201 SMITH, Joseph. General Smith’s views of the powers and policy of the government of the United States. John Taylor, Printer: Nauvoo, Illinois, 1844.

12 pp. 24 cm.

Joseph Smith’s presidential campaign actually began on October 1, 1843, when the Times and Seasons asked in an editorial, “Who shall be our next President?” A month later Smith and the Twelve met with a supporter of John C. Calhoun, and here it was decided to write to each of the presidential candidates about his views of the Mormons, particularly their claims against Missouri (see item 187). On November 4 Joseph Smith sent letters to John C. Calhoun, Lewis Cass, Henry Clay, Richard M. Johnson, and Martin Van Buren. Dark horse James K. Polk was not in view at this point. Three responded: Calhoun and Cass referred to the limited powers of the president; Clay replied that he would make no promises to anyone in order to enter the White House “free and unfettered.” Calhoun’s and Clay’s letters drew bitter responses from Joseph Smith (see items 199, 214, 271).[1]

On January 29, 1844, the Twelve, Hyrum Smith, and John P. Greene met with Joseph Smith at his office and proposed that the Latter-day Saints run an independent presidential ticket with him at the head. Later that day Joseph Smith “gave some instructions concerning an address to the paper for Bro[ther] Phelps to write—views on the powers and policy of the Government of United States &c.”[2] Revision of the views continued through February 7, and on the 8th Phelps read them for the first time at a public gathering, at which Joseph Smith explained that he was a candidate because the federal government had failed to guarantee the civil rights of the Saints. In the meantime the Times and Seasons of February 1 reminded its readers that it would soon endorse a presidential candidate, and on February 14 the Nauvoo Neighbor answered its editorial question, “Who shall be our next President?” with “General Joseph Smith.” By February 24 the Times and Seasons shop had finished printing 1,500 copies of General Smith’s Views. Three days later copies were mailed to President Tyler, his cabinet, the Supreme Court justices, members of Congress, and influential newspapers around the country.[3]

Early in March Joseph Smith suggested James Arlington Bennet for his running mate, but it was soon reported that he was of Irish birth and thus ineligible. That month Joseph Smith and the Twelve organized the General Council or Council of Fifty, a group of men including the Twelve and a few who were not Mormons, which was charged with examining new settlements for the Saints and with directing the campaign (see items 208, 275, 345). On May 6 the Council of Fifty nominated Sidney Rigdon as the vice-presidential candidate.[4]

Active campaigning began on April 9 when, at a special meeting following the Church’s general conference, the call went out for electioneering missionaries. Two hundred and forty-four volunteered on the spot. Six days later the Times and Seasons listed the names of 339 elders who were to take to the campaign trail in support of Joseph Smith, together with their assignments in twenty-six states and Wisconsin Territory.[5] During the next two months these men spread across the United States, mixing Mormonism and politics. In the process they reprinted General Smith’s Views in at least seven other cities (see items 213–20, 271). It has been suggested that the purpose of Joseph Smith’s candidacy was only to publicize the Mormon position, that he had no real expectation of being elected.[6] But those close to him appear to have taken his candidacy seriously, and the massive effort launched in April and May would seem to indicate a serious campaign.[7]

General Smith’s Views, dated at the end February 7, 1844, is a windy document, peppered with foreign language phrases. Joseph Smith dictated its principal ideas on January 29, 1844, but the text itself was another production of W. W. Phelps.[8] Beginning with a strong anti-slavery statement, it lists eight specific proposals: (1) institute a “judicious” tariff; (2) reduce the number of congressmen by at least one-half, and pay them $2 per diem plus board (congressional per diem was $8 at the time); (3) abolish imprisonment for all crimes but murder, and sentence convicted felons to work on public projects; (4) abolish slavery by 1850 and compensate slave holders out of the surplus revenue arising from the sale of public lands; (5) abolish military court-martials for desertion; (6) establish a national bank; (7) grant the president the authority to suppress mobs without a request from a state governor; (8) annex Oregon and Texas.

This edition of General Smith’s Views has a dozen and a half spelling or typographical errors, including imports for imposts on p. 4, line 22, and bases for basis on p. 6, line 12.[9] Phelps corrected fourteen of these errors, inadvertently omitting the phrase its limitations as in on p. 6, line 14, but made no other significant changes when he reprinted the text in The Voice of Truth (item 271).

Politically Views was eclectic: the two economic proposals were essentially a part of Henry Clay’s “American System”; the annexation of Oregon and Texas was a plank in the Democrats’ “Manifest Destiny” platform; the abolition of slavery was the primary concern of the Liberty Party, which drew enough votes away from Clay in New York to give the state and hence the election to Polk. Views also reflects a shift in the Mormons’ position. In 1835 they objected to the abolitionists and supported Andrew Jackson in opposing a national bank (see item 18). But their losses in the Panic of 1837 undoubtedly influenced their change of mind with respect to the bank, and their treatment in Missouri certainly persuaded them of the need for increased presidential powers.

Some slight movement away from Views occurred at the official nominating convention held in Nauvoo on May 17 (see item 208), which adopted a “free trade” resolution. Richard Poll has suggested that this was done to blunt criticism that Views leaned too much toward the Whigs.[10]

Flake 7957. CtY, ICN, IHi, UPB, US1C, UU.

202 PRATT, Parley Parker. An appeal to the inhabitants of the state of New York, letter to Queen Victoria, (reprinted from the tenth European edition,) the fountain of knowledge; immortality of the body, and intelligence and affection: by Parley P. Pratt. Price 25 cents each or 12 dollars per hundred. John Taylor, Printer, Nauvoo, Illinois.

[1844] [i–ii] [1]–40 pp. 23.5 cm.

Even though the distinctive doctrines of Mormonism came to full expression during the Nauvoo period, apart from Joseph Smith’s King Follett funeral sermon added as an appendix in his Voice of Truth (item 271), An Appeal to the Inhabitants of the State of New York is the only book published in Nauvoo which might be called speculative theology. Collected in its pages are five of Parley Pratt’s essays, one written in December 1843, three others written early in 1844. The Times and Seasons took notice of it in its March 15, 1844, issue, calling it “a new publication,” and included excerpts from the last three essays in its next number. During June and July The Prophet advertised it at $8 per hundred or 12½¢ each; sixteen months later the New-York Messenger was still offering it at 120 a copy.[11]

The lead essay grew out of the public meeting in Nauvoo, November 29, 1843, in which Joseph Smith urged all who could “wield a pen” to write to their mother states to support the Mormon claims against Missouri (see item 187). At this meeting Parley Pratt was delegated to distribute Smith’s appeal to the Green Mountain Boys in New York and Vermont. During the next five days he composed an appeal of his own to the citizenry of his native state, which he read at a public gathering on December 4.[12]

In spite of the notation on the title page, this printing of Pratt’s letter to Queen Victoria was taken from the first edition (see items 108, 119–20). “Reprinted from the tenth European edition” is a bit hyperbolic since there were only two. It likely refers to the fact that these comprised ten thousand copies.

Parley Pratt wrote “Fountain of Knowledge,” “Immortality of the Body,” and “Intelligence and Affection,” early in 1844.[13] These essays embrace as optimistic a view of mankind as in any LDS book and hint at the dramatic concept of God that Joseph Smith would reveal in his King Follett funeral sermon (see item 271). The first argues that the Bible cannot contain all knowledge and hence is not the fountain of knowledge. This fountain, the essay declares, is direct revelation from God, and the scriptures exist to invite and encourage men and women to come to it.

“Immortality of the Body” is an amplification of the ideas in “The Regeneration and Eternal Duration of Matter” (see item 63). It begins by asserting that “man’s body is as eternal as his soul,” that both are designed to endure throughout the life to come. Matter can neither be created nor annihilated, it declares, so the earth was not created out of nothing but organized out of existing matter. Because of the atonement of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of the material body is universal. In the hereafter, “men that are prepared will actually possess a material inheritance on the earth. They will possess houses, and cities, . . . and they will eat, drink, converse, think, walk, taste, smell and enjoy.” “God the father,” the essay continues, “has a real and substantial existence in human form and proportions, like Jesus Christ, and like man.” That “God is a spirit” and is omnipresent, it argues, is to be understood in the sense that his influence is everywhere felt. “Heaven then, is composed of an innumerable association of glorified worlds . . . of which our earth . . . must form some humble part.”

The opening sentences of the final essay assert that intelligence and affection “have their origin in eternal, uncreated elements; and like them, must endure forever. They are the foundations of enjoyment, the main-springs of glory and exaltation, and the fountains from which emanate a thousand streams of life, and joy, and gladness.” The human mind is capable of expanding to unlimited intelligence, the essay says, and when freed from the limits of a mortal body, it will grow to infinite capacity. Intelligence gives rise to affection: God “loves because he knows,” and “love or affection is dependent on knowledge, or intelligence, and can only be increased by an increase of knowledge.” “Our natural affections are planted in us by the Spirit of God,” this essay continues, “for a wise purpose; and they are the very main-springs of life and happiness.” Religious austerity, unsocial sadness, celibacy, self-denial, it states, are opposed to true religion. “We feel safe in the conclusion, that a field wide as eternity and boundless as the ocean of God’s benevolence, extends before the servants of God. A field where, ambition knows no check, and zeal no limits; and where the most ardent aspirations may be more than realized. . . . And where man—once a weak and helpless worm of dust may sit enthroned in majesty on high, and occupy an exalted station among the councils of the sons of God.”

