500 copies of the Book of Mormon from the stereotype plates. At this point, of course, Robinson had sold the print shop to Joseph Smith (see item 60), so this document probably formalized what remained of his original agreement with Smith. Since he originally had the rights to publish a total of 4,000, it seems likely he printed 500 in Nauvoo in the spring of 1841 and a final run of 1,500, or less, early in 1842.

Some copies of the second and third states have a seven-page “index,” or extended table of contents, bound or tipped in at the end. Undoubtedly printed in 1841, this is a four-leaf signature, titled Index, the text in two columns, the pages numbered [i]–vii, the verso of the last leaf blank. It was clearly taken from the “index” included in the 1841 Liverpool Book of Mormon (item 98), for it is identical to the Liverpool index except for the omission of one entry and about two dozen minor changes and spelling differences. Indeed it contains the reference to White and a delightsome people, as in the Liverpool index, in spite of the fact that this phrase is changed in the 1840 edition to pure and a delightsome people (p. 115; now 2 Nephi 30:6).

Robinson reports that before he left for Cincinnati in June 1840, he and Joseph Smith compared a copy of the 1830 Book of Mormon with a Kirtland edition, and that Shepard and Stearns used a copy of the Kirtland Book of Mormon to set the new book.[215] Stanley R. Larson has tabulated some forty-seven places where the 1837 and 1840 editions differ. Almost all of these represent grammatical improvements, corrected errors, or new typographical errors, but some are significant changes—for example, what are now 1 Nephi 20:1 and 2 Nephi 30:6. He also suggests that Joseph Smith consulted the Original Manuscript when he made some of the revisions.[216] The later LDS editions descended from the 1841 Liverpool Book of Mormon, which was reprinted from the Kirtland edition; so, for example, the change in 1 Nephi 20:1 was not included until 1920, and the change in 2 Nephi 30:6 was not incorporated until 1981. The RLDS editions descended from the 1840 Book of Mormon and included all of the 1840 changes until 1908.

The 1840 Book of Mormon also differs from the earlier two in that the text constituting the first twenty-three lines of the 1830 title page is printed—with eight word changes—on p. [iii], following the copyright notice on the verso of the title page. The verso of p. [iii] is blank, and the main text (pp. [7]–571) begins on the next page. All three states of the 1840 Book of Mormon are usually found in plain brown sheep, with four gilt double bands and a black or red leather label on the backstrip.

Flake 597. CSmH, CtY, CU-B, DLC, ICN, MoInRC, NjP, NN, TxDaDF, UHi, ULA, UPB, US1C, UU, WHi.

84 TAYLOR, John. An answer to some false statements and misrepresentations made by the Rev. Robert Heys, Wesleyan minister, in an address to his society in Douglas and its vicinity, on the subject of Mormonism. By John Taylor, elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. [4 lines] Douglas: Printed by Penrice and Wallace, Museum, and may be had of Mr. J. Cain, Bookseller. 1840.

11 pp. 18 cm.

85 TAYLOR, John. Calumny refuted and the truth defended; being a reply to the second address of the Rev. Robert Heys, Wesleyan minister, to the Wesleyan Methodist societies in Douglas and its vicinity. By John Taylor, elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. [4 lines] Douglas: Printed by Penrice & Wallace, Liberal Office. [1840]

12 pp. 17 cm.

86 TAYLOR, John. Calumny refuted and the truth defended; being a reply to the second address of the Rev. Robert Heys, Wesleyan minister to the Wesleyan Methodist societies in Douglas and its vicinity. By John Taylor, elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. [4 lines] Liverpool: Printed by J. Tompkins, Roe Street, Queen Square. 1840.

12 pp. 18 cm.

87 TAYLOR, John. Truth defended and Methodism weighed in the balance and found wanting: being a reply to the third address of the Rev. Robert Heys, Wesleyan minister to the Wesleyan Methodist societies in Douglas and its vicinity. And also an exposure of the principles of Methodism: by John Taylor, elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. [2 lines] Liverpool: Printed by J. Tompkins, Roe Street, Queen Square. Price three halfpence. [1840]

12 pp. 18 cm.

On September 16, 1840, eight months after he arrived in England, John Taylor in company with Hiram Clark and William Mitchel crossed the Irish Sea to the Isle of Man, the birthplace of his wife Leonora and the home of many of her girlhood friends. Clark and Mitchell went on to Ramsey, and Taylor hired a large room in Douglas and began a series of lectures. Immediately he was challenged by the local clergy, and within a few days he was debating them in the lecture halls and in the newspapers. (Three of these exchanges, reprinted from the Douglas Manx Liberal and Manx Sun, appear in the November and December 1840 issues of the Millennial Star.) Early in October, Robert Heys, “a Wesleyan Methodist Superintendent Preacher,” published an anti-Mormon tract to which Taylor promptly responded. This brought a second and a third tract from Heys, each drawing a reply from Taylor. The anti-Mormon attacks continued, but Mormonism took root on the Isle; by February 1841, what was a six-member congregation the preceding July had grown to seventy.[217] No copy of any of Heys’s tracts has survived, but Answer to Some False Statements gives the title of the first: Address to the Members of the Wesleyan Societies and Congregations in Douglas and its Vicinity, on the Subject of Mormonism. Taylor’s first two tracts are dated at Douglas, October 7 and October 29, 1840, respectively. The third is dated at Liverpool, December 7, 1840, and was written in November after he had left the Isle.[218] Heys’s third tract came out before Taylor finished his second reply.[219]

Taylor’s first and second replies were printed in Douglas. On October 6 he wrote to Brigham Young that the printing cost for Answer to Some False Statements was 5s. per hundred, and if Young thought the pamphlet would sell, he would have more struck off, as the type would not be taken down before the next mail.[220] The second was also reprinted in Liverpool, probably in December after Taylor returned. The third was published in Liverpool, before the end of the year. Answer to Some False Statements is advertised on the back wrapper of the Millennial Star for November 1840. All three tracts are advertised on the back wrapper of the Star for January 1841, at 1 s. per dozen, and in the Star for June at three half-pence each. (No copy of the December 1840 issue of the Star in wrappers is extant.)

Heys’s main weapon in his first pamphlet was the affidavit of Isaac Hale, Joseph Smith’s father-in-law, taken from E. D. Howe’s Mormonism Unvailed, pp. 262–66, giving Hale’s view of the origin of the Book of Mormon. Answer to Some False Statements includes part of the Hale affidavit which it contrasts with the Spaulding-Rigdon theory quoted from Richard Livesey’s An Exposure of Mormonism (Preston, 1838). Since these two accounts are so different, Taylor argues, both must be wrong.

The Douglas and Liverpool editions of Calumny Refuted are textually identical. The first half of this tract mostly ridicules Heys’s attempts in his second address to reconcile the Hale affidavit with the Spaulding-Rigdon theory. The second half defends the Mormon position on a number of doctrinal points which Heys apparently challenged, such as the sacredness of the Book of Mormon, the impropriety of infant baptism, the prerequisite of faith in Jesus for repentance, and the necessity of baptism by immersion.

Truth Defended is mainly put together from Parley Pratt’s earlier books. In response to Heys’s assertion in his third address that the Bible is not to be added to by other sacred writings, Taylor borrows the list of prophetic books mentioned in the Bible but not included in it from Parley’s Plain Facts (item 80). And Taylor’s attack on certain Methodist doctrines is an expanded version of that in Parley’s Mormonism Unveiled: Zion’s Watchman Unmasked (items 45–47), which, at one point Taylor quotes directly. The final page and a half contain a parallel comparison of the “doctrines of the Bible” with the “doctrines of Methodism,” much of it taken from the last section of the Voice of Warning (items 38, 62).

Item 84: Flake 8810. CSmH, CtY, CU-B, MH, UPB, UU, US1C. Item 85: Flake 8813. US1C. Item 86: Flake 8814. CSmH, CtY, CU-B, DLC, MH, MoInRC, NjP, UPB, UU, US1C. Item 87: Flake 8851. CSmH, CtY, CU-B, MH, NjP, ULA, UPB, UU, US1C.

88 WOODRUFF, Wilford, and George Albert Smith. [“He that judgeth a matter before he heareth is not wise.” The Latter Day Saints meet for public worship at Mr. J. Barrett’s Academy, 57 King Square, Goswell Road (entrance Door in President Street). Every Sabbath at Three & half Past Six o’clock, P.M. Also, on Tuesday and Thursday Evenings each week at Eight o’clock. LECTURES will be delivered by Elders WOODRUFF AND SMITH Late from America, Who respectfully invite the citizens of LONDON to attend. The first Principles of the Everlasting Gospel in its fulness—The Gathering of Israel—The Second Coming of the Saviour—and the restitution of all things spoken of by all the Holy Prophets will be among the Subjects Illustrated. “The Latter Day Saints Millennial Star,” published Monthly & other publications can be had at 52 Ironmonger Row St. Lukes. City Press Long Lane Doudney and Scrymgour. London, 1840]

Wilford Woodruff, Heber C. Kimball, and George A. Smith arrived in London on August 18, 1840, the first Mormon elders to walk the streets of the great city. “London is the hardest place I ever visited for esstablishing the gospel,” Woodruff confided to his journal after fifteen days and only one convert. “It is full of evry thing but righteousness, but we do not feel discouraged in the least.” Woodruff left London on September 10 to tour the southern counties and attend the October conference in Manchester, but five weeks later he and George A. Smith returned to do battle with the indifferent Londoners. On October 17 Orson Pratt wrote to Smith from Edinburgh and described how he had rented a hall and advertised his lectures with a handbill (see item 76). Five days later, undoubtedly prompted by Orson’s letter, Woodruff and Smith rented Mr. J. Barrett’s Academy for three months, and that same day Woodruff had printed 500 handbills advertising their meetings. On the 24th they posted up the handbills, and the next day they preached their first sermons in Mr. Barrett’s hall. Four weeks would pass before they would make another convert.[221]

No copy of Woodruff’s handbill has survived. Fortunately he transcribed it into his journal from which the title above is taken.[222] Three months later, Alfred Cordon and Lorenzo Snow republished it to advertise their efforts in Birmingham (item 97).

89 PRATT, Parley Parker. A reply to Mr. Thomas Taylor’s “Complete Failure,” &c, and Mr. Richard Livesey’s “Mormonism Exposed.” [1 line] By Parley P. Pratt. Manchester: Printed by W. R. Thomas, 61, Spring Gardens. 1840. Price three half-pence.

12 pp. 18 cm.

In the summer of 1838, Richard Livesey returned to visit his native England after seven years in Massachusetts where he served as a Methodist Episcopal minister. The Mormons, he discovered, had made sizable inroads in the Lancashire congregations. So he immediately published An Exposure of Mormonism, Being a Statement of Facts Relating to the Self-Styled “Latter Day Saints,” and the Origin of the Book of Mormon (Preston: Printed by J. Livesey, 1838)—the first anti-Mormon book published in Great Britain. Two years later a Methodist minister Thomas Newton published a second edition of Livesey’s tract in Manchester.[223]

Thomas Taylor seems to have been a Methodist lay preacher in Manchester.[224] His tract grew out of his fruitless attempts to persuade local Mormon converts to rejoin their former congregations. In an effort to discredit the Saints, he convened a meeting at his house and invited James Mahon, a young convert from Manchester, to demonstrate the “gift of tongues.”[225] His pamphlet An Account of the Complete Failure of an Ordained Priest of the “Latter Day Saints,” to Establish His Pretensions to the Gift of Tongues, Which Took Place on Monday Evening, October 12th, 1840: With an Address to Men of Reason and Religion, Warning Them not to be Deceived by the Craftiness of Such Low Impostors (Manchester: Printed by Pigot and Slater, [1840]) describes Mahon’s unsuccessful attempts.[226]

Both the second edition of Livesey’s Exposure of Mormonism and Taylor’s Complete Failure appeared about the time Parley Pratt returned to Manchester from the United States in October 1840. His response was soon in coining. A Reply to Taylor and Livesey is advertised as “just published” on the back wrapper of the November issue of the Millennial Star, at three half-pence each or Is. per dozen. Seven years later the Star was still advertising the tract, at 1d. a copy.[227]

Parley deals quickly with Taylor’s tract, primarily by referring to Matt. 12:39 that only the evil and adulterous look for miraculous signs. He adds that Mahon was wrong to boast of an ability to speak unknown languages and that Brigham Young had specifically advised him not to attend Taylor’s meeting. Mahon published his own apology in the Star of December 1840.

Livesey’s book was constructed almost entirely from two sources. The sections dealing with the Spaulding-Rigdon theory, the 1833 affidavits by Joseph Smith’s Palmyra neighbors, and the argument that the Church existed merely to fleece its new converts were taken essentially verbatim from La Roy Sunderland’s Mormonism Exposed and Refuted (New York, 1838) (see items 45–47). And the letter of Warren Parrish criticizing the Church authorities and Parley Pratt’s letter to Joseph Smith of May 23, 1837, complaining of Smith’s financial dealings, came from Sunderland’s Zion’s Watchman for March 24, 1838.

In his reply, Parley refers to his earlier Plain Facts (item 80) for a refutation of the Spaulding-Rigdon theory. He then directs his most heated responses to two points in Livesey’s pamphlet. The first is the claim in Newton’s preface that the Latter-day Saints break up families—a denial of which is repeated in the Star of November 1840. The second, expectedly, is the reappearance of Pratt’s letter to Joseph Smith. Earlier Parley had written apologetically about this letter in the Elders’ Journal for August 1838, claiming that he never thought Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon were dishonest, only mistaken. Now he reaffirms his conviction that they are men of God. He includes a few extracts from the Methodist discipline, taken from Mormonism Unveiled: Zion’s Watchman Unmasked, and then quotes John Simons’s A Few More Facts Relating to the Self-Styled “Latter-day Saints” [Ledbury: Printed by J. Gibbs, jun., 1840] that the reader should examine both sides of the issue. As a postscript he adds an extract from John Taylor’s Answer to Some False Statements (item 84) which bemuses over conflicting anti-Mormon accounts of the origin of the Book of Mormon, and a piece from the New York Sun of July 28, 1840, about the Mormons’ progress in Nauvoo.

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90 SNOW, Erastus. E. Snow’s reply to the self-styled philanthropist, of Chester County. [Caption title] [Dated on p. 2:] November 1840. [Philadelphia? 1840?]

16 pp. 22 cm.