Flake 6564. CSmH, CtY, UPB, US1C.

203 PRATT, Parley Parker. An appeal to the citizens of the Empire State, by an exile of Missouri. A letter to Queen Victoria. The fountain of knowledge. Immortality of the material body. Intelligence and affection. By P. P. Pratt. Courier Print. Milwaukee, W.T. [1844?]

23 pp. 23 cm. Ornamental border on title page.

When, by whom, or under what circumstances this reprint of item 202 was published is not known. One might guess it was issued during the electioneering mission (see item 201), which in Wisconsin was led by Silas H. Briggs, who joined his younger brothers Jason W. and Edmund C. in the Reorganization in 1863 and died in Martin County, Minnesota, June 21, 1881, at age sixty-five.[14]

Flake 6563. CtY, MoInRC.

204 PACKARD, Noah. House. . . .No. 64. Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Memorial. To the honorable the governor, senate and house of representatives of Massachusetts, in legislative capacity assembled: [Caption title] [At the end:] Noah Packand [sic]. Russell, Mass., March 5th, 1844. [Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, Printers to the State, 1844]

12 pp. 25 cm.

This too derived from the meeting on November 29, 1843, at which Joseph Smith urged the Saints to write to the legislatures of their native states for support in resolving the Mormon claims against Missouri (see item 187). Beginning with a brief personal history, Packard recounts the Missouri difficulties, emphasizing, of course, the unlawful treatment of the Saints, both official and unofficial. There is a passing reference to Joseph Smith’s legal problems, followed by the assertion that the federal government is bound to suppress rebellion in the states—which, Packard asserts, is exactly what the outrages against the Mormons were. He then asks the Massachusetts legislature to instruct its congressional delegation to use whatever legal means available to assist the Mormons in obtaining compensation for their Missouri losses.

Packard’s memorial is printed also in the Nauvoo Neighbor of April 24, 1844, and in the Times and Seasons of May 1, 1844. Memorials from Benjamin Andrews and Sidney Rigdon to the Maine and Pennsylvania legislatures are included in the Times and Seasons for January 15 and February 1, 1844, and in the Neighbor for January 17 and January 31.[15] In addition, Joseph Young’s and Phineas Richards’s appeal to the inhabitants of Massachusetts and Alphonso Young’s appeal to Tennessee are in the Neighbor of February 7 and 28.[16]

Flake 6040. M, MB, NN, UPB.

205 PAGE, John Edward. An address to thh | sic | inhabitants and sojourners of Washington, to His Excellency the President of the United States, the honorable senators and representatives in Congress, and all rev. divines, magistrates, landlords, merchants, artists, mechanics, laborers, soldiers, marines, and the world at large. [Caption title] [Washington? 1844?]

4 pp. 24 cm.

John E. Page had a habit of generating a following among the Saints in some eastern city and establishing himself there as the resident authority. Consequently, when the Church leaders received a request from him and several others in November 1843 that he remain in Boston, Brigham Young immediately wrote and ordered him to go “speedily” to Washington D.C. and build up a branch of the Church there. Page’s “speedy” departure brought him to Washington on February 17, 1844. And he did not tarry long; by April 23, he had returned to Pittsburgh, ostensibly because of his wife’s ill health.[17]

Page’s first acquaintances in Washington included some printers, who undoubtedly helped him publish An Address to the Inhabitants and Sojourners of Washington.[18] Two testimonials attesting to his integrity and competence as a preacher follow the main text, the first dated March 12, 1844. Three of the five signers of these testimonials identify themselves as printers, and a fourth as a clerk in the Washington Daily Globe office. One might guess, therefore, that An Address to the Inhabitants and Sojourners was printed at the office of the Globe in March or April.

The first two and a half pages contain Page’s address, which is dated at the end, Washington D. C, March 7, 1844. It announces his mission to the capital and requests the donation of a hall in which he might preach. It alludes to the calumnies heaped upon the Mormons in the public press, in particular the charge that those in Nauvoo are “dreadful desperadoes,” and asks if it is reasonable to think that a morally upright family from Philadelphia or Boston would give up its moral refinement simply by moving to Nauvoo. The address includes passing references to the history and beliefs of the Latter-day Saints, and it claims that the total Church membership at the moment stands between 150 and 200 thousand.[19] Three paragraphs deal with the predictions of William Miller, and here Page advertises his ability to refute Miller’s teachings—contrary to Brigham Young’s instructions in his November 1843 letter that Page should “not challenge the sects for debate, but treat them as brethren and friends.”

Flake 6065. CtY, UPB, US1C.

206 Hymns to be sung at the dedication of the Masonic temple, on Friday, April 5th, 1844. [Nauvoo, 1844]

Broadside 22.5 x 17 cm. Text in two columns.

Ten months after its cornerstone was laid, the Nauvoo Masonic hall was complete enough to be dedicated (see items 140,179). On April 5, 1844, a procession of Masons headed by the Nauvoo Brass Band marched to the new hall on the southwest corner of Main and White streets where Hyrum Smith, the worshipful master, conducted the dedication ceremonies, and Erastus Snow, Joseph Smith, and William G. Goforth addressed 328 members of the Nauvoo lodges and 51 visiting Masons. Only Goforth was from a non-Mormon Illinois lodge, for the Grand Lodge of Illinois had withdrawn the dispensations of the Mormon lodges six months before.[20]

The Masonic hall was a three-story red brick building, having on the east face three double doors entering the first floor, three rectangular windows on the second floor, and three windows with semicircular tops on the third. It was used for a variety of purposes including theatrical productions (see the next item). The Nauvoo Legion housed its arsenal on the first floor; the lodge room was on the third.[21]

Hymns to be Sung at the Dedication includes, in two columns, five Masonic songs, three, for example, found in Luke Eastman’s Masonick Melodies (Boston, 1818). Four of the songs are printed in the Nauvoo Neighbor of April 3, 1844, from the same setting.

Flake 4177a. US1C.

207 Masonic hall Nauvoo, April 24th 1844, will be presented a grand moral entertainment, to aid in the discharge of a debt, against President Joseph Smith, contracted through the odious persecution of Missouri, and vexatious law suits. His friends and the public will respond to so laudable a call, in patronising [sic] the exertions of those who promise rational amusement with usefulness. The historical play, a tragedy in five acts, entitled Pizarro, or the Death of Rolla. [23 lines] The whole to conclude with the laughable farce of John Jones, of the War Office. New scenery, dresses, and decorations, are prepared for the occasion; the whole got up under the direction of Thomas A. Lyne, of the eastern theatres. Tickets 50 cents; to be had at the Masonic hall; of G. J. Adams; or Mr. Scofield. Doors open at 6 o ‘clock, performance to commence at 7 o ‘clock. Good music will be in attendance; strict order will be preserved. No money taken at the door. Smoking not allowed. Front seats reserved for the ladies. [Nauvoo, 1844]

Broadside 52 x 21.5 cm.

This playbill signals the beginning of Mormon theater. The stars of the show included George J. Adams as Pizarro and Thomas A. Lyne as Rolla, with Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and George A. Smith in supporting roles. Nineteen years later the same group, sans Adams, would gather in the Salt Lake Theater for another performance of Pizarro, or the Death of Rolla.

The play, originally written in German by Augustus von Kotzebue, had been popular on both sides of the Atlantic for almost fifty years. Turgid and sentimental, it deals with the plight of the Incas, led by Rolla, in a fruitless campaign against the conquistador Pizarro.[22] Although advertised for April 24, apparently it was scheduled for the following evening and then postponed until Friday the 26th because of a hailstorm. It played again on Saturday and repeated on Monday, April 29, receiving an enthusiastic review in the Nauvoo Neighbor of May 1 and a less than enthusiastic review in the Warsaw Signal two weeks later.[23]

Thomas Ackley Lyne, born in Philadelphia, August 1, 1806, had been performing as a professional actor for over ten years when his brother-in-law George J. Adams introduced him to Mormonism in 1841. Three years later he and Adams organized a theatrical company in Nauvoo, performing many of the plays that would later be produced in the Salt Lake Theater. After the death of Joseph Smith, Lyne returned to the east, flirted briefly with Sidney Rigdon, and then returned to the professional stage (see items 231, 240, 242). He was with a touring company in Denver in 1862, when he contacted Hiram Clawson, first manager of the newly completed Salt Lake Theater, and despite Lyne’s disaffection from Mormonism, Brigham Young invited him to Salt Lake City. For three years he was deeply involved in the Salt Lake Theater. In 1865 he opened a competing playhouse, which soon failed. Thereafter he performed from time to time around the territory. He died, lonely and embittered, in Salt Lake City, March 31, 1890.[24]

Flake 5303a. MoSHi.

208 [Nauvoo Neighbor Extra. April 26?, 1844]

Broadside?

On April 23, 1844, a public meeting of those supporting Joseph Smith’s presidential campaign convened in the hall over his store to pick a delegate to the Baltimore convention on May 6, and in the afternoon they designated the second Monday in May, May 13, for a state convention in Nauvoo.[25] The next day, April 24, the Nauvoo Neighbor ran a brief summary of this meeting with the resolution that the state convention be held on May 2. The Council of Fifty met on April 25 and changed the date of the state convention to May 17.[26] At this point, it would seem, the Neighbor issued an extra announcing the change of date. No copy of the extra is located, but it is referred to in the Neighbor of May 1:

From the Neighbor Extra, of last week. Since our paper went to press there has been another meeting held, at which it was Resolved, That the State Convention to be holden in this city be postponed till Friday the 17th day of May; and that each county in the State be requested to send one or two delegates to said Convention, to whom the hospitalities of the citizens of the city will be tendered while here.

This extra certainly came out after the meeting of the Council of Fifty on Thursday, April 25. Most likely it was issued on Friday or Saturday, April 26 or 27, since on the following Wednesday the Neighbor referred to it as the extra “of last week.”

The state convention assembled in Joseph Smith’s office on May 17, as scheduled. Its minutes were printed in the Neighbor of May 22. Uriah Brown acted as chairman and F. Merry weather as secretary. William G. Goforth, John Taylor, W. W. Phelps, William Smith, and Lucian R. Foster were appointed to draft resolutions for the convention; Goforth, Ebenezer Robinson, Lucius N. Scovil, Peter Haws, and John S. Reid were appointed to choose state electors. Willard Richards, John M. Bernhisel, Phelps, and Foster were designated as a central committee. At its second session later in the day, the convention nominated Joseph Smith for the presidency of the United States and Sidney Rigdon for the vice-presidency. Rigdon, Joseph Smith, Goforth, Lyman Wight, Phelps, Taylor, Hyrum Smith, and Reid then addressed the gathering.[27] Of these participants, Brown, Taylor, Phelps, Haws, Richards, Bernhisel, Rigdon, Joseph Smith, Wight, and Hyrum Smith were members of the Council of Fifty. Foster would be taken into the Council ten months later.[28]

209 SMITH, Joseph. General Smith’s views of the powers and policy of the government of the United States. John Taylor, Printer: Nauvoo, Illinois; 1844.

8 pp. 26.5 cm. Text in two columns.

210 SMITH, Joseph. General Smith’s views of the powers and policy of the government oe [sic] the United States. Nauvoo, Illinois: Printed by John Taylor: 1844.

8 pp. 24.5 cm. Text in two columns.

On May 8, 1844, the Nauvoo Neighbor reprinted Joseph Smith’s views on government (item 201) with the following editorial comment:

In consequence of the urgent and daily increasing demands from all parts of the United States, for “Gen. Smith’s Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States,” we insert it in to-days paper. It will, also, be published in the Times and Seasons, and a second edition will be printed in Pamphlet form, which can be obtained, in a few days at this Office.

An examination of the type (e.g., in item 209: establish in p. 3, col. 1, line 13 from the bottom; constitution in p. 3, col. 1, line 6 from the bottom; youthful in p. 5, col. 2, line 3; and teritory in p. 8, col. 2, line 27) indicates that item 209 was printed from a rearrangement of the typesetting of General Smith’s Views in the Neighbor. This setting, again rearranged and slightly corrected, was then used to print the views in the Times and Seasons of May 15, 1844. At least one additional correction was made in this setting, and it was used a fourth time to print item 210 with a reset title page.

Apart from the typographical errors just mentioned, the texts of General Smith !v Views in the Neighbor and in item 209 differ from the first edition in twelve corrections of misprints or misspellings including basis for bases on p. 4, line 13 from the bottom; six insignificant deletions of one or two words; and eleven one-word or two-word changes. More important, they skip line 7 on p. 6 of the first edition. The texts in the Times and Seasons and in item 210 incorporate all of these changes, except that, in both, one deletion is replaced with a single word, and a word-change is replaced with a different word-change, each instance still differing from the first edition.

Item 209: Flake 7959. UPB, US1C. Item 210: Flake 7959a. MoInRC, UPB, US1C, WHi.

211 The Prophet. New York: May 18, 1844–May 24, 1845.

1 v. (52 nos. in [208] pp.) 58 cm.

At a conference in New York City, April 3–4, 1844, George T. Leach, the presiding elder in New York, raised the possibility of publishing a weekly newspaper in support of the Church. William Smith, late of The Wasp, spoke in favor of the idea, and the conference appointed A. E. Wright, G. T. Leach, William H. Miles, John Leach, and a member named Brocklebank to launch the paper.[29] Henry J. Doremus, a physician and local branch member, bought a press and type, and on May 18, 1844, the committee issued the first number of The Prophet.[30]

The first nine numbers proclaim, “This paper is published by the Board of Control of the Society for the Diffusion of Truth, every Saturday morning, at No. 7, Spruce St., New-York, at one dollar per annum, invariably in advance.” E. J. Bevin is listed as the printer for the first five issues. The prospectus, included in the first seventeen issues, signed by G. T Leach and dated May 17, 1844, says that The Prophet will advocate the faith of the Latter-day Saints and defend the Constitution of the United States; it will report on local and foreign news, on agriculture, commerce, and manufacturing, and comment on the arts and sciences.

A full run of the paper consists of 52 four-page issues, each in five columns, the pages unnumbered. As the early issues promised, it appeared every Saturday, with but two lapses: it skipped the week of October 26, 1844, and the week of May 17, 1845. Two issues bear incorrect numbers: issue 11 (July 27, 1844) is misnumbered 10, and issue 18 (September 14, 1844) is misnumbered 17.

Who edited the early issues is not entirely clear, but the prospectus and the seventh number (June 29) suggest it was George T. Leach. Financial problems beset the paper from the outset, and after a few issues, Sam Brannan, apparently in partnership with A. E. Wright, assumed ownership of the press, the newspaper, and its debts.[31] The seventh number (June 29) lists William Smith as editor, and after the ninth number, the Society for the Diffusion of Truth is replaced by S. Brannan & Co. as publisher. Although Smith is named as the editor for nos. 7–26 (June 29–November 16), it seems clear he held this position in name only, and that A. E. Wright and Brannan actually edited the paper.[32] Wright was excommunicated from the Church on October 25. The next day, G. T. Leach was excommunicated and replaced by Brannan as presiding elder in New York.[33] The Prophet of November 9 (no. 25) carries a notice from Brannan and Wright of the dissolution of S. Brannan & Co. and a notice from Wright making over to Brannan the rights to and debts of The Prophet. From this number on, S. Brannan is given as the publisher. Issue 27 (November 23) prints the resignation of William Smith and lists S. Brannan as editor and publisher. This continues until the issue of May 10, 1845, (no. 51), which reports that George J. Adams and Sam Brannan had been disfellowshipped. The last two numbers designate Parley P. Pratt as the editor. The final issue was gotten out a week late, apparently because of Brannan’s departure for Nauvoo in an effort to clear himself.

New York and Boston appear on the masthead of the last five numbers, and a note in the forty-eighth issue explains, “During our visit to Boston, we entered into an arrangement for the publication of the Prophet in that city, the same as in New York; every Saturday morning at 386 Washington Street.” Brannan obviously hoped that a point of distribution in Boston would increase circulation, but the paper still did not support itself. In an editorial in the last issue, Parly Pratt announced that The Prophet would be discontinued for a few weeks “to wait for subscriptions sufficient to warrant its further publication.”

The paper’s financial struggles were apparent early on. On July 6, 1844, two weeks before it dropped the reference to The Society for the Diffusion of Truth, The Prophet urged its readers to subscribe to the Society at $5 a share and be entitled “to a dividend of the profits of the concern.” On January 18, 1845, it raised the cost of an annual subscription to $2, and scattered throughout the run are pleas to the local Saints to support the paper and pay their subscriptions.[34]

Joseph Smith’s presidential campaign seems to have been the immediate impetus for The Prophet. The first eight numbers promote him for president and print reports of political meetings in support of his candidacy. Issue 9 (July 13) alludes to his murder, and the tenth and eleventh numbers, printed in black bands, report the assassination in detail. The paper revisited the presidential campaign in September and October and endorsed James K. Polk.

Generally The Prophet resembles the other Mormon newspapers. Its early issues reprint excerpts from the Old and New Testament apocrypha, Oliver Cowdery’s eight letters to W. W. Phelps (item 197), and the “Lectures on Faith.” It includes letters from missionaries and frequent excerpts from the Times and Seasons and Nauvoo Neighbor. Its issue of October 5 begins the report of Sidney Rigdon’s trial in Nauvoo, and thereafter almost every issue carries anti-Rigdon material (see items 240, 242). Parley Pratt reached New York late in December 1844, and beginning on January 4, 1845, The Prophet ran frequent contributions from him (see item 269). Between January 25 and February 22, 1845, it printed excerpts from John Lloyd Stephens’s Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan together with what appear to be wood cut illustrations.