Erastus Snow, who would be called into the Twelve in 1849, came back to Nauvoo in October 1840 after four months of proselytizing throughout the eastern states. At the suggestion of the Church leaders, he returned with his wife to Pennsylvania, arriving in Chester County on November 21—coincidentally with the appearance of the tract Mormonism Unmasked, Showed to be an Impious Imposture, and Mr. Bennett’s Reply Answered and Refuted. By a Philanthropist of Chester County (Philadelphia: T.K & P.G. Collins, Printers, 1840).[228] This, as its title suggests, replied to Samuel Bennett’s A Few Remarks by Way of Reply to an Anonymous Scribbler (item 74), written in the spring of 1840 in response to Philanthropist’s first tract. Bennett had been placed in charge of the Church in Cincinnati that October, so with him out of the area, the task of responding to Philanthropist’s second tract fell to Erastus Snow.[229] The date on the second page of E. Snow’s Reply indicates that he composed his pamphlet within a few days of his return to Pennsylvania, and his journal suggests that he had it printed in Philadelphia in mid-December.[230]

Snow identifies Philanthropist as the Methodist preacher Caleb Jones, whose second tract, it would seem, was largely a repeat of his first.[231] In response to Jones’s reference to Bennett’s acknowledgment of a belief in a corporeal God, Snow quotes the Doctrine and Covenants (p. 53) that “the Father is a personage of spirit” and then proceeds to give the impression that the Mormon concept of Deity does not involve a corporeal being. Interestingly, Parley Pratt was also doing this at the same time in England in his An Answer to Mr. William Hewitt (next item). Snow angrily denies Jones’s assertion, repeated from his first tract, that “Mormons teach entire dependence on private revelation, and consequently make wholly void the scriptures.” To Jones’s claim, also repeated from the first tract, that Latter-day Saints believe in procreation after the resurrection, Snow responds, a bit disingenuously, that this applies only to those who live on after Christ’s second coming. Jones declares that “the Mormons presume in connexion with all their other absurdities that they shall be made equal to Christ,” and Snow essentially defends this idea by quoting a series of passages from the New Testament, including John 14:12 and Philip. 2:5–6. Jones’s tract includes an affidavit alleging that Joseph Smith seduced Emma Hale and ran away with her to New York. Snow points out that Emma was twenty-two years old at the time and had consented to marry Smith, but when her father refused, they were married while he was away. Snow is silent with regard to Jones’s statement, “Smith says, that [the Second Advent] shall take place in 40 years, as near as he can tell.”

Flake 8159. MH, PWcHi

91 PRATT, Parley Parker. An answer to Mr. William Hewitt’s tract against the Latter-day Saints. [2 lines] By Parley P. Pratt. Manchester: Printed by W R. Thomas, 61, Spring Gardens. 1840. Price three half-pence; or one shilling per dozen.

12 pp. 19.5 cm.

William Hewitt’s An Exposition of the Errors and Fallacies of the Self-Named “Latter-Day-Saints” (Lane-End: Printed at the Office of C. Watts, 1840) derived from the Mormon successes in the Staffordshire Potteries. Hewitt was a Methodist and a self-styled “practical christian” who considered it his duty “to expose these wolves.” In June 1840 he wrote two letters to George A. Smith, who was laboring in the area, and invited him to a public debate.[232] Hewitt’s preface, dated at Lane-End, October 1840, says that Smith had declined to debate, so he put his objections to Mormonism in print. His tract was in circulation by November 7, when Wilford Woodruff received a copy.[233]

Parley Pratt’s letter to George A. Smith of February 18, 1841, suggests that George A. had requested some help from him in responding to Hewitt. Parley announced on the wrapper of the Millennial Star of November 1840 that he would reply to Hewitt’s tract in the December issue. Instead he published An Answer to Mr. William Hewitt in an edition of 1,000, and advertised it on the wrapper of the Star for January 1841. In his letter to Smith, Pratt complains that he had printed the tract mainly for distribution in the Potteries and had supplied it at his cost, and had not been reimbursed “one penny.”[234] That October he advertised it again in the Star, now at a reduced price of 1d.[235]

Hewitt’s tract concentrates on doctrinal issues, most of the points he attacks coining from A Timely Warning (items 54, 81) and Parley’s Address to the People of England (item 72–73). An Answer to Mr. William Hewitt mainly reasserts the Church’s position as presented in Address to the People of England, with a few added biblical references. Three points, however, receive more attention. To Hewitt’s assertion that the Mormons teach “this generation shall not pass away before England shall be destroyed,” an idea certainly implicit in A Timely Warning, Parley responds that “the Saints hold to no such principle,” but he adds, “very shortly” Christ will appear to destroy the wicked. Hewitt challenges the Mormon concept of baptism by immersion, and Parley asks him to explain the meaning of the word bury. Hewitt also complains that the God the Mormons worship “is possessed of corporeal parts, like ourselves, such as eyes, hands, feet, ears, nose, mouth, and so on,” and in refutation he quotes John 4:24 and Luke 24:39 that “God is a Spirit,” and “a spirit has not flesh and bones.” Parley answers that there are three persons in the Godhead, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and the Father and Son are in the express image of each other, both having hands, feet, eyes, etc. Four pages later he adds that the Latter-day Saints “believe in the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, as one God,” and that “the Son has flesh and bones, and that the Father is a spirit”—a statement which conforms with the Doctrine and Covenants (p. 53) and moves a bit toward the position of traditional Protestantism.

One sees in E. Snow’s Reply and An Answer to Mr. William Hewitt two attempts to move the debate away from Mormonism’s more radical doctrines and to keep it focused on first principles—faith in Jesus, repentance of one’s sins, and baptism by someone in authority. Indeed Parley concludes his response to Hewitt with these ideas. A discussion of these, the Church leaders had urged for years, was much more fruitful in attracting new converts.

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92 PRATT, Parley Parker? An epistle of Demetrius, Junior, the silversmith, to the workmen of like occupation, and all others whom it may concern,—greeting: showing the best way to preserve our craft, & to put down the Latter Day Saints. [At foot:] (Price One Penny.) Wm. Shackleton and Son, Printers, Ducie-Place, Exchange, Manchester. [1840?]

Broadside 36.5 x 23.5 cm. Text in three columns, ornamental border.

Traditionally An Epistle of Demetrius has been attributed to Parley Pratt. And this seems clear from the work itself, for it bears his distinctive style.

Joseph Fielding recorded in his diary: “On Saturday, the 19 [of December 1840],1 received the 8th No. of the Mil’m Star, with a Number of Sheets called an Epistle of Demetrius, etc., and yesterday [December 20] I circulated them.”[236] Several implications follow from from this entry. First, there is the suggestion that Fielding had not seen An Epistle of Demetrius before, that what he received was the first printing. Second, the assumption of Parley Pratt’s authorship is reinforced by the fact that the broadsides were sent with the current issue of the Star, which Pratt was editing at the time. Since Wm. Shackleton and Son printed issues 9–12 of volume 1 of the Star, and the Shackleton edition of An Epistle of Demetrius refers to the Church as “about 10 years old,” it seems clear that it was this edition which Fielding received in December 1840.

The context of An Epistle of Demetrius comes from Acts 19:21–41, which tells of the opposition generated by Demetrius, an Ephesian silversmith, to the teachings of Paul which posed a threat to the silversmiths who earned their livings making religious objects. The broadside makes a nineteenth-century Demetrius speak for the sectarian clergy in opposition to the Latter-day Saints, and it is hardly subtle in suggesting that the clergy attack the Saints only out of self-interest.

It is easy to understand why Parley Pratt might compose such a piece in December 1840. Two months earlier he had returned to Manchester to be confronted with a flood of anti-Mormon tracts and newspaper articles, most written by professional clergymen, and he commented on these in the October and November issues of the Star. Perhaps An Epistle of Demetrius was a parting statement to all past and future anti-Mormon writers. At any rate, only two more replies to anti-Mormon works would fall from his pen, one in 1841 (item 118), the other in 1852.

An Epistle of Demetrius was republished twice in England and twice in America (items 135, 143, 167, 333). It was also reprinted in The Prophet of September 28, 1844.

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93 KIMBALL, Heber Chase. Journal ofHeher C. Kimball, an elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Giving an account of his mission to Great Britain, and the commencement of the work of the Lord in that land. Also the success which has attended the labors of the elders to the present time. By R. B. Thompson. [2 lines] Nauvoo, III: Printed by Robinson and Smith. 1840.

viii[9]–60 pp. 19.5 cm. Brown printed wrappers.

The first Mormon mission to England in 1837–38 is one of the extraordinary chapters in the history of the Latter-day Saints. Launched when the Church in Kirtland was collapsing, it founded a proselytizing effort which would send a life-giving stream of converts to the Church in America for the next two decades. Item 93—the first of the Mormon “faith promoting” books—tells the story of this mission from the perspective of Heber C. Kimball, who with Orson Hyde, Joseph Fielding, Willard Richards, John Goodson, Isaac Russell, and John Snyder, first carried the Mormon message across the Atlantic (see items 30, 35, 36).[237]

The Elders’ Journal of August 1838 reported the return of Kimball and Hyde from England and announced that they intended to publish an account of their mission. But the expulsion of the Mormons from Missouri and the subsequent call of the Twelve to a second British mission in the fall of 1839 interrupted any such attempt. Robert B. Thompson came naturally to this project: he was an Englishman, Joseph Fielding’s brother-in-law, and the Church clerk assigned to help Joseph Smith compile his history. The fall of 1840 was also a propitious time to publish the story of the first missionary effort in Britain: eight of the Twelve, including Kimball, were once again laboring in the British Isles, and the first two companies of British converts, totalling about 250, had just reached Nauvoo.[238] Two manuscripts in the LDS Church archives bear on this book—a journal which covers the period of the mission, and “Heber C. Kimball Journal 1840,” which Kimball dictated in the 1850s. This second document includes a transcription of Journal of Heber C. Kimball, preceded by the following explanation:

I here insert a copy of a pamphlet published by Robert B. Thompson while I was on my second mission to England: he and 1 previously went on a high hill in the woods, near the city of Quincy, Illinois, where we sat down when I gave him a short sketch of my first mission to England, from memory, not having my journal with me, as I had been recently driven from Missouri: I then omitted many dates which I now fill up, and also make many corrections and additions.[239]

Thompson wrote to Kimball in England on November 5, 1840, and mentioned the delay in publishing his journal, but he added that he expected to start on it soon, as Ebenezer Robinson had just returned from Cincinnati with printing supplies.[240] Robinson’s and Don Carlos Smith’s names on the title page indicate that the printing of Journal of Heber C. Kimball began before they dissolved their partnership on December 14, 1840. Since the book was advertised in the Times and Seasons of January 1, 1841, it was likely finished near the end of the year. Beginning in April the Millennial Star advertised it at 1s.[241]

Most of the printed book deals with the first mission to England. It also includes Kimball’s account of the trip home in 1838, his experiences at Far West that fall, and his return to England in the spring of 1840. Thompson added a preface (pp. [iii]–viii), and a concluding statement (pp. 55–59) which summarizes the growth of the British Church up to July 1840. The last page contains a hymn, “With Darkness Long We’ve Been O’erwhelm’d,” by William Clayton (see items 106, 245), later famous for his hymn “Come, Come, Ye Saints,” and one of the leaders of the second company of immigrating British converts. The book was originally issued in brown printed wrappers, the title page reprinted, from a different setting, within an ornamental border on the front, the rest of the wrapper plain.[242]

Thompson included two extracts in the Times and Seasons of June 15 and August 2, 1841, while he was associate editor. In 1882 Journal of Heber C. Kimball was reprinted in Salt Lake City, with substantial additions by Helen Mar Whitney, Kimball’s daughter, as the seventh book of the “Faith Promoting Series.” Kimball’s autobiography was published serially in vol. 8 of the Deseret News and in vol. 26 of the Millennial Star.

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94 HIGBEE, Elias, and Robert Blashel Thompson. “Latter-day Saints,” alias Mormons. The petition of the Latter-day Saints, commonly known as Mormons, stating that they have purchased lands of the General Government, lying in the state of Missouri, from which they have been driven with force by the constituted authorities of the state, and prevented from occupying the same; and have suffered other wrongs, for which they pray Congress to provide a remedy. December 21, 1840. Referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. [Caption title] [At head of title:] 26th Congress, 2d Session. Doc. No. 22. Ho. of Reps. [Signed and dated at end:] Elias Higbee, Robt. B. Thompson. Nauvoo, Hancock County, Illinois, November 28, 1840. [Washington, 1840?]

13 pp. 25 cm.

At the conference of the Saints in Nauvoo, October 5, 1840, John C. Bennett, who had been in the Church less than two months, delivered an impassioned speech on the mistreatment of the Mormons in Missouri and urged the conference to take further steps to obtain redress. In response the conference delegated Elias Higbee and Robert B. Thompson to initiate a second appeal to the federal government. Higbee and Thompson were expected choices: two days before, Thompson had been appointed Church clerk, and the year before, Higbee had led the first attempt to obtain federal assistance (see item 67).[243]

Both Higbee and Joseph Smith must have known that a second appeal would be fruitless. Higbee had been on the scene while the Senate Judiciary Committee debated the first petition, and he knew the doctrine of states’ rights was insurmountable.[244] Perhaps they felt that even a fruitless effort might generate some favorable publicity for the Saints.

Higbee and Thompson completed their petition on November 28, 1840.[245] Twenty-three days later, John T. Stuart, the representative from Springfield, Illinois, presented it to the House of Representatives, which referred it to the House Judiciary Committee and ordered it printed.[246] There it died. Nor was it entirely successful in generating favorable publicity. On February 15, 1841, Lewis F. Linn, the junior senator from Missouri, complained in the Senate that the petition was giving a false impression of his constituency, and he moved that the Senate print a transcript of the testimony at Joseph Smith’s 1838 hearing before Austin A. King, which was published as 26th Congress, 2d Session, Senate Document 189 (February 15, 1841).[247] This publication provided grist for the anti-Mormon mill for years (see e.g., items 128, 153).

Generally the Higbee-Thompson petition is the same as the one submitted a year earlier.[248] It incorporates some expositional improvements and one substantive change: the Mormon losses in Jackson, estimated at $ 175,000 in the first, are reduced to $120,000 in the second. The bulk of the petition rehearses the Mormons’ difficulties in the various Missouri counties, points out that they have exhausted all possibilities within the state, and declares that no redress is possible “unless it be awarded by the Congress of the United States.”

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95 The Gospel Reflector, in which the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is set forth, and scripture evidence adduced to establish it. A brief treatise upon the most important prophecies recorded in the Old and New Testaments, which relate to the great work of God of the latter-days. In short, the subjects of the gospel of Christ, apostasy of the Jews and Gentiles, reorganization of the kingdom of God and renewal of the gospel dispensation, the appearing of the Book of Mormon, the restoration of the House of Israel, second coming of Christ and destruction of the wicked, millennium, &c, &c, are treated upon. Edited by B. Winchester, presiding elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in Philadelphia. [2 lines] Philadelphia: Brown, Bicking & Guilbert, Printers, No. 56 North Third Street. 1841.

[i–iv]316 pp. 23 cm.

Benjamin Winchester contemplated the possibility of publishing an independent magazine in support of the Church as early as the spring of 1840, when he discussed the idea with Joseph Smith and received his approval.[249] He was probably further influenced by the success of the Millennial Star, which he observed first-hand during his visit to England that summer, and by Parley Pratt’s ambitious publishing efforts which helped finance his mission. Winchester’s correspondence shows that he viewed the Gospel Reflector, in part, as a profit-making venture, and that these expectations were never realized.[250]

Erastus Snow read a prospectus for Winchester’s magazine to a Church conference in Philadelphia on December 14, 1840, and the conference voted unanimously to support the undertaking.[251] The prospectus announced that the magazine would be issued in sixteen-page parts until the topics Winchester had in mind were exhausted. What resulted was a semi-monthly comprising a total of twelve numbers spanning the period January 1–June 15, 1841. Numbers 1–5 and 7–11 each have 24 pages; number 6 has 56 pages; number 12 has 20 pages; and the whole is continuously paged. Each number bears the caption title: The Gospel Reflector. Published by B. Winchester, Pastor of the Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Philadelphia—apparently a different title than first advertised. The first number, at least, was issued in paper wrappers, following the example of the Millennial Star, but no copy in wrappers has survived.[252] The twelve numbers were bound with a title page and table of contents—undoubtedly issued with the twelfth number—and it is in this form that the Gospel Reflector invariably is found today. Usually it is bound in full plain sheep, with or without a leather label; brown ribbed cloth, with or without an embossed ornamental border on the covers, the title in gilt on the backstrip; or gray embossed cloth with an arabesque on the front and back cover. Later in 1841 Winchester advertised the bound book for $1.25, and the following year Lucian R. Foster offered it at the same price.[253]

It is not known if the prospectus was separately printed. The references to it in the first issue of the Gospel Reflector tend to suggest that it was.