The Prophet also records the rise and fall of George J. Adams and William Smith. Wilford Woodruff, who was in the east in the fall of 1844, wrote to Brigham Young that Adams and Smith were wrecking the Church in the eastern states. In passing he remarked that the newspaper was “an engine in their hands” to promote their own interests.[35] Certainly Adams and Smith were celebrated in the paper and their comings and goings enthusiastically reported. Adams’s star began to fade when Parley Pratt stated in the issue of January 4, 1845, that the “Great lions of Mormonism” would no longer run from city to city exploiting the Saints, and four months later The Prophet announced that he had been disfellowshipped. William Smith survived the life of The Prophet only to find himself denounced in its successor, the New-York Messenger (see items 267, 318).

Nothing is known about George T. Leach and A. E. Wright beyond the following: Leach was ordained an elder on May 18, 1842, while he was living in Norwalk, Connecticut; Wright was ordained an elder in September 1842 while living in Philadelphia; Leach replaced Lucian R. Foster as presiding elder in New York in August 1843; both Leach and Wright were excommunicated in October 1844, apparently because they had aligned themselves with Sidney Rigdon; and Leach had joined James J. Strang by the fall of 1849.[36]

Sam Brannan, on the other hand, was one of California’s most prominent pioneers. Born in Maine, March 2, 1819, he moved when he was fourteen years old to Kirtland, Ohio, with his Mormon sister Mary Ann Badlam and her husband. There he learned the printing trade and worked on the Kirtland Temple. William Smith baptized him into the Church in New York in 1842. As presiding elder in New York, Brannan chartered the ship Brooklyn, and on February 4, 1846, sailed with about 230 Latter-day Saints for San Francisco (see item 297). He also took his New York press with him on this voyage, and in San Francisco he used it to print The California Star, the city’s first newspaper (see item 322). Brannan soon became one of California’s leading citizens and one of its richest. He was a member of the first regular San Francisco town council and a California state senator. At one point he owned extensive properties in San Francisco and large tracts of land in Sacramento, Los Angeles County, and the Napa Valley. But his fortune slipped away from him, and he died in poverty in Escondido, California in 1889.[37]

Flake 6772. CtY, MH, NN, UPB, US1C, WHi.

212 [Placard advertising a general conference in the City Council room, Chapman’s buildings, Chicago, May 25 and 26, 1844. Chicago? 1844]

On May 21, 1844, Alfred Cordon, in company with James Burgess, arrived on foot in Chicago, where he would stop for a week en route to his electioneering mission in Vermont. That evening he met Samuel Shaw, the presiding elder of the twenty-two-member Chicago branch. Three days later it was learned that some of the Twelve might be coming to Chicago to hold a conference. The next day, Saturday, May 25, according to Cordon’s journal, “Elder S. Shaw procured the City Council Room to hold Conference in. We placarded the City, to notify the people that we would hold a General Conference in the City Council room, commencing at 2 and 6 o’clock that day. Also on Sunday 26th May 1844 at 10, 2, and 6 o’clock.” Cordon served as the president of the conference, and he included the minutes in his journal and sent a summary to the Times and Seasons.[38] The unlocated placard advertising the conference was probably published by Shaw, twenty-six years old at this point and a native of Maine, who had presided over the Chicago branch since February and would join James J. Strang in December 1845 (see items 303, 310).[39]

213 SMITH, Joseph. General Smith’s views of the powers and policy of the government of the United States. Chicago, Ill.: Ellis & Fergus, Book and Job Printers, Saloon Building, comer of Lake & Clark streets. 1844.

12 pp. 21 cm.

Elisha H. Groves led thirty-seven campaigners in Illinois, so one might guess that he or Samuel Shaw (see the preceding item) published General Smith’s Views in Chicago.[40] This edition differs from the first edition (item 201) in that it corrects eleven misprints or misspellings including imposts for imports on p. 4, line 23, and basis for bases on p. 6, line 27, and it replaces democrat with democratic on p. 9, line 2.

Groves was born in Madison County, Kentucky, November 5, 1797. He was baptized into the Church in March 1832 and moved to Jackson County the following year. In Missouri he served on the high councils in Clay and Caldwell counties. He evacuated Nauvoo in May 1846, and in September 1848 reached the Salt Lake Valley, where he was again called to the high council. In 1851 he settled in Parowan, where he was elected to the territorial legislature and appointed, a fourth time, to the high council. Two years later he was ordained a patriarch. Eventually he moved to Kanarra, where he died on December 20, 1868.[41]

Flake 7957a. UPB, US1C.

214 SMITH, Joseph. Americans, read!!! Gen. Joseph Smith’s views of the powers and policy of the government of the United States. An appeal to the Green Mountain Boys. Correspondence with the Hon. John C Calhoun. Also a copy of a memorial to the legislature of Missouri. [2 lines] New-York: E. J. Bevin, Printer, No. 7 Spruce-Street. 1844.

41 pp. 19.5 cm. Ornamental border on title page.

The title of this tract summarizes its contents (see items 201, 187, 199). The memorial is that of December 10, 1838, presented to the Missouri legislature on December 19, and printed in John P. Greene’s Facts (items 55–56).

Americans Read!!! was printed at the shop of the The Prophet, its format taken from an earlier New York campaign piece, Correspondence Between Joseph Smith, the Prophet, and Col. John Wentworth (item 199). All but the last two pages of Joseph Smith’s views on government are printed from the same typesetting in The Prophet of June 8, 1844, where the first page is arranged in four columns, rather than five, to accommodate the pamphlet setting. The text here of Joseph Smith’s views corrects eleven misprints or misspellings in the first edition (item 201) including basis for bases on p. 8, line 2; adds three other errors; and has two trivial word changes. On June 22 The Prophet advertised Americans Read!!! at $6 per hundred, $1 per dozen, or 12½¢ each, and referred to the pamphlet as a “stereotyped edition.” Sixteen months later the New-York Messenger was still offering it at 12¢ a copy.[42]

Flake 7962. CtY, CSmH, IHi, US1C.

215 SMITH, Joseph. General Smith’s views of the powers and policy of the government of the United States. Jacksonian Print, Pontiac, Michigan. 1844.

8 pp. 25.5 cm.

Charles C. Rich, who would be called into the Twelve in 1849, was the leader of Joseph Smith’s presidential campaign in Michigan. On May 14 he, David Fullmer, Moses Smith, and Norton Jacob left Nauvoo for Michigan in a two-horse carriage, and about the middle of June Rich contracted with the Pontiac Jacksonian to print 5,000 of General Smith’s Views. He and his companions continued their electioneering until mid-July, when they learned of the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum Smith.[43]

The Pontiac edition of General Smith’s Views corrects nine misspellings or typographical errors in the first edition (item 201), including basis for bases on p. 4, line 17, and adds two typographical errors, three minor word changes, and four deletions of single words.

Flake 7960. UPB, US1C.

216 SMITH, Joseph. Gen. Joseph Smith’s views of the powers and policy of the government of the United States. Philadelphia: Printed by Brown, Bicking & Guilbert, No 56 North Third St. 1844.

12 pp. 24 cm.

217 SMITH, Joseph. Views of the powers and policy of the government of the United States. By General Joseph Smith, of Nauvoo, Illinois. Re-published by John E. Page, elder of the Church of Latter-day Saints.—Pittsburgh—1844. [Caption title]

8 pp. 25 cm.

David Yearsley led the campaign in Pennsylvania and most likely published Joseph Smith’s Views in Philadelphia.[44] Page, being the independent that he was, got out his own edition, with a slightly different title and his name in the caption.

The Philadelphia edition differs from all others in that it inserts the following preface:

The numerous and respectful calls made upon me for an expression of my views of National Policy demand attention, but as answering them individually would be attended with much labour, Gentlemen will rest assured of my kindest regard while in lieu thereof I avail myself of the medium of the press. J.S.

Where this statement came from is not known. Perhaps it was inscribed on some of the copies of General Smith’s Views mailed out in February. Further, the Philadelphia edition corrects twelve misprints or misspellings in the first edition (item 201), including basis for bases on p. 6, line 25, and has two insignificant word changes and two deletions of one or two words. A more significant difference occurs at the end of the first paragraph on p. 12, where the two sentences beginning Oh, granny, granny are omitted.

The Pittsburgh edition corrects fourteen misprints or misspellings in the first edition. It also has three single-word changes and one deletion of a single word.

David Dutton Yearsley was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, March 3, 1808, converted to Mormonism in 1841, and soon after moved to Nauvoo. A member of the Council of Fifty, he was called to be a bishop at Winter Quarters in 1846, and two years later he was elected a county commissioner of Pottawattamie County. He died at Winter Quarters in 1849.[45]

Item 216: Flake 7958. CtY, US1C. Item 217: Flake 7966. CtY, DLC, MoInRC, NN, UPB,US1C.

218 SMITH, Joseph. General Smiths views of the powers and policy of the government of the United States. [Caption title] [N.p., 1844?]

11 pp. 20 cm.

This edition of General Smith’s Views bears no indication of when or where it was published. But its text, paper, and typography suggest it was printed at the time of Joseph Smith’s campaign. Perhaps it is the edition published by Lorenzo Snow in Ohio (next item). Its text corrects fourteen spelling or typographical errors in the first edition (item 201), including imposts on p. 2, line 32, and basis on p. 4, line 36; and it adds two misprints of its own.[46]

Flake 7961. US 1C.

219 SMITH, Joseph. [General Smith’s views of the powers and policy of the government of the United States. Kirtland, Ohio? 1844]

No copy of this edition is known (see item 218). Lorenzo Snow, who led the campaign in Ohio, mentions it in his journal:

Sent early in the spring [of 1844], by the Twelve, on a Political mission to Ohio. Delivered on the Steamer Osprey the first political lecture that was ever delivered to the world in favor of Joseph for the Presidency the day after the Conference 6th April Received an appointment by the Twelve to form a political organization throughout the state of Ohio for the promotion of Joseph for the Presidency. On the 23rd of June presided at a large Convention in the Temple at Kirtland. Procured the Printing of 4000 copies of Joseph’s “Views” on Government. Got the state nearly organized and heard of the death of Gen. Smith.[47]

220 SMITH, Joseph. [General Smith’s views of the powers and policy of the government of the United States. Paris, Tennessee, 1844]

This too is not located. Its story comes from the reminiscences of Abraham O. Smoot, who had charge of electioneering in Tennessee:

From Dresden [Tennessee] I proceeded to Paris, in the same State, where I contracted for the publication of 1,000 copies of Joseph Smith’s “Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States.” After the printing had been done and paid for, the printer informed me that if I attempted to circulate the pamphlets it would be likely to land me in the penitentiary, as the views expressed therein, in regard to freeing the slaves, would be considered treasonable and contrary to law. On consulting a lawyer of the place, a boyhood friend of mine, I found that he held the same opinion, and I therefore suppressed the whole edition.[48]

A. O. Smoot was a Kentuckian, born on February 17, 1815. He joined the Church in 1835, was imprisoned for a time following the violence at Far West, moved to Nauvoo in 1839, and led the third company to reach the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. He was the first justice of the peace in the Valley and bishop of the Fifteenth, Big Cottonwood, South Cottonwood, and Sugar House wards. In 1856 he was elected mayor of Great Salt Lake City and served until 1866. Two years later he was called to Provo to preside over the stake there, and for twelve years he served as the Provo mayor. He was a founder and president of the Provo Woolen Mills, the First National Bank of Provo, and the Utah County Savings Bank. He died in Provo, March 6, 1895.[49]

221 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 Parley P. Pratt. [5 lines] Third American edition. Nauvoo: Printed by John Taylor. 1844.

x[11]–279,281–284 pp. 12.5 cm.

The 1844 Voice of Warning is the fourth American edition, not the third (see items 38, 62, 139). One might wonder if Parley Pratt deliberately ignored the 1842 edition because he did not authorize it. The Nauvoo edition was advertised as “now out and for sale at this office” in a notice dated June 11, 1844, in the Nauvoo Neighbor of June 12 and in most issues of the Neighbor thereafter. In November The Prophet began advertising it at 370 a copy. The preface to the 1847 Edinburgh Voice of Warning indicates that the five editions preceding it comprise 13,000 copies. Since the total of those of 1837, 1839, and 1841 is 8,000, it seems likely that the 1842 and 1844 editions were each printed in 2,500 copies.

It is a faithful reprint, including the prefaces (pp. [iii]–x), of the 1841 Manchester edition (item 127). The number 280 is skipped in the pagination of the book. Its bindings include full brown sheep with a red leather label on the backstrip, half brown sheep with marbled paper boards, full brown cloth, and half green or brown cloth with marbled paper boards.

Flake 6631. CSmH, CtY, DLC, ICHi, ICN, MH, MWA, NN, UHi, UPB, US1C.

222 The People’s Organ. Devoted to the imvestigation [sic] of various doctrines and beliefs; religious, moral, social, and political. Pittsburgh: June 15, June 29, July 12, 1844.

v. 1, nos. 1–3. [4],[4],[4] pp. 40 cm. Text in four columns.

At first glance it is not clear just what The People’s Organ is or who published it. The first issue asserts that it “is published every Saturday by a committee, at the north east corner of Market & 3d Sts. In the Building known as the Sun Office, Pittsburgh. A. J. Foster Printer. Terms. $2 per year,—in advance.” (The subscription was dropped to $1 in the second number.) And an editorial in the first number says that several people of various religious and political persuasions are publishing The People’s Organ as an independent paper; that all men writing on any subject are invited to submit communications; and that Mormonism will be much discussed. “We do not advocate Mormonism,” this editorial concludes, “we only want them to have an equal chance with the rest of mankind.” A further look, however, indicates that The People’s Organ was indeed a Mormon paper and John E. Page was its guiding light.

In spite of its promise, the first three numbers appeared about every other Saturday. Whether the paper ran beyond three numbers is not known.[50] Each of the surviving issues has four unnumbered pages, the text in four columns. The second number, at least, was printed in 500 copies.[51] One suspects that Page’s “committee” of publishers was inspired by The Prophet’s Board of Control of the Society for the Diffusion of Truth (see item 211).

Page’s response to a heavy-handed anti-Mormon piece is the lead article in the first number. This is followed by two articles signed, respectively, “Philo” and “Knox,” which question the Mormon concept of the gathering, the appropriateness of Joseph Smith’s involvement in politics, and some of Page’s ideas on the Holy Ghost in the third issue of The Gospel Light (item 178). Neither of these, however, carries the conviction of the anti-Campbellite and anti-Catholic pieces on the fourth page. That they were in fact straw men is made clear in the third number where Page writes on the gathering in response to “Philo.”

Page dominates the second issue with a long essay on the necessity of direct revelation from God, a short piece on Joseph Smith’s presidential candidacy, two articles from the second number of The Gospel Light, and an announcement that Sidney Rigdon had just arrived in Pittsburgh. The only other signed article is one by Richard Savery, a local Latter-day Saint, on the unchanging nature of God and his laws. The third number consists mainly of Page’s response to “Philo” and a reprint of the documents pertaining to the assassination of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, taken from the Nauvoo Neighbor Extra of July 2 (item 227), the Neighbor of July 3, or the Times and Seasons of July 1, 1844.

Flake 6300. UPB.

223 Nauvoo Neighbor Extra. Monday morning, June 17, 1844. [Nauvoo, 1844] Broadside 58 x 45 cm. Text in seven columns.

This is the first of five Nauvoo Neighbor extras which detail the events surrounding the murders of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. It deals with the precipitating incident, the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor.

The likelihood of a dissident newspaper in Nauvoo became apparent on May 7, 1844, when Robert D. Foster took delivery of a printing press. Three days later, William and Wilson Law, Charles Ivins, Francis M. and Chauncey L. Higbee, and Robert and Charles A. Foster issued a prospectus for the Expositor which promised a full airing of their differences with the Church leaders.[52] Among the dissidents were some of Nauvoo’s leading citizens. William Law, a wealthy convert from Canada, had been Joseph Smith’s second counselor in the presidency of the Church. His brother Wilson had been second in command of the Nauvoo Legion, and Robert D. Foster the Legion’s chief surgeon. Sylvester Emmons, the editor of the Expositor, was a member of the city council.[53] Economics, Joseph Smith’s political involvements, his use of the municipal court, and polygamy lay at the heart of their conflicts with the heads of the Church.