Generally the Gospel Reflector treats a broad range of doctrinal subjects. The ideas themselves were not new to the Mormon printed record, but their defence marshalled a nearly comprehensive collection of biblical citations and examples, many appearing in a Latter-day Saint publication for the first time. In this respect the Gospel Reflector marks a shift away from the polemics of the preceding four years and a move toward a more apologetic form of writing which would characterize the works of Orson Spencer and Orson Pratt at the end of the decade.

Like the other Mormon periodicals, it borrowed liberally from its predecessors. For example, a chronology showing the creation of Adam exactly 6,000 years before (pp. 20–21) is reprinted from the third number of the Evening and Morning Star; the seventh Lecture on Faith (pp. 77–83) is from the Doctrine and Covenants (item 22); Oliver Cowdery’s letters to W. W. Phelps (pp. 137–76) are taken from the first volume of the Messenger and Advocate; Sidney Rigdon’s article on the Millennium (pp. 287–93) and his letter to John Whitmer on the New Testament church (pp. 293–96) are republished from the second volume of the Evening and Morning Star and the fourteenth number of the Messenger and Advocate; and the final issue (pp. 297–311) is largely made up of extracts from the Doctrine and Covenants.

But Winchester wrote much of the text, and here the influence of Parley Pratt’s Voice of Warning—explicitly acknowledged in the first number (p. 18)—is pervasive. Winchester’s essays on spiritualizing the scriptures (pp. 29–32), the kingdom of God (pp. 37–42, 49–72), gospel dispensations (pp. 84–89), continued revelation (pp. 89–98), the Book of Mormon (pp. 105–36), the restoration of Israel (pp. 220–43), the Resurrection (pp. 244–46), and the Millennium (pp. 246–72), all derive from the second edition of Voice of Warning (item 62), occasionally borrowing from it verbatim.

Flake 3647. CSmH, CtY, CU-B, DLC, ICN, MH, MoInRC, NjP, NN, ULA, UPB, US1C, UU, WHi.

96 MULHOLLAND, James. An address to Americans: a poem in blank verse, by James Mulholland, an elder of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints. Intended as a brief exposure of the cruelties and wrongs, which the church has lately experienced in the state of Missouri. [1 line] Nauvoo: Printed by E. Robinson. 1841.

11 pp. 19 cm. Gray printed wrappers.

James Mulholland, an Irish Catholic, immigrated to Canada and then to the United States, where he converted to Mormonism. Soon after his conversion, he joined the Saints in Missouri, in time to be driven from the state with them. He was one of Joseph Smith’s secretaries and wrote his dictation when Smith began to compile his personal history. On November 3, 1839, a few months after he settled in Nauvoo, Mulholland died, at age thirty-five. “He was a man of fine education,” Joseph Smith’s history notes, “and a faithful scribe and Elder in the Church.”[254]

Mulholland wrote “Address to Americans” soon after he moved to Nauvoo and apparently intended to publish it. But it fell to his friend and fellow scribe Robert B. Thompson to put the poem in print—”as a tribute of respect to departed worth.” Thompson’s preface (p. |2J), dated at Nauvoo, January 1, 1841, and the advertisements in the January 1841 issues of the Times and Seasons indicate that An Address to Americans was printed at the beginning of the year.

Mulholland’s poem stands apart from the other Mormon commentaries on the Missouri expulsion. First, it only alludes to the violence rather than dwelling on it. More extraordinarily, it holds out the possibility of forgiveness to the Missourians (p. 11): “And even our enemies, may they repent, / And find their way to mercies throne of grace; / Obtain forgiveness, and amend their lives.” And it urges thankfulness upon the Mormons (p. 11): “And Oh! Ye Saints throughout this happy land, / Praise ye the Lord, all glory give to him, / Who stretched forth his arm, and kept us safe, / ‘Midst threatened death, ‘midst dangers great and dread.” Generally the poem is an optimistic personal statement of Mulholland’s faith in a free America, his gratitude to the state of Illinois for befriending the Mormon exiles, and his expectation of an imminent Second Advent.

The book was originally issued in gray wrappers, the title page reprinted on the front within an ornamental border, the back wrapper plain. Three years later it was republished in Batavia, New York (item 247).

Flake 5662. CtY, CSmH, ICHi, ICN, IHi, MH, MoInRC, RPB, UPB, US1C.

97 CORDON, Alfred, and Lorenzo Snow. “He that judgeth a matter before he heareth it is not wise.” Solomon. The Latter-day Saints meet for public worship, in the room under that lately occupied by the Socialists, Well Lane, Allison-street, Birmingham, every Sabbath morning at half-past ten, and in the evening at half-past six o ‘clock. Also on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, at half-past seven o ‘clock each week. Lectures will be delivered by Elders A. Cordon & L. Snow. The inhabitants of Birmingham are respectfully invited to attend. The first principles of the everlasting gospel in its fulness, the gathering of Israel, the second coming of the Saviour, and the restitution of all things spoken of by all the holy prophets, will be among the subjects illustrated. “The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star,” published monthly, and other publications, can be had at No. 24, Park Street. Thomas Vale, Printer, Freeman-street, Birmingham. [1841?]

Broadside 38 x 23 cm.

Alfred Cordon converted to Mormonism in Burslem, Staffordshire, in 1839, and served as a local missionary until he and his family sailed for America in September 1842. In the spring of 1840 he introduced his new religion into Birmingham and had baptized four by July, when he was appointed to supervise the missionary work in the Staffordshire Potteries.[255] Lorenzo Snow left Nauvoo for his first mission to England in July 1840. He arrived in Liverpool on October 21 and met Cordon at Greets Green near Birmingham three weeks later. Cordon was twenty-three years old, Snow twenty-six.[256] By the first week in December they had increased the Birmingham congregation to sixteen members, and during the next week they added fourteen more. In March 1841, a month after Snow transferred to London, Heber C. Kimball organized the Birmingham Conference, which included the city and a half-dozen neighboring towns, with 107 members. During the next fourteen months, the membership in the conference tripled.[257]

The only located copy of Cordon’s and Snow’s handbill is dated 1841 in manuscript at the bottom. In his diary Cordon notes, “Sunday 7th [of February 1841] I opened a large room in Allison Street that would hold about three Hundred People. In the Evening it was attended verry well. Tuesday Evening I preached in the room few attended. Thursday Evening I preached at the room also.”[258] One might infer that the handbill was printed during the week preceding the 7th. It was certainly printed before February 14, when Snow was called to preside in London (see item 129). The similarities in text and format make it clear that they copied their handbill from the one Wilford Woodruff published the preceding October (item 88). Six years after he immigrated to Nauvoo, Cordon returned to England as a missionary, and in 1851 he led a company of Saints to the Great Basin. Settling in Willard, Box Elder County, Utah, he was appointed bishop of the Willard Ward in 1857, a position he held until his death in 1871.[259]

US1C.

98 The book of Mormon: an account written by the hand of Mormon upon plates taken from the plates of Nephi. [22 lines] Translated by Joseph Smith, Jun. First European, from the second American edition. Printed by J. Tompkins, Liverpool, England: for Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Parley P. Pratt. By order of the translator. 1841

[i–iv][1]–634[637]–643 pp. 14 cm.

In November 1839, as he waited in New York City to embark on his mission to England, Parley Pratt wrote to Joseph Smith and asked permission for the Twelve to publish the Book of Mormon on the east coast and in the various European languages. Hyrum Smith responded in a letter of December 22, 1839, that he did not want the book published in New York, but he approved of it being published in Europe.[260]

At the conference in Preston, April 16, 1840, the Twelve designated Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Parley P. Pratt to obtain the British copyright for the Book of Mormon. And on May 7, Brigham Young wrote to Joseph Smith for approval to publish it. About the same time, two British Saints, John Benbow and Thomas Kington, contributed £250 and £124 toward English editions of the hymnbook and Book of Mormon. With this money in hand and apparently feeling that Hyrum Smith’s approval was sufficient, Brigham Young, Wilford Woodruff, and Willard Richards met atop Herefordshire Beacon on May 20 and concluded that Young should go to Manchester and arrange to publish 3,000 copies of each of the two books (see item 78).[261]

During the last week of May and first week of June, Brigham Young and John Taylor solicited estimates from a number of printers in Manchester and Liverpool; and on June 7, they obtained a bid from John Tompkins, of Liverpool, to print 3,000 copies of the Book of Mormon for £88 plus £60 for paper, or 5,000 for £110 plus £100 for paper. Ten days later they contracted with Tompkins to print an edition of 5,000. All during June, of course, Brigham Young, Parley Pratt, and John Taylor were also compiling the hymnbook and seeing it through the press in Manchester (see item 78). On July 7, in Manchester, Young and Pratt purchased paper for the Book of Mormon for £111, 17s.[262]

Taylor reported on July 23 that Tompkins had printed three forms, and he suggested that the galleys be forwarded to Young in Manchester and then sent back to be read by a new convert who was a compositor at a Liverpool newspaper. The next day he paid Tompkins the first of nine monthly installments. But the printing took longer than the four months Brigham Young had anticipated, and not until January 1841 did Tompkins finish the text. On January 18 Young and Richards began preparing the index, which they completed on the 21st and which “was immediately put in type.” Wilford Woodruff and Heber C. Kimball, who were laboring in London, received a bundle of twenty copies of the new Book of Mormon on February 8, 1841, and that day they secured the British copyright at Stationers’ Hall and deposited five copies. Four days later the last of the monthly payments was made to Tompkins.[263]

In spite of the fact that he was paid the full £110, John Tompkins delivered only 4,050 copies of the promised 5,000, apparently because he had printed too few of the last three signatures. In April 1841 he declined a settlement proposed by Young, Kimball, and Pratt, but agreed to print additional copies of the deficient signatures at his expense, should they agree to order a new edition of the book. Subsequently Tompkins failed, and a settlement was never reached.[264]

The back wrappers of the Millennial Star for March and April 1841 advertised the new edition, bound in sheep, for 5s.[265] But it did not sell as well as the Twelve had anticipated, and that December Parley Pratt chastised the Saints for not purchasing it. Twenty-two months later 1,100 copies remained in the Millennial Star office. In November 1843 the Star listed the Book of Mormon, in sheep, at 5s., and those in calf at 6s. 6d.; the following July it announced that the prices had been reduced to 4s. 6d. retail and 4s. wholesale for those in sheep, and 6s. retail and 5s. 6d. wholesale for those in calf. At the end of 1845 the office still had 879 copies. A year later the Star again dropped the price of the copies in sheep to 3s. retail, 2s. 6d. wholesale. Finally, in December 1848 it reported that the book was out of print and a new edition was expected the following May.[266]

The 1841 Book of Mormon was originally offered in three grades of bindings, the relative numbers of which are probably indicated by Parley Pratt’s inventory of September 1842: 138 copies in morocco, 297 in calf, and 1702 in sheep.[267] It is possible some copies were saved in sheets and bound as needed. It survives today in many variant bindings: black, brown, tan, or green plain or diced morocco, calf, or sheep; gilt or blind stamped covers with an ornamental border, with or without an arabesque on each cover; gilt or blind stamped panelled backstrip; the title in gilt on the backstrip. The LDS Church also owns a copy in what appears to be the original binding of plain green polished sheep, undecorated except for the title in gilt on the backstrip.

Essentially a faithful reprint of the 1837 Kirtland edition, the 1841 edition is an important link in the genealogy of the Book of Mormon. From it descended a sequence of LDS editions culminating in the one now in use. Unlike its predecessors, it has the testimonies of the three and eight witnesses at the beginning (pp. [iii]–[iv]), following the title page with Entered at Stationers’ Hall on the verso. It is also the first to incorporate an index (pp. [637]–643) as an intrinsic part of the book. Printed in double columns, this “index,” like the 1835 References to the Book of Mormon (item 24) after which it is patterned, is really a book-by-book outline or an extended table of contents (see items 83, 158). The main text (pp. [1]–634) ends on p. 634, so 635–36 is skipped in the pagination of the book. Curiously, there are some variations in the signature marks; some copies, for example, have U as the signature mark on the first page of the index, while others have U5.

Flake 598. CSmH, CtY, CU-B, DLC, ICN, MH, MoInRC, NjP, NN, UHi, ULA, UPB, US1C, UU, WHi.

99 [Placard advertising the Book of Mormon. Liverpool: John Tompkins, 1841]

No copy of this item is extant. Its existence is inferred from a receipt in the Brigham Young papers in the LDS Church archives, from John Tompkins, dated February 11, 1841, for “printing 300 Demy sheet placards ‘Book of Mormon’” at a cost of £1.

100 KINGTON, Thomas. [Handbill advertising lectures. Bristol? 1841?]

This handbill also is not located. On February 12, 1841, Wilford Woodruff reported, “He [William Pitt] is going to Bristol to assist Elder Kington, who has also organized a branch in that city, hired a room, posted hand bills, etc.”[268] It is conceivable, however, that a fragment among a group of receipts from the 1840–41 British Mission in the LDS Church’s Brigham Young papers is indeed Kington’s handbill. This measures 18.5 cm. across and shows only the first three lines and part of the fourth: Notice. | An elder | Of the Church of Latter-Day-Saints,| . . . Subjects . . . |.

Thomas Kington was born in Herefordshire, England, May 18, 1794. In the spring of 1840, when Wilford Woodruff first came to Herefordshire, Kington was the superintendent of the United Brethren, an independent congregation which had separated from the Methodists in the early 1830s. Between March 4 and April 15, Woodruff baptized him and 157 other members of his congregation. Early in 1841 Kington began laboring in Bristol, and by the third week in February he had baptized eight. Woodruff visited him at the end of the month and baptized one during his stay, increasing the branch there to fourteen (see items 123–24). That year Kington immigrated to Nauvoo. About 1850 he made the overland trip to Utah, where he served as the bishop of the East Weber Ward and as a patriarch. He died in Wellsville, Utah, July 1, 1874.[269]

Notes

1

[1] History of the Church 1:20–33. Lucy Mack Smith, Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith, the Prophet (Liverpool, England, 1853), 115–31. “Last Testimony of Sister Emma,” Saints’Herald 26:289. Messenger and Advocate, 14.

[2] History of the Church 1:48–51. David Whitmer, Interview in Kansas City Journal, 5 June 1881, as reprinted in Millennial Star 43:422–23. “David Whitmer and the Book of Mormon,” Millennial Star 43:786. James H. Hart, “About the Book of Mormon . . . Another Visit to David Whitmer,” Deseret Evening News, 25 March 1884. “Report of Elders Orson Pratt and Joseph F. Smith,” Deseret Evening News, 16 November 1878.

[3] Copyright Records, New York Northern District, September 1826-May 1831, vol. 116, in Roger W. Harris, “Copyright Entries Works by and About the Mormons, 1829–1870,” photocopy, UPB. Pomery Tucker, Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism (New York, 1867), 51–53. Thurlow Weed, Statement in “The Book of Mormon,” Scribner’s Monthly 20 (August 1880): 613–16. Thurlow Weed to a Friend, 31 December 1881, as summarized in Parke-Bernet Galleries, The Celebrated Collection of. . . Thomas W. Streeter (New York, 1967–68), 4:1639. John H. Gilbert, “Memorandum, Made . . . Sept. 8th, 1892,” King’s Daughters’ Free Library, Palmyra, New York; microfilm, UPB. Larry C. Porter, “A Study of the Origins of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the States of New York and Pennsylvania, 1816–1831” (Ph.D. diss., Brigham Young University, 1971), 86–90.