Mormon polygamy had its roots in the 1830s. In the spring of 1841 Joseph Smith secretly took a plural wife, and that summer he discreetly began to teach the new doctrine of marriage to some of the Twelve. By the summer of 1843, a number of the Church leaders were involved in the practice. On July 12, 1843, Joseph Smith dictated to William Clayton the revelation on marriage which sanctions, under certain circumstances, a plurality of wives (D&C 132), and that day several of those close to Smith heard it read. William Law, however, did not waver in his opposition to polygamy. Three days after the prospectus for the Expositor appeared, Sidney Rigdon visited him in an attempt to negotiate a peace, but Law remained adamant in insisting that Joseph Smith publicly acknowledge the doctrine of plural marriage and repudiate it.[54]

The first and only issue of the Expositor appeared on June 7, producing an uproar in Nauvoo. For six hours on June 8 and seven on Monday, June 10, the city council debated the merits of the newspaper and the conduct of the Laws, Higbees, and Fosters. At the end of these deliberations the council passed an ordinance declaring the Expositor a public nuisance and issued an order to Joseph Smith, the mayor, to abate it. Smith handed the order to John R Greene, the city marshall, and by eight o’clock that evening he had destroyed the press and pied the type.[55]

Two days later, the Warsaw Signal ran a bitter letter from Charles A. Foster which described the incident and a rabid editorial by Thomas Sharp which declared, “War and extermination is inevitable! . . . We have no time for comment, every man will make his own. Let it be made with POWDER and BALL!!!” On June 13 a mass meeting gathered in Carthage, which was reported in a Warsaw Signal extra the next day and in the Signal of June 19. Here it was resolved to demand the arrest of Joseph Smith, and if he did not surrender, “a war of extermination should be waged, to the entire destruction, if necessary for our protection, of his adherents.” The extra further complained that, in the meeting of the Nauvoo City Council, Hyrum Smith offered a reward for the destruction of the Signal and threatened the life of Thomas Sharp. The Mormons responded by convening a mass meeting of their own in Nauvoo on Sunday evening, June 16, and at this meeting they voted to send delegates around the county to air their side of the conflict. The Nauvoo Neighbor Extra of June 17 was struck off for this effort.[56]

Willard Richards and Thomas Bullock prepared the city council minutes and probably compiled the extra.[57] It opens with some editorial comments and an affidavit signed by several members of the Nauvoo City Council that Hyrum Smith did not threaten Sharp or offer a reward for the destruction of the Signal. Next it reports the deliberations of the city council which focus mainly on allegations of sexual misconduct and illegal activities of some of the dissenters. Occurring twice in these minutes is the comment that the revelation of July 12, 1843, “was in answer to a question concerning things which transpired in former days, and had no reference to the present time.” The extra prints the resolution of the city council declaring the Expositor a public nuisance, its order to demolish the press, Joseph Smith’s order to Greene, and Greene’s return. It gives a brief summary of the mass meeting on June 16 and the names of those delegated to speak around the county; it concludes with Joseph Smith’s mayoral proclamation of June 16 justifying the actions of the city council.

The text of the extra was reprinted in the Nauvoo Neighbor of June 19 from a rearrangement of the same setting. That day the Signal editorialized on the extra, calling it “the best evidence that can possibly be procured, of the rascality of the Mormons.”

Flake 5728. US1C.

224 Nauvoo Neighbor, Extra;—Friday morning, (5 o’clock,) June 21, 1844. [Nauvoo, 1844]

Broadside 58 x 42 cm. Text in six columns.

Shortly after the destruction of the Expositor press, Francis M. Higbee made a complaint before a justice of the peace in Carthage against Joseph Smith and seventeen others for riot while demolishing the press, and on June 12 Smith and his associates were arrested on this warrant. Joseph Smith immediately turned to the municipal court of Nauvoo on a writ of habeas corpus, and later that same day the municipal court held what amounted to a preliminary hearing and dismissed the charges. The next morning the municipal court, with Joseph Smith sitting as chief-justice, dismissed the charges against most of the other seventeen men named in Higbee’s complaint. This was reported to the mass meeting in Carthage on June 13 (see the preceding item), and in the days to follow it exacerbated the growing hostility toward the Saints. On June 16 Joseph Smith consulted Jesse B. Thomas, the state circuit judge, who advised him to be retried before some other justice of the peace in Hancock. Consequently on the 17th, Smith and sixteen of the seventeen named in Higbee’s complaint were rearrested and brought before Daniel H. Wells, a friendly non-Mormon justice of the peace in Nauvoo, who, after hearing considerable testimony, discharged the prisoners. Not surprisingly, this second hearing was no more satisfactory to the anti-Mormons than the first, and their demand that Joseph Smith be tried before the Carthage justice who issued the original warrant led to the events which culminated in his assassination on June 27.[58]

Stephen Markham reported on June 17 that mobs were gathering around the county and might be expected to attack, and the next day Joseph Smith declared martial law in Nauvoo. Further reports of mob activity and statements in the Warsaw Signal about preparations for violent action prompted Smith to call out the Nauvoo Legion on June 19 to guard the city.[59]

On the morning of June 21, the Nauvoo Neighbor issued an extra to apprise the Hancock citizenry of the trial before Daniel H. Wells and to further press the case for destroying the Expositor. This extra reprints some of the resolutions of the Carthage mass meeting on June 13 together with certain hostile quotations from the Warsaw Signal of June 19. Its middle columns print more denunciations of the dissenters, and the last two columns contain a report of Joseph Smith’s hearing before Wells on the 17th. The text was reprinted in the Neighbor of June 26 from the same typesetting. The LDS Church’s copy of the extra has attached at the bottom Wells’s manuscript certification, dated June 22, 1844, that the report of the hearing in the broadside is “a true statement of the proceedings.”

Twenty-nine years old at this point, and a native of New York, Wells would join the Church in 1846 and make the trek to Utah in 1848. He would serve for twenty years as Brigham Young’s counselor in the First Presidency of the Church and for ten years as mayor of Salt Lake City.[60]

Flake 5729. CtY, UPB, US1C.

225 Nauvoo Neighbor, Extra; June 29th, 1844. Proclamation. Head Quarters, June 28, 1844, 4 o’clock, A.M. To the citizens of Carthage and Hancock county: [Signed at end:] M. R. Deming, Brig. Gen., 4th Brigade and 5th Division. [Nauvoo, 1844]

Broadside 14.5 x 8.5 cm.

Eleven hours after the murder of Joseph and Hyrum Smith and ten hours before their bodies were brought to Nauvoo, Minor R. Deming—ordered by Governor Ford to exercise whatever discretionary powers he felt necessary to preserve the peace—issued this proclamation to allay the non-Mormons’ fear of Mormon reprisals and to prevent further violence from the anti-Mormons. It “invites” the citizenry of Hancock to remain in their homes and cooperate in “establishing tranquility and safety throughout the county,” and asserts that adequate militia to protect every citizen will be in the county in twelve hours. It indicates that “there is no just apprehension of an attack upon any place by the Mormon citizens of our county,” and commands all in Hancock to refrain from violence against the Saints. The bodies of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, it concludes, will be moved to Nauvoo under military escort. The proclamation was reprinted from the same setting in the Nauvoo Neighbor Extra of June 30 (next item) and in the Neighbor of July 3.

M. R. Deming was considered a “Jack Mormon” by the anti-Mormons, that is, a non-Mormon who was friendly with the Saints. But what they perceived to be friendship was merely his simple conviction that “the Mormons should be treated like other people.” Born in Litchfield, Connecticut, February 24, 1810, he came to Hancock County in 1838 after teaching in Ohio, and by 1844 he was a brigadier general in the Illinois militia. In the August 1844 election, the solid Mormon vote elected him sheriff of Hancock County (see items 228, 274), and thirteen months later he died of “congestive fever.”[61]

Flake 5730. CtY, UPB, US1C.

226 Nauvoo Neighbor,—Extra: Sunday, 3 o’clock, P.M., June 30th, J844. [At head of first column:] Awful Assassination! The pledged faith of the state of Illinois stained with innocent blood by a mob! [Nauvoo, 1844]

Broadside 58 x 42 cm. Text in six columns separated by black bands.

227 Nauvoo Neighbor,—Extra. Tuesday, 3 o’clock, A.M., July 2, 1844. Second edition. [At head of first column:] Awful Assassination! The pledged faith of the state of Illinois stained with innocent blood by a mob! [Nauvoo, 1844]

Broadside 55 x 38.5 cm. Text in six columns separated by black bands.

Item 226, published three days after the murders of the Smiths, is the first official Mormon statement on the tragedy. It opens with an account of the events leading to the murders. This is followed by reports by each of Joseph Smith’s lawyers, H. T. Reid and James W. Woods, and a statement from Thomas Ford, “To the People of the State of Illinois.” The sixth column reprints M. R. Deming’s proclamation of June 28 (item 225) together with two other communications from him.

Why the extra of June 30 was reissued thirty-six hours later is not clear. Perhaps the demand for this press release warranted a second issue; perhaps the new material in the last column prompted its reprinting. The first five and a quarter columns of item 227 are reprinted from the same setting, slightly rearranged, of this part of item 226. In the remainder of the last column, M. R. Deming’s documents are replaced by five documents, headed Signs of Peace!, which deal with the visit of Hart Fellows and Abraham Jonas, deputized by Governor Ford to determine if there was any threat of Mormon counter-violence.[62] These include Ford’s order to Fellows and Jonas of June 30; their communication to the Nauvoo City Council of July 1; the resulting resolutions of the council passed that day, among them, “Resolved, unanimously, That this city council, pledge themselves for the city of Nauvoo, that no aggressions by the citizens of said city, shall be made on the citizens of the surrounding country”; Willard Richards’s note accompanying the resolutions; and the minutes of a public meeting in Nauvoo on July 1 where the resolutions of the council were publicly approved.

Item 226 occurs in two states: (1) with James W. Woods’s name in the fifth column given as Wood, and (2) with his name given as Woods. The name appears as Woods in item 227 and in the Nauvoo Neighbor of July 3, so state (1) is undoubtedly the earlier.