Born in Freehold, Monmouth County, New Jersey, March 30, 1806, Egbert Bratt Grandin grew up near Palmyra and began working at the Wayne Sentinel at age eighteen. He purchased the newspaper in April 1827 and ran it until he sold out in January 1833, when he turned to other business interests. He died in Wayne County, April 16, 1845. International Genealogical Index, UPB. “Historic Discoveries at the Grandin Building,” Ensign 10 (July 1980): 48–50. Wayne Sentinel, 13 April 1827, 2 January 1833. “Palmyra Village Cemetery Record,” 33, Wayne County Historian’s Office, Lyons, New York. Dean C. Jessee, ed., The Papers of Joseph Smith, 2 vols. (Salt Lake City, 1989–92), 1:488.

For a biographical sketch of Thurlow Weed, see Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. “Weed, Thurlow.” See also Life of Thurlow Weed, 2 vols. (Boston and New York, 1883–84).

[4] Biographical Sketches, 142–43. Richard P. Howard, Restoration Scriptures (Independence, Mo., 1969), 27–28. “Book of Mormon Committee Report,” Saints’ Herald 31:545.

[5] Oliver Cowdery to Joseph Smith, Jr., 6 November 1829, “Kirtland Letter Book 1829–1835,” US1C. Royal Skousen, “Piecing Together the Original Manuscript,” BYU Today 46 (May 1992): 18–24. Dean C. Jessee, “The Original Book of Mormon Manuscript,” BYU Studies 10 (1970): 259–78. Howard, Restoration Scriptures, 27.

Subsequent to Jessee’s articles, the LDS Church acquired two additional full leaves of the Original Manuscript. Some fragments of the Original Manuscript are also in private hands. The Printer’s Manuscript was retained by Oliver Cowdery. Just before he died at the home of his brother-in-law David Whitmer in Richmond, Missouri, in 1850, Cowdery gave the manuscript to Whitmer, who kept it for the rest of his life. When he died in 1888, it passed to his grandson George Schweich. In 1901 the manuscript was offered by William F. Benjamin through Samuel Russell to the LDS Church. In a letter to Russell of March 19, 1901, LDS Church president Joseph F. Smith declined to purchase it (photocopy, Samuel Russell Collection, UPB). Finally, in 1903, George Schweich sold the Printer’s Manuscript to the RLDS Church for $2,450.

[6] Years after, Stephen S. Harding, a cousin of Pomery Tucker, Grandin’s foreman, and ironically, later a governor of Utah Territory, claimed to describe the first trial impression of the Book of Mormon title page: Joseph Smith, his father, Cowdery, Harris, Grandin, Tucker, Harding, and some of Grandin’s crew had gathered at the shop for the event. With some ceremony, Tucker struck the page off and passed it to Cowdery who handed it around the group for their inspection, after which Tucker gave the impression to Harding who subsequently gave it to the LDS Church. Thomas Gregg, The Prophet of Palmyra (New York, 1890), 47–53. This impression is now on display at the Museum of Church History and Art in Salt Lake City.

[7] John H. Gilbert, born in New York, April 13, 1802, moved to Palmyra about 1824 and lived there until his death, January 26, 1895. In November 1824 he became Pomery Tucker’s partner in the Wayne Sentinel, and in April 1827 he sold the Sentinel to E. B. Grandin, after which he worked for Grandin as a compositor. He claimed that he did some typesetting each year from the time he came to Palmyra until he was ninety years old. New York census, Wayne County, 1830, p. 41; 1840, p. 209; 1850, p. 23; 1860, p. 795. Gilbert, “Memorandum.” Deseret Evening News, 28 January 1895, 8; 26 May 1906, 1. “The Book of Mormon. Story of the Man Who First Printed It,” The American Bookseller 4 (1877): 617–18. Wayne Sentinel, 3 November 1824, 30 March 1827, 6 April 1827, 13 April 1827.

[8] Gilbert, “Memorandum.” Tucker, Origin, Rise, and Progress, 55–56. Gregg, Prophet of Palmyra, 47–48. Andrew Jenson and Edward Stevenson, Infancy of the Church (Salt Lake City, 1889), 37–38.

[9] Gilbert, “Memorandum.” Tucker, Origin, Rise, and Progress, 55–56. Gregg, Prophet of Palmyra, 47. Jenson and Stevenson, Infancy of the Church, 37–38.

In his “Memorandum” Gilbert says, “The Bible [i.e., Book of Mormon] was printed 16 pages at a time, so that one sheet of paper made two copies of 16 pages each, requiring 2500 sheets of paper for each form of 16 pages. There were 37 forms of 16 pages each,—570 [sic] pages in all.” Louis Crandall, of Provo, Utah, an experienced printer and owner of a hand press, has pointed out to me that Gilbert’s statement likely means that the Book of Mormon was printed by “work and turn.” All sixteen pages of a particular sixteen-page signature were set in one form, the eight pages making up the “a” half of that signature on the left, the other eight pages making up the “b” half of the signature on the right. This form was printed on a full sheet of paper. The sheet was then turned over and the same form was printed again on the other side. Then the sheet was torn in half, producing two identical sixteen-page signatures. This is consistent with the surviving Book of Mormon sheets and with the Smith press now on display at the Museum of Church History and Art.

The LDS Church has a complete 1830 Book of Mormon in uncut, unbound sheets. This is the set retained by J. H. Gilbert and eventually sold by him to Plinney T Sexton, a Palmyra banker. Sexton gave the sheets to his son, Plinney, who offered them to the LDS Church about 1907 for $60,000, which was declined. Upon his death, the set passed to his daughter, who was married to an English duke. When she died, the sheets went to her husband, who subsequently married his maid. This woman inherited the sheets at the duke’s death. Wilford Wood obtained the set from her in Santa Barbara, California, after she had come in contact with an LDS missionary. The LDS Church acquired the sheets from Wood’s family after his death.

[10] Gilbert, “Memorandum.” John H. Gilbert to James T. Cobb, 10 February 1879, microfilm, US1C.

[11] Biographical Sketches, 148–50. Oliver Cowdery to Joseph Smith, Jr., 28 December 1829, “Kirtland Letter Book 1829–1835.”

The 1820 and 1830 censuses show Abner Cole living with his wife and children in Palmyra, his year of birth between 1780 and 1790. He was the son of Southworth Cole, who died in Palmyra, July 16, 1825, and Rucksbe Bryant; and the brother of Dorastus Cole, who died in Palmyra in 1859 at age 66. From February 1832 to November 1834 he published another newspaper in Rochester, the freethought Liberal Advocate, also under the pseudonym O. Dogberry. Eight months after terminating the Liberal Advocate, he died in Rochester, July 13, 1835. New York census: 1820, Ontario County, 331; 1830, Wayne County, 41. Joseph W. Barnes, “Obediah Dogberry: Rochester Freethinker,” Rochester History 36 (1974): 1 -24. Mrs. W. C. Lieb to the Wayne County Historian, 26 May 1973, Wayne County Historian’s Office, Lyons, New York. Wayne Sentinel, 17 July 1835, 3.

[12] Biographical Sketches, 150–51.

[13] Tucker, Origin, Rise, and Progress, 54–55. “Agreement Between Joseph Smith, Jr., and Martin Harris, 16 January 1830,” Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; photocopy, US1C. Dean C. Jessee, “Joseph Knight’s Recollection of Early Mormon History,” BYU Studies 17 (1976): 36–37. Porter, “Study of the Origins,” 88.

[14] Lori Wood and Scott Woodward, “DNA Characterization of Leather Binding the 1830 Edition of the Book of Mormon,” in preparation.

[15] Janet Jenson, “Variations Between Copies of the First Edition of the Book of Mormon,” BYU Studies 13 (1973): 214–22. “Book of Mormon Committee Report,” 545–48.

2

[16] 1. History of the Church 1:259,273. The Philadelphia Album, 31 March 1832, indicates that it had received a copy of the prospectus, and prints lengthy excerpts.

3

[17] History of the Church 1:184–86, 189–90, 217, 221, 229.

[18] Heman C. Smith, ed., “The Book of John Whitmer,” Journal of History 1 (1908): 135. “Journal History,” 27 January 1832.

[19] No copy of this extra has survived, but its text is printed in the Columbia Missouri Intelligencer, 2 June 1832.

[20] History of the Church 1:373–76, 390. Times and Seasons 1:18.

[21] History of the Church 1:334, 409, 418, 448, 465. Oliver Cowdery to Warren A. Cowdery, 30 October 1833; O. Cowdery to Ambrose Palmer, 30 October 1833; O. Cowdery to Elizabeth Ann Cowdery, 1 January 1834; “Cowdery Letterbook,” CSmH.

[22] The apostate Ezra Booth published a series of letters in the Ravenna Ohio Star (October-December 1831) which include extracts from some of Joseph Smith’s revelations. See also, E. D. Howe, Mormonism Unvailed (Painesville, Ohio, 1834), 175–221.

[23] History of the Church 1:316–17.

[24] Messenger and Advocate, 25–26.

4

[25] History of the Church 1:412.

5–6

[26] The Contributor 6 (1884): 6–7. For a discussion of the Law of Consecration see Leonard J. Arrington, et al., Building the City of God (Salt Lake City, 1976).

[27] History of the Church 1:128–29, 131, 147, 178, 192; 4:12, 132. Andrew Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 4 vols. (Salt Lake City, 1901–36), 1:218–22.

8

[28] History of the Church 1:104, 221 -22, 229. Donald Q. Cannon and Lyndon W. Cook, eds., Far West Record (Salt Lake City, 1983), 26–29. Orson Pratt, for example, remarks in The Seer, p. 228, that he had personal copies of the revelations. The LDS Church Historical Department has three small manuscript notebooks which belonged to private individuals and which contain copies of some of the revelations.

[29] David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ (Richmond, Mo., 1887), 53–54.

[30] History of the Church 1:235–37. Cannon and Cook, Far West Record, 30–33.

[31] Mary Cleora Dear, Two Hundred Thirty-Eight Years of the Whitmer Family (Richmond, Mo., 1976). Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:251–52. History of the Church 2:122–26; 3:6–8.

[32] Cannon and Cook, Far West Record, 46. Smith, “The Book of John Whitmer,” 135. History of the Church 1:266. “Journal History,” 30 April 1832.

[33] “Diary of Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner,” 5–6, typescript, UPB.

[34] The Evening and the Morning Star, [56]. History of the Church 1:362.

[35] Mary E. Rollins Lightner to the Editor, 12 February 1904, Deseret Evening News, 20 February 1904, 24. See also, “Diary of Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner.” The copy that Mary Rollins Lightner gave to Franklin D. Richards is now in the DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas.

Mary Rollins Lightner was born April 9, 1818, in Lima, New York, joined the Church in Kirtland in 1830, and moved to Independence in 1831. In 1835 she married a non-Mormon, Adam Lightner, and about five years later they moved to Nauvoo. She was sealed to Joseph Smith in February 1842. Mary and Adam Lightner came to Utah in 1863 and settled in Minersville. She died on December 17, 1913. “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register 10 Dec 1845–7 Feb 1846,” 149, UPB. Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine 17 (1926): 193–205, 250–60. Alvaretta Robinson and Daisy Gillins, eds., They Answered the Call: A History of Minersville, Utah (Minersville, Utah, 1962), A164–65. Historical Record 6 (1887): 234. Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History (New York, 1963), 443–44. “Diary of Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner.”

[36] Statement of John Taylor dictated to Leo Hawkins and George A. Smith, Salt Lake City, 15 April 1858, US1C. See also “Journal History,” 20 July 1833.

This John Taylor, not to be confused with the third president of the Church, was born in Warren County, Kentucky, December 7, 1812, joined the Church in November 1832, came to Independence in April 1833 and worked for Edward Partridge. He moved with the Saints to Far West and then to Nauvoo. Eventually he settled near Ogden, Utah, where he died in 1896. Frank Esshom, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah (Salt Lake City, 1913), 1202. Jesse L. Warner, The Coneto Creek Taylors (Provo, Utah, 1973). In the Circuit Court of the United States, Western District of Missouri. . . The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Complainant, vs. The Church of Christ at Independence . . . Complainant’s Abstract of Pleading and Evidence (Lamoni, Iowa, 1893), 188–94.

[37] Saints’Herald 31:563. History of the Church 1:364.

[38] Richard Saunders has observed that the first of on the title page of the Book of Commandments, with the border on the title page, is not centered, while this word is centered on the title page without the border. He conjectures that the state with border is the earlier, and the border was removed when the position of the o/was corrected.

The RLDS Church has a copy of the Book of Commandments, formerly owned by David Whitmer and later by John J. Snyder, that has a title page with a border of point-topoint diamonds. But this title page was printed later to replace the missing original title page.

9–10

[39] 1. O. Cowdery to S. W. Denton, 10 February 1834, “Cowdery Letterbook.” History of the Church 1:483–88.

[40] O. Cowdery to W. W. Phelps and J. Whitmer, 21 January 1834, “Cowdery Letterbook.”

[41] Cannon and Cook, Far West Record, 65–66.

[42] “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register,” 10. History of the Church 1:47, 84, 173, 181, 191; 2:122–26, 523; 4:12. Cannon and Cook, Far West Record, 70–73, 123. Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 2:773–75.

[43] John Corrill, A Brief History of the Church of Christ (St. Louis, 1839). Cannon and Cook, Far West Record, 7, 113, 117, 121–24. History of the Church 3:65–66, 209–10, 232, 284. Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:241–42. Dean C. Jessee, ed., The Papers of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City, 1989), 1:480–81. Woodland Cemetery Records (John Corrill), Quincy, Illinois.

14

[44] For a discussion of the events surrounding Zion’s Camp, see Peter Crawley and Richard L. Anderson, “The Political and Social Realities of Zion’s Camp,” BYU Studies 14 (1974): 406–20. For the Camp’s day-by-day journal, see History of the Church 2:61–134.

[45] Crawley and Anderson, “The Political and Social Realities,” 417–20.

15

[46] Cannon and Cook, Far West Record, 70–73. History of the Church 2:122–26.

[47] Cannon and Cook, Far West Record, 7. History of the Church 2:524; 4:233; 5:427. Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:235–36.

[48] “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register,” 12. “Early Church Information File,” microfilm, UPB. Cannon and Cook, Far West Record, 65, 70, 121–23. Deseret Evening News, 10 February 1869, 3. Esshom, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, 796–97. Lydia Walker Forsgren, History of Box Elder County (N.p., 1937), 8–10. Box Elder Lore of the Nineteenth Century (Brigham City, Utah, 1951), 49–55. Millennial Star 8:60; 10:281. “Utah Immigration Card Index 1847–68,” microfilm, UPB.

[49] “Early Church Information File.” “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register,” Al. Cannon and Cook, Far West Record, 6–7, 39, 42, 49–50, 57, 65, 70, 121–23, 141, 160. History of the Church 2:124,523. “Journal History,” 29 November 1839 (p. 8), 14 May 1843, 18 November 1845, II October 1849. 1840 Iowa census, Lee County, 391. Times and Seasons 2:498. History of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Independence, Mo., 1951), 3:199, 238, 252, 274, 291. Robert Barnes, “A Chronological Analysis of the Isaac Beebe Family and its Supposed Members, Dates and Locations Oct. 1984,” microfilm of typescript, US1C. Henderson Farm Creek Cemetery Records (Calvin Beebe), City Clerk’s Office, Glenwood, Iowa.