The text of item 226 was reprinted in The Prophet of July 20 and in the Millennial Star Supplement of August 1844 (item 233). Parts of it were included in Thomas A. Lyne’s A True and Descriptive Account of the Assassination of Joseph & Hiram Smith (item 231) and in John Gooch’s Death of the Prophets Joseph and Hyram Smith (item 232). The combined texts of items 226 and 227 were reprinted in the Neighbor of July 3 from the same typesettings. Item 227 was reprinted, from a new setting, in the Times and Seasons of July 1, 1844, and parts of it were republished in the third number of The People’s Organ (item 222).

Hugh T Reid was born in Union County, Indiana, October 8, 1811, graduated from Indiana College in 1837, and moved two years later to Fort Madison, Iowa, where he began his law practice. From 1840 to 1842 he served as prosecuting attorney for the district that included Lee, Des Moines, Henry, Jefferson, and Van Buren counties. In 1862 he was commissioned colonel of a regiment of Iowa volunteers, and at the battle of Shiloh he was wounded and brevetted a brigadier general. After the war he engaged in building the Des Moines Valley Railroad. He died in Keokuk, August 21, 1874.[63]

James W. Woods, called “Old Timber” in his later years, was born in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, April 30, 1800. He was admitted to the bar in Virginia in 1827 and that year moved to Illinois. In 1834 he settled in Burlington, Des Moines County, Iowa, and two years later he married Catherine Wells, the sister of Daniel H. Wells. He was Burlington’s first city solicitor, 1837; secretary of the first Iowa senate, 1846–47; the district’s prosecuting attorney in 1847; and clerk of the Iowa supreme court, 1847–54. In 1868 he and a second wife went to Waverly, Bremer County, Iowa, where he continued to practice law. Subsequently he moved to Steamboat Rock, Hardin County, where he was still living in 1883.[64]

Item 226: Flake 5731. CtY, ICHi, MoInRC, TxDaDF, UPB, US1C. Item 227: Flake 5731 a. US1C.

228 Notice A public meeting will be held at the Seventies’ Hall to-morrow (Saturday,) at 2 o ‘clock, P.M., for the purpose of selecting suitable persons as candidates to be voted for at the ensuing August election. Many citizens. Friday, July 26, 1844. [Nauvoo? 1844?]

Broadside 24 x 32.5 cm.

The reference to the Seventies’ Hall—a Nauvoo building on the northeast corner of Parley and Bain streets—marks this broadside as a Mormon product (see items 243, 244). At issue was the election on August 5 which was particularly important to the Saints, for the newly elected county officers would be faced with prosecuting the murderers of the Smiths and resisting further violence from the anti-Mormons. On July 17, J. B. Backenstos warned the Mormons that the anti-Mormons in Carthage hoped to elect their own county commissioner, sheriff, and state representatives, and urged the Saints to pick their candidates and unite behind them.[65] But the Mormons seemed reluctant to organize for this election, and as late as July 24 the Nauvoo Neighbor announced that there would be no political meeting in Nauvoo to choose candidates. That same day the Warsaw Signal, in its article “To the Public,” reminded its readers that if the Mormons elected their county commissioner, they would then have a majority of commissioners and thus control the selection of grand and petit jurors. Perhaps this caused the Saints to reconsider. At any rate, on July 26 they issued the notice to meet at the Seventies’ Hall the following day.

On August 2, a public meeting convened in the grove west of the Nauvoo Temple and endorsed the following candidates: for sheriff, Minor Deming (see item 225); for coroner, Daniel H. Wells (see item 224); for county commissioner, George Coulson, a Mormon who had served before as a commissioner; for state representatives, Jacob B. Backenstos, a friendly non-Mormon (see item 275), and Almon W. Babbitt, a Mormon (see item 318). All were elected by substantial margins, thanks to the Mormon bloc.[66]

Flake 5717. US1C.

229 PRATT, Orson. Prophetic almanac, for 1845. Being the first after bissextile or leap year. | Vignette] Calculated for the eastern, middle and western states and territories, the northern portions of the slave states, and British provinces. By Orson Pratt, A.M., professor of mathematics in the University of the City of Nauvoo. New York: Published at the Prophet office, No. 7 Spruce street. Price 6’A cents single—$4 per hundred—$25 per thousand. [1844] [At head of title:] No. 1.—To be continued annually.

[1–14] 15–24 pp. 20 cm. Ruled border on each page.

On December 8, 1843, Joseph Smith proposed to the city council that Congress be petitioned to receive Nauvoo as a U.S. territory, and that day the council appointed John Taylor, Orson Spencer, and Orson Pratt to draft such a memorial. Thirteen days later the council delegated Pratt to submit the memorial to Congress. The following March he left for Washington, D.C. (see items 187, 188).[67]

Dated December 21, 1843, the memorial mainly rehearses the Mormons’ experiences in Missouri and their fruitless efforts to obtain compensation for their losses. The heart of it is a draft of an ordinance which grants to Nauvoo “all the rights, powers, privileges, and immunities” belonging to a federal territory, as well as “the spirit, letter, meaning, and provisions” of the Nauvoo charter. It further empowers the mayor to call a sufficient number of United States troops, in connection with the Nauvoo Legion, to repel mobs and keep the public peace, and it specifies that the Legion will be “under the same regulations, rules, and laws of pay” as U.S. troops.[68]

Early in April 1844 Orson Pratt handed the December 1843 memorial as well as the one of November 28, 1843 (see item 187), to James Semple, senator from Illinois. He submitted them to the Senate on April 5, and the Senate referred them to the Judiciary Committee.[69] Orson Hyde reached Washington later that month, and on the 26th he and Pratt drafted a bill appropriating $2 million in compensation for the Mormon losses in Missouri and handed it also to the Senate Judiciary Committee.[70] Both memorials and the compensation bill apparently died in the committee.[71]

Pratt remarks in his autobiographical sketch that he spent ten weeks in Washington, during which time he “preached and baptized a few” and, during his leisure moments, “calculated eclipses, and prepared an Almanac for publication for 1845.” Calculating eclipses was a natural outgrowth of his interests in science and mathematics. In his sketch he notes that between 1836 and 1844, he had made himself “thoroughly acquainted with algebra, geometry, trigonometry, conic sections, differential and integral calculus, astronomy, and most of the physical sciences.”[72]

Orson Pratt arrived in New York City about June 1, 1844. Three weeks later The Prophet began advertising Prophetic Almanac for 1845, and on August 3 it announced that the shop had “just issued” the almanac and was ready to supply orders.[73]

The heart of the almanac, of course, is a calendar (pp. [3]–[14]) which gives the times of the rising and setting of the sun and the moon for two regions, the times of high tides in Boston and New York, the locations and phases of the moon, and certain important world dates. The second page includes a list of the lunar and solar eclipses during 1845, with the times these would be visible in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and Nauvoo. Filling in below the calendar are quotations from Joseph Smith’s letter to James Arlington Bennet (item 198) and Parley Pratt’s “Intelligence and Affection” (item 202); The Mormon Creed—”Let every body mind their own business,” followed by a set of theological questions and answers; and the parallel comparisons, “The Doctrine of Christ” and “The Doctrines of Men,” taken from the last chapter of the Voice of Warning (items 38, 62, 127, 139, 221). Pages 19–23 contain “Dialogue Between Tradition, Reason, and Scriptus,” which argues against the idea that “the canon of Scripture is full.” The last page advertises The Prophet and its printing and book shop. The A.M. following Orson’s name on the title page refers to the honorary degree conferred upon him by the University of the City of Nauvoo on September 4, 1841. His formal schooling amounted to a few months.[74]

The set of theological questions and answers, for the first time, explicitly put in print some of the most dramatic ideas spoken of by Joseph Smith in his King Follett discourse of April 7, 1844 (see item 271). For example: “What is his [man’s] final destiny? To be like God. What has God been? Like man.”[75]

Prophetic Almanac for 1845 also prints the first part of the December 1843 memorial which speaks of the Mormons’ losses in Missouri and their futile efforts to obtain redress (pp. 15–18); it does not include that part which requests territorial status for Nauvoo. This is followed by a letter from Orson Pratt of May 11, 1844, to John M. Berrien, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which argues that there is no hope of obtaining redress through the Missouri courts and urges the committee to act favorably on the Saints’ memorial (pp. 18–19). It would seem that here Orson refers to the memorial of November 28, 1843. But he printed the opening part of the December 1843 memorial in the almanac undoubtedly because it gave a fuller account of the Mormons’ Missouri experiences, and because he had a hand in writing it.

Orson Pratt promised, on the title page, to continue the almanac annually, and the following year he issued one for 1846 (item 269). But these two were the extent of his published “prophetic” almanacs.[76]

Flake 6514. CtY, DLC, NN, UPB, US1C, UU.