16

[50] History of the Church 1:409.

Frederick Granger Williams (1787–1842), a physician, was born in Suffield, Hartford County, Connecticut, and joined the Church in the fall of 1830 in Rutland, where he owned a large farm. He was ordained a counselor to Joseph Smith in March 1833. In November 1837 he was dropped from the first presidency and eventually excommunicated. He returned to fellowship at the April 1840 conference in Nauvoo, and two and a half years later he died in Quincy, Illinois. F. G. Williams, “Frederick Granger Williams of the First Presidency of the Church,” BYU Studies 12 (1972): 243–61.

[51] History of the Church 2:176 n.

[52] “Diary of W. W. Phelps, 1835,” US1C.

[53] Messenger and Advocate, 458, 569.

[54] “Early Church Information File.” Carl C. Curtis, “Cowdery Family Notes,” photocopy, UPB. Milton V. Backman, Jr., A Profile of Latter-day Saints of Kirtland, Ohio and Members ofZions Camp 1830–1839 (Provo, Utah, 1982), 19. Ancestral File, UPB. International Genealogical Index, UPB.

[55] Messenger and Advocate, 571–74. Elders’Journal, 27, 59.

[56] William Marks (1792–1872) was born in Rutland, Vermont, and converted to Mormonism in New York about 1835. He was called to the Kirtland high council in September 1837, as president of the Kirtland stake the following year, and as president of the Nauvoo stake in 1839. He was a Nauvoo alderman, a regent of the University of Nauvoo, and a member of the Council of Fifty. After the death of Joseph Smith he followed James J. Strang, served for a time as one of Strang’s counselors, and then aligned himself with Charles B. Thompson. He joined the Reorganization at its beginning in 1859, and in 1863 he became a counselor to Joseph Smith III, which position he held until his death. History of the Reorganized Church 3:722–26. Saints’ Herald 19:336–37. Lyndon W. Cook, The Revelations of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City, 1985), 230–31.

[57] W. W. Phelps to Sally Phelps, 14 November 1835, in Bruce A. Van Orden, ed., “Writing to Zion: The William W Phelps Kirtland Letters (1835–1836),” BYU Studies 33 (1993): 568.

[58] Elders’Journal, 15.

17

[59] See also O. Cowdery to N. K. Whitney, 4 February 1835, Whitney MSS, UPB.

[60] History of the Church 1:364. For an analysis of the changes in the various manuscript and printed versions of the revelations see Robert J. Woodford, “The Historical Development of the Doctrine and Covenants,” 3 vols. (Ph.D. diss., Brigham Young University, 1974).

18

[61] 0. Cowdery to H. Kingsbury, 29 November 1833, “Cowdery Letterbook.”

[62] History of the Church 1:450–51.

[63] See Painesville Telegraph, 10, 17, 24 October 1834.

[64] The Spectator of April 4 suggests that the third extra mainly responded to an article in the Cleveland Whig and quotes the extra that democracy “will be a barrier in their [Whig newspaper editors] way, and may it remain and grow firmer until the United States of America shall again become a wilderness.”

[65] These guesses are consistent with no. 19 issuing on August 7, nos. 27–28 on October 2 and 9, no. 36 on December 2, and no. 42 on January 13, 1836.

[66] Leonard J. Arrington, ed., “Oliver Cowdery’s Kirtland, Ohio ‘Sketch Book’,” BYU Studies 12 (1972): 420–22.

[67] History of the Church 2:227. O. Cowdery to John A. Bryan, 15 October 1835; O. Cowdery to William Kennon, 15 October 1835; O. Cowdery to R. M. Johnson, 30 October 1835; O. Cowdery to I. M. Henderson, 2 November 1835; “Cowdery Letterbook.” Arrington, “Oliver Cowdery’s Kirtland, Ohio, ‘Sketch Book’,” 420–22. “Diary of W. W. Phelps, 1835.”

21

[68] 1. Parley P. Pratt, The Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt (New York, 1874), 138–40. History of the Church 2:222–26, 235, 238, 283.

[69] Copyright Records of Massachusetts, January 1835-December 1835 (Clerk’s Records), vol. 10, p. 212, in Roger W. Harris, “Copyright Entries Works by and About the Mormons, 1829–1870,” photocopy, UPB.

22

[70] History of the Church 2:165, 227,434. “Diary of W. W. Phelps, 1835.” D&C 92. W. W. Phelps to Sally Phelps, 16 September 1835, in Van Orden, “Writing to Zion,” 566.

[71] Copyright Record, Clerks Office, U.S. District Court, Ohio District, in Harris, “Copyright Entries.” The copy of the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants now in the Library of Congress bears the inscription, “Deposited Oct 14th 1835.”

[72] W. W. Phelps to Sally Phelps, 16 September 1835, in Van Orden, “Writing to Zion,” 566. “Hyrum Smith’s 1835 Day Book,” 14, UPB.

[73] History of the Church 2:434.

[74] David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ (Richmond, Mo., 1887), 51.

[75] Alan J. Phipps, “The Lectures on Faith: An Authorship Study” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1977).

[76] For an analysis of the changes in the various manuscript and printed versions of the revelations, see Robert J. Woodford, “The Historical Development of the Doctrine and Covenants,” 3 vols. (Ph.D. diss., Brigham Young University, 1974).

23

[77] History of the Church 1:270. “Journal History,” 30 April 1832. Cannon and Cook, Far West Record, 46. For a biography of Emma Hale Smith (1804–79), who married Joseph Smith in 1827, see Linda K. Newell and Valeen T Avery, Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith (Garden City, N.Y, 1984).

[78] W. W. Phelps to Sally Phelps, 11 September 1835, in Van Orden, “Writing to Zion,” 563.

[79] History of the Church 2:273.

[80] W. W. Phelps to Sally Phelps, 14 November 1835, in Van Orden, “Writing to Zion,” 568.

[81] Helen Hanks Macare, “The Singing Saints: A Study of the Mormon Hymnal, 1835–1950” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1961), 128; and “A Comprehensive List of Hymns Appearing in Official Hymnals of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1835–1950,” accompanying Macare’s dissertation. See also, Michael Hicks, Mormonism and Music: A History (Urbana and Chicago, 1989); and Mary Dennis Poultcr, “The First Ten Years of Latter Day Saint Hymnody: A Study of Emma Smith’s 1835 and Little and Gardner’s 1844 Hymnals” (master’s thesis, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, 1995).

The question of authorship is complicated by the fact that a number of the hymns sometimes attributed to W. W. Phelps are modifications of earlier hymns. Poulter says, for example, “Forty-one of the hymns [in the 1835 hymnalj are either written or abridged by him.” Poulter, “The First Ten Years of Latter Day Saint Hymnody,” 16.

25

[82] Richard P. Howard, Restoration Scriptures (Independence, Mo., 1969), 84ff. I am grateful to Richard P. Howard for detailed comparisons of the manuscripts with the broadside. For a discussion of Joseph Smith’s revision of the Bible, see Howard, Restoration Scriptures, and Robert J. Matthews, “A Plainer Translation”: Joseph Smith’s Translation of the Bible; A History and Commentary (Provo, Utah, 1975).

26

[83] Arrington, “Oliver Cowdery’s Kirtland, Ohio ‘Sketch Book’,” 426. Journal of Discourses 11:9. History of the Church 2:410–28.

Warren Parrish (1803–87) joined the Church in 1833, marched with Zion’s Camp the following year, and was picked for the First Quorum of Seventy in February 1835. He was Joseph Smith’s clerk and treasurer of the Kirtland Safety Society. In 1837 he withdrew from the Church and joined a group of hostile dissenters. History of the Church 2:184, 203, 243, 250, 252, 285, 293,484–86,489, 528. Dean C. Jessee, ed., The Papers of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City, 1992), 2:577.

27

[84] History of the Church 2:180–208, 390–91, 442–44.

[85] History of the Church 2:183–87, 203–4. Backman, A Profile of Latter-day Saints of Kirtland, Ohio.

28

[86] History of the Church 2:318, 321, 325–26, 355–56, 363, 368, 376–77, 382–86, 390–91, 393–402, 405–9, 429. LeRoi C. Snow, “Who Was Professor Joshua Seixas?” Improvement Era, February 1936, 67–71.

[87] Snow, “Who Was Professor Joshua Seixas?” 67–71. Malcolm H. Stern, First American Jewish Families (Cincinnati and Waltham, 1978), 264. International Genealogical Index, UPB.

29

[88] Messenger and Advocate, 353–61. History of the Church 2:448–62.

Biographical sketches of Atchison and Doniphan are in Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. “Atchison, David Rice” and “Doniphan, Alexander William.”

John Thornton (1786–1847), A. W. Doniphan’s father-in-law, was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, came to Missouri from Kentucky in 1817, and moved to Clay in 1820, where he lived until his death. He was appointed judge of the county court in 1822, commissioned colonel in the state militia in 1824, and served in the state legislature 1824–34, 1836–38, as speaker of the house 1828–32. In June 1834 Governor Dunklin appointed him aide-de-camp to the state commander-in-chief to negotiate with the Mormons and non-Mormons after the expulsion from Jackson. The United States Biographical Dictionary. . . Missouri Volume (New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City, 1878), 602–6. History of the Church 2:84–87.

Peter Rogers is listed in the 1840 Missouri census in Clay County (p. 23), his age between 50 and 60.

Andrew Robertson (1796–1871) was born in North Carolina, served in the War of 1812, moved to Clay in 1820, and lived there until his death. He helped lay out the town of Liberty in 1822, served that year on the first grand jury, and served a term in the state legislature, 1831–32. Nadine Hodges, comp., “Clay County, Missouri, Records ‘Old Men of Clay County in 1870’ and Patrons of Clay County Atlas of 1877,” 11–12, typescript, Clay County Archives and Historical Library, Liberty, Mo. History of Clay and Platte Counties, Missouri (St. Louis, Mo., 1885), 106, 413.

James T. V. Thompson (1797–1872) was also born in North Carolina, moved to Clay County in 1826, served as a justice of the county court 1828–33, and in the state senate 1833–42 and 1858–61. He was a Democratic presidential elector in 1844, 1848, and 1860, and helped found William Jewell College and several other schools. The United States Biographical Dictionary, 324–27. “United Daughters of the Confederacy Record of Missouri Confederate Veterans: J. T. V. Thompson”; “Portrait Listing: Judge James Turner Vance Thompson”; Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri, Columbia. Hodges, “Clay County, Missouri, Records,” 8.

William T. Wood (1809-?) was born in Mercer County, Kentucky, licensed as a lawyer in 1828, and moved to Clay County the following year. He was appointed clerk of the county court in 1830 and circuit attorney about 1835, and served a term in the state legislature. He moved to Lexington, Missouri, in 1845 where he served as circuit court judge. The United States Biographical Dictionary, 232–34.

Woodson J. Moss was elected to the state legislature from Clay County in 1832. The 1840 Missouri census lists him in Clay County (p. 21), his age between 30 and 40. History of Clay and Platte Counties, 121.

James M. Hughes (1801–61) was born in Bourbon County, Kentucky, and came to Liberty about 1822, where he practiced law and engaged in the mercantile business. In 1838 he was elected to the state legislature and in 1842 to the U.S. House of Representatives. He moved to St. Louis in 1855 and engaged in banking. He died at Jefferson City. Floyd C. Shoemaker, Missouri and Missourians (Chicago, 1943), 1:433. History of Clay and Platte Counties, 100,288,568,761.

30

[89] History of the Church 2:463, 467, 494. Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, 141–74. Millennial Star 2:49–53; 26:791–92.

[90] History of the Church 2:489–95, 498–99. Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, 183. “Diary of Joseph Fielding,” 4–6, mimeographed, UPB. Stanley B. Kimball, ed., On the Potter’s Wheel: The Diaries of Heber C. Kimball (Salt Lake City, 1987), 3–7. Journal of Heber C. Kimball (Nauvoo, 1840), 9–15. James B. Allen, Ronald K. Esplin, and David J. Whittaker, Men With a Mission 1837–1841: The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the British Isles (Salt Lake City, 1992), 20–53.

[91] Heber C. Kimball to Vilate Kimball, New York, 27–[29] June 1837, microfilm, US1C. Journal of Heber C. Kimball, 12. Cf. History of the Church 2:495; 4:314.

31–32

[92] Edward Irving (1792–1834), a Scottish church divine, founded the Irvingite or Holy Catholic Apostolic Church in 1832, which promoted an apocalyptic millenarianism and the restoration of the apostolic gifts of prophecy and healing. Encyclopaedia Britannica (Cambridge, 1910), 14:854–55. Emile Guers, Irvingism and Mormonism Tested by Scripture (London, 1854).

[93] Typed extracts from the Toronto Constitution, 21 September 1836, Pratt MSS, US1C. Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, 173–80.

33–34

[94] History of the Church 2:467–68, 470–72. Marvin S. Hill, C. Keith Rooker, and Larry T Wimmer, “The Kirtland Economy Revisited: A Market Critique of Sectarian Economics,” BYU Studies 17 (1977): 391–475. See also R. Kent Fielding, “The Mormon Economy in Kirtland, Ohio,” Utah Historical Quarterly 27 (1959): 331–56; and Max H. Parkin, “The Nature and Cause of Internal and External Conflict of the Mormons in Ohio Between 1830 and 1838” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1966), 213–25.

35

[95] History of the Church 1:363. The Evening and the Morning Star, 109.

[96] The Return 1:115; 2:258.

[97] Saints’ Herald 33:778.

[98] Howard, Restoration Scriptures, 41–49.

[99] For a detailed discussion of these changes, see Stanley R. Larson, “A Study of Some Textual Variations in the Book of Mormon Comparing the Original and the Printer’s Manuscripts and the 1830, the 1837, and the 1840 Editions” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1974). See also, Hugh G. Stocks, “The Book of Mormon, 1830–1879: A Publishing History” (master’s thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 1979).

[100] “Early Church Information File,” microfilm, UPB. History of the Church 2:490, 494,498,505,528; 3:336. Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, 177, 183. “Diary of Joseph Fielding,” 5–6, 31. Kimball, On the Potter’s Wheel, 6–7, 18. Orson Hyde to Marinda Hyde, 14 September 1837, in Elders’ Journal, 19–22. Orson F Whitney, Life of Heber C. Kimball (Salt Lake City, 1888), 174. Fielding claimed that Goodson subsequently burned between 200 and 300 copies of the Book of Mormon.

36

[101] “Diary of Joseph Fielding,” 11, 26.

37

[102] History of the Church 2:513. For a comprehensive discussion of the Kirtland financial crisis see Hill, Rooker, and Wimmer, “The Kirtland Economy Revisited.”

[103] History of the Church 2:509; 4:12; 5:119; 7:297. Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:222–27.

[104] “Journal History,” 10 February 1832. History of the Church 2:205, 509; 3:38; 4:16, 399; 7:481–82. George D. Smith, ed., An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton (Salt Lake City, 1991), 126–30. Stella C. Shurtleff and Brent C. Cahoon, Reynolds Cahoon and His Stalwart Sons (Salt Lake City, 1960). Ancestral File, UPB.

[105] History of the Church 2:354, 365–66, 509; 4:12, 287; 5:84. “Biographies of Vinson Knight and Abigale Meade McBride and Copies of Letters Obtained from a Descendant of Rispah Lee Knight,” typescript, UPB. “Early Church Information File.”

38

[106] Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, 184. Elders ‘Journal, 8–9. “Journal History,” 3 October 1837, 1–3. The book is advertised at 37½¢ on the back wrapper of the first issue of Mormonism Unveiled: Zion’s Watchman Unmasked (item 45).

A copyright for Voice of Warning was entered in the Clerk’s Office of the Southern District of New York on August 26, 1837. Copyright Records of New York Southern District, October 1836-December 1838, vol. 141, p. 212, no. 151, in Roger W. Harris, “Copyright Pantries Works by and About the Mormons, 1829–1870,” photocopy, UPB.

Elijah Fordham was born in 1798 in New York City, converted to Mormonism in 1833, marched with Zion’s Camp, was called into the Second Quorum of Seventy, crossed the plains to Utah in 1850, and died in Wellsville, September 9, 1879. “Journal History,” 9 September 1879, 2.

39

[107] History of the Church 4:393.

[108] The second number remarks about the delay: Elders’ Journal, 29. History of the Church 2:528; 3:1–3, 8.

[109] History of the Church 4:393–99. Josephine D. Rhodehamel and Raymund F Wood, Ina Coolbrith: Librarian and Laureate of California (Provo, Utah, 1973).

[110] History of the Church 2:475. Cannon and Cook, Far West Record, 168.

[111] E. H. Groves, “An Account of the Life of Elisha Hurd Groves,” 3–4, US1C. John Whitmer to Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer, 29 August 1837, CtY; photocopy, UPB. Cannon and Cook, Ear West Record, 181–82, 186, 189–90.

[112] Alanson Ripley was born in New York, January 8, 1798, marched with Zion’s Camp, was ordained a seventy in July 1838, helped move the poor out of Missouri in 1839, and was a bishop in Iowa, 1839–41. He was elected Nauvoo surveyor, served as the sergeant major in the Nauvoo Legion, and participated in the Nauvoo Temple in January 1846. In 1847–48 he lived near Kanesville, Iowa, and by 1850 he had moved to Pike County, Illinois. “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register 10 Dec 1845–7 Feb 1846,” 190, UPB. “Early Church Information File.” History of the Church 2:184; 3:252, 261–62; 4:12, 42, 308, 341–42; 5:270, 483; 6:495. Cannon and Cook, Far West Record, 201. “Journal History,” 4 May 1844, 24 June 1847 (p. 2), 20 January 1848 (p. 13). Jessee, The Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:585–86.

40–43

[113] “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register,” 80. “A Sketch of the Life of Joel Hills Johnson (Written by Himself),” typescript, ULA. The Twelve Apostles (Kirtland? 1836?). Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 4:444. F. Esshom, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah (Salt Lake City, 1913), 970. A Voice from the Mountains: Life and Works of Joel Hills Johnson (Mesa, Arizona, 1982).

[114] I am grateful to Richard Saunders for bringing these broadsides to my attention.

45–47

[115] For biographical sketches of Sunderland, see Dictionary of American Biography and National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, s.v. “Sunderland, La Roy.”

[116] Times and Seasons 2:502, 518, 534.

48

[117] History of the Church 3:92.

[118] “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register,” 43. Deseret Evening News, 15 September 1870, 3. Esshom, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, 1114.

49

[119] Elders ‘Journal, 60. The Return 1:170–71. Winifred Gregory, American Newspapers 1821–1936 (New York, 1967) lists no file of the Far West for this period.

[120] J. M. Grant, A Collection of Facts, Relative to the Course Taken by Elder Sidney Rigdon (Philadelphia, 1844), 11. See also Times and Seasons 5:667.

[121] The Return 1:170–71.

50

[122] Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, 186, 245. “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register,” 101. “Early Church Information File.” “Journal History,” 17 March, 18 April 1839 (p. 3); 19 May 1852 (p. 1); 6 October 1857; 31 May 1873. Provo Territorial Enquirer, 1 October 1881, 3.

[123] Helen Hanks Macare, “The Singing Saints: A Study of the Mormon Hymnal, 1835–1950” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1961), 140–44. See also “A Comprehensive List of Hymns Appearing in Official Hymnals of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1835–1950,” accompanying Macare’s dissertation.

[124] History of the Church 4:14, 105–6.

51

[125] “Journal History,” 13 August 1831 (p. 2); 19 November 1834; 28 August 1838; 9 March, 5 October, 29 November 1839 (p. 12). Memorial of Ephraim Owen. History of the Church 3:64, 275.

[126] History of the Church 3:240–41.

52

[127] For a discussion of the various texts of “The Vision” and an analysis of the differences, see Robert J. Woodford, “The Historical Development of the Doctrine and Covenants,” 3 vols. (Ph.D. diss., Brigham Young University, 1974), 2:934–72.

[128] History of the Church 2:492, 505. Orson F. Whitney, Life of Heber C Kimball (Salt Lake City, 1888), 175.

53

[129] 1. History of the Church 2:241, 285; 4:550. Times and Seasons 1:77–78. The Twelve Apostles (Kirtland? 1836?). Millennial Star 26:119. Journal of Discourses 1:81–87. Dale Morgan, A Bibliography of the Churches of the Dispersion (Salt Lake City, 1953), 115–16, 158–61. Richard L. Saunders, “Francis Gladden Bishop and Gladdenism: A Study in the Culture of a Mormon Dissenter and His Movement” (master’s thesis, Utah State University, 1989).

[130] Times and Seasons 1:78.

[131] Mary Barrow Owen, Old Salem North Carolina (Winston-Salem, 1946), 118.

55–56

[132] Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 2:633–36. Messenger and Advocate, 575. Cannon and Cook, Far West Record, 160, 203. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 129–30.

[133] History of the Church 3:347–48.

[134] Franklin D. Richards to Phineas and Wealthy Richards, 5 August 1839, UPB.

[135] History of the Church 3:302, 344–45.

[136] History of the Church 3:238–40.

Theodore Turley was born in Birmingham, England, April 10, 1801, immigrated to Canada and converted to Mormonism there in 1837. He moved to Kirtland and then to Missouri in 1838, labored in England as a missionary with the Twelve in 1840, became a member of the Council of Fifty in 1845, made the trek to Utah in 1849, and settled in San Bernardino in the early 1850s, where he was school commissioner and city treasurer. He moved back to Utah in 1857, and died at Beaver, August 12, 1871. “Autobiography of Theodore Turley,” typescript, UPB. Esshom, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, 1218. Kate B. Carter, Our Pioneer Heritage (Salt Lake City, 1961), 4:492. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 158. “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register,” 41. Ancestral File, UPB.

George Washington Harris was born on April 1, 1780, in Lanesborough, Massachusetts. In the fall of 1834, at Terre Haute, Orson Pratt baptized him and his wife, Lucinda, the widow of William Morgan who was murdered by the Masons. Harris was a member of the Far West high council, a city councilman and a member of the high council in Nauvoo, and a bishop and high councilman at Council Bluffs. He died near Council Bluffs sometime between 1857 and 1860. “Early Church Information File.” “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register,” 5. Millennial Star 27:87. “Journal History,” 21 August 1834, 9 September 1842, 17 July 1846 (p. 1), 7 October 1848 (p. 4), 7 October 1860 (p. 6). Cannon and Cook, Far West Record, 145, 160, 203, 223, 226–29. Times and Seasons 3:638, 5:566. “Journal of Wandle Mace,” 235, 244–46, typescript, UPB.

John Matthias Burk was born in Fairfield, Herkimer County, New York, February 4, 1793, came to Kirtland, Ohio, in the early 1820s, and was baptized into the Church in October 1830. He moved to Clay County in 1834 and was living in Far West when the Missouri militia captured the town. In October 1839 he was called to the high council in Lee County, Iowa, and nine years later he crossed the plains to Utah. He died in Ogden, June 2, 1853. “Early Church Information File.” “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register,” 47. “Journal History,” 25 October, 31 December 1831 (p. 5); 30 June 1834. History of the Church 4:12, 56. Susan Easton Black, Membership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 1830–1848 (Provo, Utah, 1989), 7:589–92. Kate B. Carter, Heart Throbs of the West (Salt Lake City, 1948), 9:476.

For a sketch of John Murdock see Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 2:362–64.

[137] For a biographical sketch of Lilburn W. Boggs, see Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. “Boggs, Lillburn W.” For sketches of Joseph Young, Caleb Baldwin, and Alexander McRae, see Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:187–88; 2:589–90; 1:620.

John B. Clark (1802–85), was a major-general in the Missouri militia and the commander of the troops who engaged the Mormons in northern Missouri in the fall of 1838. A native of Kentucky, he studied law and was admitted to the bar there in 1824, and moved that year to Fayette, Missouri. He was a major during the Mexican War and served in the Missouri legislature, 1850–51. In 1857 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, serving until the outbreak of the Civil War. During the war he was a senator from Missouri in the first Confederate Congress and a brigadier-general in the Confederate army. After the war he continued to practice law, until his death at Fayette. History of the Church 3:175, 200–9. Floyd C. Shoemaker, Missouri and Missourians (Chicago, 1943), 1:647–48.

57

[138] The Return 2:257’. Times and Seasons 1:15.

58

[139] Scott G. Kenney, ed., Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 1833–1898 Typescript (Midvale, Utah, 1983), 1:349–53, 357–59. B. H. Roberts, The Life of John Taylor (Salt Lake City, 1892), 67–69. Times and Seasons 2:312.

59

[140] Parley Pratt to Mary Ann Pratt, 8 June 1839, USIC. Pratt, History of the Late Persecution, 66–68.

[141] Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, 325–28. Millennial Star 1:49–52. Times and Seasons 1:43; 4:162. Copyright Records, Michigan, May 1824-June 1855, vol. 94, no. 21, in Harris, “Copyright Entries.”

60

[142] The Return 2:257. History of the Church 4:398.

[143] “Early Church Information File.” The Return 1:1–2, 57–58, 74–76; 2:241–44, 257–58, 324–25, 346–47. Morgan, A Bibliography of the Churches of the Dispersion, 168–69.

[144] The Return 2:257–58. History of the Church 4:398–99. Richard P. Howard, “The Times and Seasons Building Number Two,” Saints’ Herald 118 (November 1971): 48.

[145] History of the Church 4:239. Times and Seasons 2:256.

[146] Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:253–54.

[147] “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register,” 56. “Early Church Information File.” “Journal History,” 5 October, 20 November 1841; 1 January, 22 July, 29 August, 3 September 1842; 1 July 1843; 3 April, 12 June 1844; 22 January 1847 (p. 1). Times and Seasons 3:638, 653, 663, 666.

[148] Millennial Star 26:104–5, 119. The Return 2:287, 324–25, 346. History of the Church 4:503, 513–14. “The Joseph Lee Robinson Journal,” 27, mimeographed, UPB. Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 2:153 et passim.

[149] Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 2:191–92, 194. History of the Church 5:198–99,366–68; 6:185.

[150] Times and Seasons 3:615. Howard, “The Times and Seasons Building Number Two.” Nauvoo Neighbor, 21 May 1845. Dean C. Jessee, ed., “The John Taylor Nauvoo Journal,” BYU Studies 23 (summer 1983): 47–48.

[151] Some copies of the title page to vol. 4 have the word compendium spelled ocmpendium. Every copy examined of vol. 6 has the word upbuilding on its title page spelled upb Hiding.

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[152] 1. Messenger and Advocate, 446–47. “Journal History,” 13 February 1838, 18 October 1840, 14 March 1841, 15 April 1844. Times and Seasons 2:219–20; 5:505. “Record of the Seventies, Book A (2nd Quorum),” 20, USIC. “Early Church Information File.” History of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Independence, 1951), 3:41–42, 44. John J. Hajicek, ed., Chronicles of Voree 1844–1849 (Burlington, Wise, 1992), 95, 97, 110, 137, 151, 156–57. Zion’s Reveille, 12 August 1847. Gospel Herald, 10 February, 24 August 1848; 30 May 1850. Saints’Herald 18:347.

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[153] History of the Church 4:21–22. P. P. Pratt, Voice of Warning (Manchester, England, 1841), iii. Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, 328–33. Times and Seasons 4:162–63. Millennial Star 1:49–52. Parley Pratt to Mary Ann Pratt, 6 April 1840, photocopy, UPB.

Lucian Rose Foster was born in New Marlboro, Massachusetts, in November 1806. He led the New York branch until August 1843, when he was released in order to move to Nauvoo, where he established himself as a daguerreotyper. On March 1, 1845, he was taken into the Council of Fifty, but eighteen months later he was cut off from the Church, apparently because he had joined James J. Strang. “Early Church Information File.” “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register,” 8. “Journal History,” 15 April, 29 November 1841; 19 October 1842; 17 May 1844; 1 February, 7 April, 27 December 1845; 13 September 1846 (p. 3). History of the Church 5:552. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 158. Voree Herald, August (p. 2), September (p. 3) 1846. Gospel Herald, 6 September (p. 116), 15 November (pp. 182–83) 1849.

[154] Pratt, Voice of Warning, iii. Times and Seasons 4:162–63.

[155] Scott H. Faulring, ed., An American Prophets Record: The Diaries and Journals of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City, 1989), 239. History of the Church 4:7.

[156] See the back wrappers of the Star for July-November 1840, January-March 1841. Millennial Star 2:32. E. Snow and B. Winchester, An Address to the Citizens of Salem and Vicinity (Salem, Mass., 1841), 8.

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[157] Orson Pratt to Sarah M. Pratt, 6 January 1840, Times and Seasons 1:61.

[158] See the back wrappers of the Star for July-November 1840, January-March 1841. Millennial Star 2:32, 96. P. Pratt, Truth Defended, or a Reply to the “Preston Chronicle, “ and to Mr. J.B. Rollo (Manchester, England, 1841), 8. See also the back wrappers of Orson Hyde, A Voice from Jerusalem (Liverpool, England, 1842) and Letters by Oliver Cowdery to W. W. Phelps (Liverpool, England, 1844).

[159] Times and Seasons 2:502, 518, 534. Orson Pratt, An Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions (New York, 1842), back wrapper. See also The Prophet, 22 June–13 July 1844. New-York Messenger, 144.

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[160] Copyright Records, Southern District of New York, 1838–40, vol. 142, p. 370, no. 345, in Harris, “Copyright Entries.”

[161] See the back wrappers of the Star for July-November 1840, January–March 1841. Millennial Star 2:32. P. Pratt, Truth Defended, 8. Hyde, A Voice from Jerusalem, back wrapper. Times and Seasons 2:502, 518, 534. O. Pratt, An Interesting Account, back wrapper. New-York Messenger, 6, 144.

65

[162] Elden J. Watson, ed., The Orson Pratt Journals (Salt Lake City, 1975), 85, 92–94. Times and Seasons 1:43–44; 2:313. Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 1:365–69.

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[163] Appeal to the American People, 2. History of the Church 4:19.

[164] Times and Seasons 1:71–73, 112, 128, 144, 159–60. For a biographical sketch of G. W. Robinson, see Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:252–53.

[165] History of the Church 4:41.

[166] David Lewis was born in Simpson County, Kentucky, April 10, 1814, joined the Church there in 1835, and moved to Caldwell County, Missouri, two years later. He was at Haun’s Mill at the time of the massacre and narrowly missed injury, while his brother Benjamin was killed and his brother Tarlton was severely wounded. He settled in Nauvoo, and in 1850 crossed the plains to Utah. Three years later he was called as a missionary to the Indians in southern Utah and served there until his death at Parowan, September 2, 1855. “Diary of David Lewis,” photocopy, ULA. “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register,” 160. Deseret News 5:232. F. Esshom, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah (Salt Lake City, 1913), 1004.

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[167] History of the Church 5:420–21. Nauvoo Neighbor, 14 June 1843, 3. Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:253.

[168] History of the Church 4:13, 19, 24, 39–44, 47, 77–88. Times and Seasons 1:61. Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, 328–30. Senate Judiciary Committee, 26th Cong., 1 st sess., 1840, S. Doc. 247. The memorial is in History of the Church 4:24–38. The docketed manuscript draft of it, dated January 27, 1840, is in the National Archives; microfilm 298 #20, UPB.

[169] History of the Church 4:77–80. Times and Seasons 1:71. New York Christian Advocate and Journal, 6 March 1840, 115.

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[170] Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, 331–32. Millennial Star 25:696, 711. George A. Smith to John Smith, 2 [and 5] March 1840, US1C.

[171] Macare, “The Singing Saints,” 172–73.

[172] “Early Church Information File.” Lyndon W. Cook and Milton V. Backman, Jr., eds., Kirtland Elders’ Quorum Record 1836–1841 (Provo, Utah, 1985). History of the Church 2:526; 3:93; 4:10. Millennial Star 2:89–93; 8:103. Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 4:314.

70–71

[173] Times and Seasons 1:119–21. James B. Allen and Thomas G. Alexander, eds., Manchester Mormons: The Journal of William Clayton 1840 to 1842 (Santa Barbara and Salt Lake City, 1974), 143–47, 149, 153, 155. Bid to Print the Millennial Star from W. R. Thomas, 13 May 1840, Brigham Young Papers, US1C.

[174] Millennial Star 2:189; 25:760.

[175] “Early Church Information File.” Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 4:320. Millennial Star 1:303; 3:29, 110, 123–25; 4:94; 7:4, 167–70; 8:103; 9:96. Kathryn Chesworth, “Thomas Ward: Early Mormon Convert Through the Millennial Years,” unpublished paper, 1984, in the author’s possession.

[176] Millennial Star 4:199; 26:167. Thomas Ward and Hiram Clark to the First Presidency, 1 March 1843; Ward and Clark to the First Presidency, 3 October 1843; Reuben Hedlock to the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve, 4 October 1843; Hedlock to W. Richards, the First Presidency, and the Twelve, 16 October 1843; Hedlock to Joseph Smith and the Twelve, 10 January 1844; Hedlock to the Twelve, 18 November 1844; all in “Manuscript History of the British Mission,” US1C. History of the Church 5:194; 6:44–45, 65–66, 330, 351.

In December 1841 Parley Pratt announced in the Star that he would discontinue the magazine at the close of the second volume because of so few subscriptions. But four months later he decided against this because of the response of the British Saints. Millennial Star 2:124, 189.

[177] Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:337–39.

[178] Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:718–19; 4:318, 332. Andrew Jenson, Church Chronology (Salt Lake City, 1914), 26 November 1909.

[179] Andrew Jenson, Encyclopedic History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City, 1941), 506–8.

James Linforth was born in Birmingham, England, September 1, 1827, and joined the Church in 1842. In 1850 he began writing for the Millennial Star, and the following year he published his The Rev. C. W. Lawrence’s “Few Words from a Pastor to His People on the Subject of the Latter-day Saints,” Replied to and Refuted. Four years later he edited the famous Route from Liverpool to Great Salt Lake Valley. He immigrated to Utah in 1856, and about a year later he moved to California, apparently in a disaffected state of mind. He died in San Francisco, January 16, 1899. Fawn M. Brodie, ed., Route from Liverpool to Great Salt Lake Valley (Cambridge, Mass., 1962), xxvi–xxviii. Millennial Star 18:504; 19:27–28, 255; 21:478–79. Deseret Evening News, 21 January 1899, 8.

Cyrus H. Wheelock was born in Henderson, New York, February 28, 1813, converted to Mormonism in 1839, and during the next few years labored as a missionary in New England and the eastern states. Between 1846 and 1856 he served three missions in England, as counselor to F. D. Richards in the presidency of the British Mission, 1855–56. In addition, he served as president of the Northern States Mission, 1878–79. He died in Mt. Pleasant, Utah, October 11, 1894. His hymn “Ye Elders of Israel” still remains in the LDS hymnal. Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 4:363. Millennial Star 8:121; 9:48, 69, 151; 10:72–74; 11:159, 176; 12:345; 13:207; 14:15, 171, 634; 15:137; 16:458, 461, 474, 730; 17:571; 18:154,504.

Daniel Spencer was Orson Spencer’s older brother. Born in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, July 20, 1794, he joined the Church there in 1840 and in 1841 moved to Nauvoo, where he served on the city council and as mayor. When the Saints evacuated Illinois, he was called to be a bishop at Winter Quarter, and in 1847 he made the trek to Utah. Two years later he was chosen to be president of the Salt Lake Stake, a position he held until his death. He filled a number of terms in the Utah territorial legislature. During his mission to England, 1852–56, he was first counselor to F. D. Richards. He died in Salt Lake City, December 8, 1868. Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:286–89.

James A. Little was Brigham Young’s nephew. Born in Cayuga County, New York, September 14, 1822, he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1843 and saw action in the Mexican War. In 1849 he converted to Mormonism, and that year he crossed the plains to Utah. While on his mission to England, 1854–57, he helped F. D. Richards compile his Compendium, and twenty-tive years later he and Richards co-authored an enlarged edition. He also wrote Jacob Hamblin (1881), Biographical Sketch of Feramorz Little (1890), and From Kirtland to Salt Lake City (1890). He died in Kanab, Utah, September 10, 1908. Kate B. Carter, Our Pioneer Heritage (Salt Lake City, 1972), 15:85–98. Millennial Star 19:136. Deseret Evening News, 3 October 1908, 11.

Edward W. Tullidge was born in Weymouth, Dorsetshire, England, September 30, 1829, joined the Church in September 1846, and left England for Utah in April 1861. In 1866 he moved to New York to write for Galaxy magazine; two years later he returned to Utah. He was a principal in the so-called Godbeite Movement, and in 1869 he separated himself from the Church. He edited and published Peep O ‘Day, Utah Magazine, the Mormon Tribune, Tullidge’s Quarterly Magazine, and The Western Galaxy. He authored Life of Brigham Young; or, Utah and Her Founders (1876), The Women of Mormondom (1877), Life of Joseph the Prophet (1878), The History of Salt Lake City (1886), and Tullidge’s Histories (v. II) (1889). He died in Salt Lake City, May 21, 1894. Ronald W. Walker, “Edward Tullidge: Historian of the Mormon Commonwealth,” Journal of Mormon History 3 (1976): 55–72. William F. Lye, “Edward Wheelock Tullidge, the Mormons’ Rebel Historian,” Utah Historical Quarterly 28 (1960): 57–75. Millennial Star 23:284. Deseret Evening News, 22 May 1894, 1. “Early Church Information File,” microfilm, UPB, gives Tullidge’s middle name as William not Wheelock.

John Alexander Ray was born in Whitesand Creek, Mississippi, September 1, 1817. He joined the Church in Texas in 1852 and moved to Millard County, Utah, in the spring of 1854. Later that year he was called to be the bishop in Fillmore, and the following year he was called to a mission in England. In 1858 he returned to Millard County, where he served as a probate judge, member of the territorial legislature, and for four years as president of the Millard Stake. He died in Fillmore, July 4, 1862. Joseph F. Ray, James Wilford Ray & His Two Families (N.p., n.d.), 1–3. Esshom, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, 1121.

Henry W. Whittall began a long serial article “Anti-Mormon Objections Answered” in the Star of February 7, 1857, and continued it through most of volumes 19 and 20. That October he was appointed assistant editor, and served in the office until he and his family sailed for America in May 1862. He was a printer, and during his last year in England he managed the printing office after the Church acquired its own press in April 1861. On July 7, 1862, at Florence, Nebraska, he was struck by lightning and killed. Millennial Star 19:699; 24:330, 539, 588. “Manuscript History of the British Mission,” 31 December 1883, 3. George Q. Cannon to Brigham Young, 17 August 1861, US1C.

John Jaques served two terms as assistant editor of the Star. Born in Leicestershire, England, January 7, 1827, he converted to Mormonism in 1845 and went to work in the Star office in February 1852. Four years later he sailed for America and crossed the plains with the Martin handcart company. He worked as a clerk in the Historian’s Office and then as assistant editor of the Salt Lake Daily Telegraph. He returned to England as a missionary, 1869–71, laboring principally as assistant editor of the Star. After his return to Utah, he was associate editor of the Deseret News, and then assistant Church historian, a position he held until his death, June 1, 1900. He wrote Exclusive Salvation (1851); Salvation, a dialogue in two parts (1853); Catechism for Children (1854), which went through numerous editions in several languages; and The Church . . . Its Priesthood, Organization, Doctrines, Ordinances and History (1882). Millennial Star 14:60–61. Deseret Evening News, 2 June 1900, 2. Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:254–56; 4:682.

[180] The Millennial Star office at the British Mission headquarters was in Manchester until March 1842 and in Liverpool thereafter. Its locations in Liverpool were: 36, Chapel Street (March 1842-June 1845); Stanley Buildings, Bath Street (June 1845-October 1846); 135, Duke Street (October 1846-November 1846); No. 6, Goree Piazza (November 1846-June 1847); 39, Torbock Street (June 1847-August 1848); 15, Wilton Street (August 1848-April 1855); and 36, Islington for the rest of the century. In April 1856 the address at 36, Islington was changed to 42, Islington, even though the location remained the same. Millennial Star 2:172; 5:200; 8:96, 112, 128; 9:176; 10:244; 17:202; 18:283.

[181] Millennial Star 2:32,96; 4:112; 9:16; 10:361; 12:40–41; 13:9,374; 26:7. Times and Seasons 4:162. Receipt from H[?] Carre, 15 October 1840, Brigham Young Papers, US1C. History of the Church 6:44–45.

[182] Millennial Star 5:112.

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[183] Erastus Snow, E. Snow’s Reply to the Self-styled Philanthropist of Chester County (Philadelphia? 1840?), 1. History of the Church 4:204, 293; 7:268–69. Messenger and Advocate (Rigdonite), 91, 112, 144, 160, 172, 176, 192. “Philadelphia Branch Records, 1842–50,” microfilm, US1C. Walter W. Smith, “History of the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Branch,” Journal of History 11 (1918): 364, 368. Times and Seasons 2:502; 5:687. “Journal History,” 3 February 1841,6 March 1843,21 December 1843,3 April 1844. “Diary of Joseph Fielding,” 136, mimeographed, UPB. Dale Morgan, A Bibliography of the Churches of the Dispersion (Salt Lake City, 1953), 124. Hajicek, Chronicles of Voree, 113–14, 191. Northern Islander, 24 July 1851, 3. “A History of the Church at the City of James, Beaver Island, State of Michigan, U.S.A., 1847–1855: Commonly Called the ‘Beaver Island Record’,” 41, photocopy, UPB. “The Record of the Apostles of James: Written During 1854–1863,” 7, 11, photocopy, UPB. Samuel Bennett to Warren Post, Pittsburgh, 30 November 1851; Bennett to Post, Pittsburgh, 23 June 1852; Bennett to Post, Pittsburgh, 10 April 1858; Bennett to Post, Allegheny City, 4 September 1858; original letters in the possession of John J. Hajicek. Samuel Bennett to Charles J. Strang, Cleveland, 2 January 1875; Bennett to Strang, Cleveland, 29 January 1876; Bennett to Strang, Cleveland, 23 September 1876; Bennett to Strang, Cleveland, 28 October 1876; TxDaDF. 1860 Pennsylvania census, Allegheny County, Allegheny City, 976. Sexton’s Record (Samuel, Selina, and Laura Bennett; Selina Beaser) and grave markers (sec. 8, lot 152), Riverside Cemetery, Cleveland, Ohio. I am grateful to John Hajicek for bringing the Bennett letters to my attention.

[184] E. Snow’s Reply, 1. Jones was undoubtedly a lay preacher since the Methodist Church has no record of him. The 1830 and 1840 censuses show a Caleb Jones living with his wife and children in Chester County, his year of birth between 1790 and 1800. Pennsylvania census: 1830, Chester County, 211; 1840, Chester County, 43.

[185] Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, 329–30.

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[186] David J. Whittaker, “East of Nauvoo: Benjamin Winchester and the Early Mormon Church,” Journal of Mormon History 21 (fall 1995): 32–41. V. Alan Curtis, “Missionary Activities and Church Organizations in Philadelphia, 1830–1840” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1976), 150–54. Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 4:692. “Early Church Information File.” Times and Seasons 1:9–11, 104, 109.

[187] An Examination of a Lecture Delivered by the Rev. H. Perkins, 1–2.

Henry Perkins was born in Vermont, February 9, 1796, graduated from Union College in 1817 and from the Princeton Theological Seminary in 1820. He served as pastor in Allentown from 1820 to 1864 and received honorary A.M. and D.D. degrees from Princeton University in 1823 and 1858. He died in Allentown, June 30, 1880. Edward Howell Roberts, comp., Biographical Catalogue of the Princeton Theological Seminary (Princeton, 1933), 11. General Catalogue of Princeton University 1746–1906 (Princeton, 1908), 412, 423.

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[188] Orson Pratt to G. A. Smith, 24 September 1840, US1C. Millennial Star 2:10–12, 91. Historical Record 6 (1887): 348–52.

[189] Orson Pratt to G. A. Smith, 17 October 1840, US1C.

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[190] Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, 278–90. Winchester, Origin of the Spaulding Story, 3–12, 16–18. “Statement by E. D. Howe, April 8, 1885,” ICHi; microfilm, UPB. Benjamin F. Johnson, My Life’s Review (Independence, Mo., 1947), 24–26. Boston Recorder, 19 April 1839, 1. History of the Church 1:334, 352, 354–55, 475; 2:46–47, 49, 269–70. Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History (New York, 1963), 419–33. Lester E. Bush, Jr., “The Spalding Theory Then and Now,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 10 (autumn 1977): 40–69.

D. P. Hurlbut (1809–83), a native of Vermont, converted to Mormonism not long before he was excommunicated. Before joining the Mormons, he was a local preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church in Jamestown, New York, and “was expelled for unvirtuous conduct with a young lady.” He eventually settled in Madison, Ohio, where he lived until his death. Dean C. Jessee, ed., The Papers of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City, 1992), 2:556. Winchester, Origin of the Spaulding Story, 5.

Eber Dudley Howe was born in Clifton Park, Saratoga County, New York, June 9, 1798, apprenticed at the Buffalo Gazette at age sixteen, and helped found the Cleveland Herald in 1819. In July 1822 he began the Painesville Telegraph, which he ran until 1835, when he sold it to his brother. For forty years he was a vigorous abolitionist. Howe’s wife Sophia and sister Harriet joined the Mormons in Kirtland before 1834. Sophia died in Painesville in 1866; E. D. Howe died at his daughter’s house in Painesville in 1885. “Statement by E. D. Howe, April 8, 1885.” Harriet Taylor Upton, History of the Western Reserve (Chicago and New York, 1910), 1:291; 2:967’. History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio (Philadelphia, 1878), 223–24. E. D. Howe, Autobiography and Recollections of a Pioneer Printer (Painesville, Ohio, 1878). Solomon Spaulding, The “Manuscript Found” or “Manuscript Story” (Lamoni, Iowa, 1885), 4–11. Jessee, The Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:33, 93–94, 104, 555. History of the Church 2:2, 324.

Solomon Spaulding (or Spalding) was born at Ashford, Connecticut, February 21, 1761, served in the Revolutionary Army, and graduated from Dartmouth College in 1785 with an A.M. He preached for eight or ten years, married Matilda Sabin in 1795, and left the ministry about the same time to go into business in New York. In 1809 he moved to Conneaut, Ohio, where he suffered bankruptcy because of the War of 1812. He located in the Pittsburgh area in 1812, and died near Pittsburgh on October 20, 1816. Charles H. Whittier and Stephen W. Stathis, “The Enigma of Solomon Spalding,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 10 (autumn 1977): 70–73.

[191] Winchester, Origin of the Spaulding Story, 12. Mormonism Unvailed was advertised as just published in the Painesville Telegraph, 28 November 1834, 3. It was reissued in 1840 with the title History of Mormonism, made up of the sheets of the 1834 edition with a cancel title page.

[192] Times and Seasons 2:230. Millennial Star 1:135.

[193] John Haven was born in Holliston, Massachusetts, March 9, 1774, and converted to Mormonism in 1838 after serving many years as a deacon in the Congregational Church. He evacuated Nauvoo in 1846 and crossed the plains to Utah two years later. He died in Salt Lake City, March 16, 1853. “Early Church Information File.” “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register,” 63. Deseret News, 2 April 1853, 3. Kate B. Carter, Heart Throbs of the West (Salt Lake City, 1948), 9:489.

John Haven’s son Jesse (1814–1905) contributed to the bibliographical record himself when he led the first Mormon mission to South Africa, 1853–55. Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 4:378–79. Deseret Evening News, 16 December 1905, 101.

[194] Spaulding, The “Manuscript Found” or “Manuscript Story,” 4–11.

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[195] History of the Church 4:3, 12–14, 17–18, 47–48. B. Young and W. Richards to the First Presidency, 5 September 1840, in BYU Studies 18 (1978): 468–75.

[196] Times and Seasons 1:120–22. Millennial Star 25:727, 743–44. Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 1:451. Parley Pratt to Brigham Young, 4 May 1840, USIC. P. Pratt Record Book, Brigham Young Papers, USIC. History of the Church 4:131.

Benbow actually loaned the £250 at first, but later forgave the loan. Millennial Star 25:760.

John Benbow (1800–74) was born in Herefordshire and was baptized along with his wife Jane by Wilford Woodruff in 1840. That year he and Jane immigrated to Nauvoo. Jane died at Winter Quarters in 1846; John crossed the plains to Utah two years later. He died at South Cottonwood. Jessee, The Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:525. Susan Easton Black, “Inscriptions Found on Tombstones and Monuments in Early Latter-day Saints Burial Grounds,” 15, 23, typescript, UPB.

[197] Millennial Star 25:727, 743–44. Allen and Alexander, Manchester Mormons, 157. Brigham Young to Mary A. Young, 12 June 1840, Blair Papers, UU. Receipts from W. R. Thomas, Brigham Young Papers, USIC. Michael Hicks, Mormonism and Music: A History (Urbana and Chicago, 1989), 33–34 n. 26.

[198] Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 1:479. Times and Seasons 1:167–69; 4:162. Receipts from John Winstanley and S. Hatton & Son, Brigham Young Papers, USIC. Hicks, Mormonism and Music, 33–34 n. 26.

[199] Sacred Hymns and Spiritual Songs for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Liverpool, England, 1869), 399–410. Helen Hanks Macare, “The Singing Saints: A Study of the Mormon Hymnal, 1835–1950” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1961), 170–215. Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, 335. No copy of the first number of the Star in wrappers is known.

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[200] History of the Church 4:109, 112–14, 123, 150, 201–3. Times and Seasons 1:156; 2:204; 3:762. “Journal History,” 1 September 1841, 2–8. The Return 2:260.

[201] Orson Pratt, An Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions (New York, 1842), back wrapper.

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[202] A Reply to Taylor and Livesey, 6.

[203] Millennial Star 9:208.

[204] Christopher Stangroom (or Strangroom) Bush, an Anglican minister, was born in London and earned a B.A. at St. Catharine’s, Cambridge, in 1835. He was appointed incumbent at Over Peover, Cheshire, in 1836 and transferred to Weston Point, Cheshire, in 1844. He died April 7, 1844, at age thirty-four. He “left a wife (confined on the following day with her fifth child) and an infant family in destitute circumstances.” J. A. Venn, comp., Alumni Cantabrigienses II (Cambridge, 1940), 1:471. Gentleman’s Magazine New Ser. 21 (1844): 661.

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[205] Times and Seasons 4:162.

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[206] Dean C. Jessee, “The Early Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” BYU Studies 9 (1969): 275–94. See also Dean C. Jessee, “The Writing of Joseph Smith’s History,” BYU Studies 11 (1971): 462; and James B. Allen, “The Significance of Joseph Smith’s ‘First Vision’ in Mormon Thought,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 1 (autumn 1966): 29–45.

[207] See, e.g., Edward Stevenson, Reminiscences of Joseph, the Prophet (Salt Lake City, 1893), 4–5; History of the Church 2:312; Jessee, “The Early Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” 283–86.

[208] Times and Seasons 1:43–44, 61; 2:313. Jessee, “The Writing of Joseph Smith’s History,” 464.

[209] Orson Pratt to George A. Smith, 24 September 1840, US1C.

[210] See the back wrappers of the Star for November 1840, January-April 1841; Millennial Star 2:32.

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[211] History of the Church 4:49.

[212] The Return 2:258–59. Hugh G. Stocks, “The Book of Mormon, 1830–1879: A Publishing History” (master’s thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 1979), 51–61.

[213] The Return 2:259–61.

[214] The Return 2:261–62. History of the Church 4:161, 164.

[215] The Return 2:259.

[216] Stanley R. Larson, “A Study of Some Textual Variations in the Book of Mormon Comparing the Original and the Printer’s Manuscripts and the 1830, the 1837, and the 1840 Editions” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1974).

84–87

[217] Times and Seasons 2:400–2. Millennial Star 1:165–66, 180–83, 214, 276–80; 2:6–7, 12–16. B. H. Roberts, The Life of John Taylor (Salt Lake City, 1892), 74–95.

After Taylor’s return to Liverpool, Samuel Haining published his Mormonism Weighed in the Balances of the Sanctuary, and Found Wanting; the Substance of Four Lectures (Douglas, Isle of Man: Robert Fargher, 1840), to which John Taylor responded in the Star of March 1841.

Robert Heys was born in Liverpool in 1791, converted to Methodism as a youth, and was appointed to a circuit in 1812. He served in Douglas from 1838 to 1841 and served last in Liverpool as a superintendent, 1851–52, when his health failed him. He died on June 9, 1857, after a lingering illness. “He was a man of grave demeanour, patient spirit, and unimpeachable integrity.” Minutes of Several Conversations Between the Methodist Ministers in the Connection Established by the Late Rev. John Wesley, A.M., at Their One Hundred and Fourteenth Annual Conference (London, 1857), 29–30. Alphabetical Arrangement of All the Wesleyan Methodist Ministers and Preachers Compiled in Connection with the British and Irish Conferences (London, 1896), 85.

[218] Orson Pratt to G. A. Smith, 23 November 1840, US1C. “Diary of Joseph Fielding,” 98, mimeographed, UPB. “Manuscript History of the British Mission,” 16, 27, 30 November 1840, US1C.

[219] Taylor, Calumny Refuted, 12.

[220] John Taylor to Brigham Young, 6 October 1840, in “Manuscript History of the British Mission.”

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[221] Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 1:493–551. Orson Pratt to G. A. Smith, 17 October 1840,

US1C.

[222] Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 1:540.

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[223] Millennial Star 1:187, 295. “Diary of Joseph Fielding,” 25–26.

Richard Livesey was born in Yorkshire, June 20, 1811. He immigrated to the United States in 1831, began his ministerial career as a local Methodist Episcopal preacher in New Bedford, Connecticut, and was admitted into full office and ordained a deacon in 1836. For the next twenty-one years he labored in the ministry in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, until his death on September 23, 1857. Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church for the Year 1858 (New York, 1858), 39.

Thomas Newton, a man “robust in constitution,” was born in 1783 and entered the Wesleyan Methodist ministry in 1808. In 1846 he retired, “as a Supernumerary,” to Mildenhall, where he lived until his death on May 19, 1865. Minutes of Several Conversations Between the Methodist Ministers in the Connection Established by the Late Rev. John Wesley, A.M., at Their One Hundred and Twenty-Second Annual Conference (London, 1865), 25.

[224] Thomas Taylor includes his Manchester address (No. 3, Mason-street, Swan-street) on p. 4 of his tract, and on the last page he writes, “I am not a paid minister, . . . although I have, for more than twenty years, in the best way I was able, directed the sinner to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world.” See also Reply to Taylor and Livesey, 2. Only one copy of Taylor’s Complete Failure is located, at NN. A microfilm of it is at UPB.

[225] Mahon was baptized into the Church on August 18, 1839, and performed some local missionary work. Subsequently he was ordained an elder and immigrated to the United States. Millennial Star 1:92, 167–68, 215. Susan Easton Black, Membership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 1830–1848 (Provo, Utah, 1989), 29:125.

[226] Wilford Woodruff makes note of Taylor’s meeting with Mahon in his Journal, 12 October 1840, 1:528.

[227] Millennial Star 9:208.

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[228] “Erastus Snow Sketch Book,” 61–63, typescript, UPB.

[229] History of the Church 4:204. E. Snow’s Reply, 1.

[230] “Erastus Snow Sketch Book,” 63.

[231] E. Snow’s Reply, 1. No copy of Jones’s first tract is extant.

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[232] Hewitt, An Exposition of the Errors and Fallacies, 5. Pratt, Reply to Mr. William Hewitt, 3, 12. William Hewitt to George A. Smith, 2 June 1840; Hewitt to Smith, 13 June 1840; US1C.

[233] Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 1:546.

[234] Parley P. Pratt to George A. Smith, 18 February 1841, US1C.

[235] Millennial Star 2:96.

92

[236] “Diary of Joseph Fielding,” 100.

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[237] A recent account of the first British mission is James B. Allen, Ronald K. Esplin, and David J. Whittaker, Men With a Mission 1837–1841: The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the British Isles (Salt Lake City, 1992), 20–53.

[238] “Diary of Joseph Fielding,” 4. Jessee, “The Writing of Joseph Smith’s History,” 450–52. Allen and Alexander, Manchester Mormons, 42–44, 200.

[239] The LDS Church also has two other large bound volumes, each beginning “The Journal and Record of Heber C. Kimball” and each including a copy of this text.

[240] R. B Thompson to Heber C. Kimball, 5 November 1840, US1C.

[241] Millennial Star, April 1841, back wrapper; 2:32, 96.

[242] I am grateful to Terence A. Tanner, of Skokie, Illinois, for the description of the wrapper on his copy.

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[243] Times and Seasons 1:185–87. History of the Church 4:204–6.

[244] Senate Judiciary Committee, 26th Cong., 1st sess., 1840, S. Doc. 247. Times and Seasons 1:74–75.

[245] History of the Church 4:237.

[246] Congressional Globe 9 A3.

[247] Congressional Globe 9:175.

[248] The first petition is published in History of the Church 4:24–38.

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[249] Gospel Reflector, 2.

[250] B. Winchester to Joseph Smith, 18 September 1841, in “Journal History,” under date. David J. Whittaker, “East of Nauvoo: Benjamin Winchester and the Early Mormon Church,” Journal of Mormon History 21 (fall 1995): 43–46.

[251] “Philadelphia Branch Records, 1842–50,” microfilm, UPB. Gospel Reflector, 24.

[252] Gospel Reflector, 2, 18.

[253] E. Snow and B. Winchester, An Address to the Citizens of Salem and Vicinity (Salem, Mass., 1841), 8. O. Pratt, An Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions (New York, 1842), back wrapper. The Prophet, 22 June–13 July 1844.

96

[254] Mulholland, An Address to Americans, 2. Times and Seasons 1:32. History of the Church 3:288, 375; 4:16, 88–89. Jessee, The Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:574.

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[255] “Early Church Information File,” microfilm, UPB. “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register 10 Dec 1845–7 Feb 1846,” 131, UPB. F. Esshom, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah (Salt Lake City, 1913), 821. Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 4:426. Millennial Star 1:165–68; 2:127.

[256] History of the Church 4:161–62,233. Eliza R. Snow, Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow (Salt Lake City, 1884), 46–51. Thomas Romney, The Life of Lorenzo Snow (Salt Lake City, 1955), 36–39. Times and Seasons 2:308, 529. “Alfred Cordon’s Journal, 1840–41,” 112, 117–20, US1C.

[257] Millennial Star 1:212, 287, 302; 3:29.

[258] “Alfred Cordon’s Journal, 1840–41,” 135.

[259] Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 4:426. Deseret Evening News, 14 March 1871, 3.

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[260] Parley P. Pratt to Joseph Smith, 22 November 1839, US1C. History of the Church 4:47–48. Stocks, “The Book of Mormon,” 66–75.

[261] Times and Seasons 1:120–22. Millennial Star 25:121, 743–44. Brigham Young to Joseph Smith, 7 May 1840, USIC. History of the Church 4:114–19, 126, 131, 161–62. Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 1:451. P. Pratt Record Book, Brigham Young Papers, USIC.

Benbow at first loaned the £250, but later forgave the loan. Millennial Star 25:760.

[262] These bids are in the Brigham Young Papers, USIC, as are the receipts for payments to J. Tompkins, the printer. Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 1:482. Receipt from James Wrigley & Son, 7 July 1840, Brigham Young Papers, USIC. This price for the paper, higher than Tompkins’s bid, included the cost of shipping to Liverpool.

[263] John Taylor to Brigham Young, 23 July 1840; John Taylor to Parley P. Pratt and Brigham Young, 29 August [i.e. May] 1840; Brigham Young to G. A. Smith, 29 December 1840; USIC. Millennial Star 25:791–92, 807–8, 819. Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 1:527–28; 2:25, 40. Stanley B. Kimball, ed., On the Potter’s Wheel: The Diaries of’Heber C. Kimball (Salt Lake City, 1987), 43–44. The Brigham Young Papers, USIC, contain what seems to be a sample sheet of the Book of Mormon paper with the page layout indicated on it.

[264] J. Tompkins to B. Young, H. C. Kimball, and P. Pratt, 8 April 1841, USIC. Joseph Fielding Smith, “The Library of the Church Historian’s Office,” Deseret Evening News, 23 January 1904, 25. Cf. Stocks, “The Book of Mormon,” 73–74.

[265] No copy of the Star for February 1841 in wrappers is extant.

[266] Millennial Star 2:124; 4:112; 5:2, 32; 7:43; 9:16; 10:380. Reuben Hedlock to W. Richards, the First Presidency, and the Twelve, 16 October 1843, in “Manuscript History of the British Mission.” “P. P. Pratt in Account with B. Young, H. C. Kimball, & P. P. Pratt—as Publishing Committee of the Book of Mormon,” 2 September 1842, Brigham Young Papers, USIC.

[267] Millennial Star 3:80. “P. P. Pratt in Account with B. Young,” 2 September 1842.

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[268] “Manuscript History of the British Mission,” 12 February 1841.

[269] Family Group Record of Thomas Kington, microfilm 439,470, UPB. “Early Church Information File.” “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register,” 44. Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 1:423–41; 2:52–55. Millennial Star 1:72, 283, 305. “Journal History,” 1 July (p. 2), 2 July (pp. 1–2) 1874. Black, Membership of the Church, 26:872–75.