230 APPLEBY, William Ivins. A dissertation on Nebuchadnezzar’s dream: showing that the kingdom spoken of by Daniel the prophet was not set up in the days of the apostles; and the order of the kingdom set up then explained. Also: the rise and faith of the most notable orthodox societies of the present day, together with a synopsis of the origin and faith of the Church of “Latter-day Saints, “ comparing their faith with the faith of other societies. By W. I. Appleby, minister of the gospel. [1 line] Printed by Brown, Bicking & Guilbert, No. 56 N. Third Street, 4th door north of Arch St., Philadelphia. 1844.

24 pp. 18 cm.

William I. Appleby had been laboring as a missionary in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey almost constantly since October 1840. On July 15, 1844, five days after he heard of the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, he returned to his home in Recklesstown, New Jersey, to rest for four weeks. During this period he wrote A Dissertation on Nebuchadnezzar s Dream, which he seems to have finished by August 6, the date of a note To the Reader on the second page of the pamphlet. He reports in his journal that he published 2,000 copies, and the book sold well. A year later the New-York Messenger was still advertising it at 10¢ a copy or $1 per dozen.[77]

A Dissertation opens with some preliminary remarks on reading the scriptures literally and then launches into a discussion of the dream of Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 2) that is taken virtually word-for-word, without credit, from the 1837 Voice of Warning, pp. 25–29 (item 38). It includes some comments on the various kingdoms symbolized in the dream and then argues that the kingdom set up by Jesus was not the last kingdom spoken of by Daniel. The ideas here are from the third chapter of Voice of Warning, which at some points the tract quotes directly. Next it takes up the rise of the major Christian denominations, written from the standard church histories, including Mosheim’s Ecclesiastical History and William Gahan’s A Compendious Abstract of the History of the Church of Christ, and from Benjamin Winchester’s Synopsis (item 155), whose text it also borrows from time to time. A Dissertation then summarizes the beliefs of the major denominations. By referring to Rev. 12:1–14, Num. 14:34, and Ezek. 4:6, and performing some numerical gymnastics, it infers that the Bible predicts that Christ’s true church would be restored in 1830, and this leads to a brief history of Joseph Smith and the rise of Mormonism. Another calculation on the final page produces the conclusion that only twenty-seven years remain until the Second Advent.

Flake 188. DLC, MH, UPB, US1C, UU, WHi.

231 LYNE, Thomas Ackley. A true and descriptive account of the assassination of Joseph & Hiram [sic] Smith, the Mormon prophet and patriarch. At Carthage, Illinois June 27th, 1844, by an eye witness, T. A. Lyne, late of the stage. To which is annexed the speech of H. L. [sic] Reid, also, speech of James W. Woods. To which is added a brief outline of the faith and doctrine of the Latter Day Saints. New-York: Printed by C. A. Calhoun, No. 1 Division-Street. 1844.

19 pp. 20.5 cm.

T. A. Lyne was in Nauvoo at the time of the murders of Joseph and Hyrum Smith and was one of those identified the day before the assassination as a witness for a change of venue. He was also present when their bodies were brought back to Nauvoo, but he did not witness the actual assassination. By August 1844 he had returned to the east coast. In Boston he encountered what he believed to be abuses of the doctrine of plural marriage, and he published a letter in The Prophet of October 5, 1844, warning Mormon women to resist the unrighteous advances of some of the elders. This drew the wrath of Sam Brannan, William Smith, and George J. Adams, and late in October Lyne was excommunicated from the Church (see item 207).[78]

On August 10, 1844, The Prophet announced,

We have just published “A true and descriptive account of the assassination of Joseph and Hiram Smith, the Mormon Prophet and Patriarch at Carthage, June 27th, 111, 1844, by an eye-witness, T. A. Lyne, (late of the stage.) To which is annexed the Speeches of H. L. Reid and James W. Woods, to which is added a Brief Sketch of the Faith and Doctrine of the Latter Day Saints.—Price 12½ cents each.

This is a bit puzzling since the pamphlet was printed by C. A. Calhoun, the printer of two of George J. Adams’s tracts (items 193, 194), not by The Prophet at No. 7, Spruce Street.

From the comments in The Prophet of September 7, it is clear that Lyne—ever the actor—gave public readings of his pamphlet after it was printed. A year later, even though he was out of the Church at this point, the New-York Messenger was still offering his tract at 12¢ a copy.[79]

The tract begins with a discussion of the events surrounding the assassination (pp. [3]–12), which is largely editorializing—with the following postscript: “The writer requests that all who were concerned in this nameless butchery will purchase a copy of this pamphlet, preserve it under their pillow, and in their hour of exit, before death has glazed their eyes, read it, and then ask mercy if they dare.” This is followed by the reports of H. T. Reid and James W. Woods (pp. 13–[18]) (see items 226–27). The final page contains A Brief Outline, of the Faith & Doctrine of the Latter Day Saints, taken without credit from Parley Pratt’s Late Persecution, pp. [iii]–vi (item 64). On the verso of the title page, George J. Adams, Lyne’s brother-in-law and soon his antagonist, certifies that the pamphlet “is a true statement of the leate melancholly facts that transpired at Nauvoo and its vicinity.” A True and Descriptive Account actually collates: [1]–13,16,15,14,19,18,17, a consequence of a misarrangement of the pages in the second signature. Some copies, but not all, give the number of p. 18 as 81.

Flake 5066. CtY, MB, MiU-C, NN, PHi, US1C.

232 GOOCH, John. Death of the prophets Joseph and Hyram [sic] Smith, who were murdered while in prison at Carthage Ill., on the 27th day of June, A.D. 1844. Compiled and printed for our venerable brother in Christ, Freeman Nickerson. Contents. Account of the death of the Mormon prophet and patriarch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Two official reports from Governor Ford. A report from J. W. Woods attorney at law. A few sketchs [sic] from the faith and doctrine of the Latter Day Saints. [6 lines giving meeting locations] Boston: Printed by John Gooch, Minot’s Building Spring Lane, corner Devonshire Street. 1844.

12 pp. 22 cm.

Although this tract is often attributed to Freeman Nickerson, it appears to have been compiled by John Gooch, possibly at Nickerson’s request. The title states Compiled and printed for. . . Freeman Nickerson, and the preface (p. [2]) is signed J.G.

Born in Concord, Massachusetts, August 6, 1824, John Gooch was a member of the Mormon branch in Boston and a professional printer who regularly advertised in The Prophet (see also item 268). In 1845 he was married in Nauvoo, and three years later Orson Hyde engaged him to print the Frontier Guardian in Kanesville, Iowa. Gooch worked on the Guardian until Hyde sold it in February 1852, and later that year, en route to Utah, he died at Woodriver Camp, Nebraska.[80]

Death of the Prophets is mainly taken from the reports in the Nauvoo Neighbor Extra of June 30 (item 226). Its description of the events leading up to the assassination (pp. [3]–4) as well as Thomas Ford’s “To the People of the State of Illinois” (pp. 4–5) and James W. Woods’s report (pp. 7–9) are extracted from the extra. In addition it includes Ford’s proclamation of July 25, 1844, “To the People of Warsaw, in Hancock County” (pp. 5–7), initially published as a broadside and reprinted in the Nauvoo Neighbor of July 31, 1844, and in The Prophet of August 17.[81] In this proclamation Ford condemns the threats of violence against the Saints and reminds the people of Warsaw of the Mormons’ peaceful stance. He further declares that if those agitators in Warsaw become the aggressors, he is “determined that all the power of the state shall be used to prevent [their] success.” The pamphlet concludes with the thirteen “Articles of Faith” from the Wentworth letter (item 199) and a testimony (pp. 10–12), written perhaps by Freeman Nickerson.[82] The title page occurs in two states, with and without the word Ill. in the sixth line.

Wilford Woodruff reached Liverpool on January 3, 1845, to assume the presidency of the British Mission. During the next eight days, he sold six hundred copies of Death of the Prophets to four men in the mission at 12s. 6p. a hundred.⁴ One might guess that he used the tracts to help defray his mission expenses.

Flake 3613. CtY, MH, MiU-C, UPB, US1C.

233 Supplement to the Millennial Star. August 1844. Address to the Saints. [Caption title] [Liverpool, 1844]

16 pp. 22 cm. Each page within black bands.

This supplement brought the details of the assassination to the British Saints. It is routinely bound with the fifth volume of the Star; and even though it does not indicate a place of publication, it certainly was printed in Liverpool by James and Woodburn, who were printing the Star at the time. A notation on the copy in the Franklin D. Richards set in the Brigham Young University Lee Library suggests that the supplement was printed in 2,100 copies.

It includes the text of the Nauvoo Neighbor Extra of June 30, 1844 (item 226), with a few trivial grammatical improvements. This is followed by some editorial comments presumably by Thomas Ward, the editor of the Star; Joseph Smith’s mayoral proclamation of June 16, taken from the Nauvoo Neighbor Extra of June 17 (item 223) or the Neighbor of June 19; a letter from Orson Hyde dated at New York, July 10, 1844; an extract of a letter from Reuben Hedlock, dated at Birmingham, July 31, 1844; and an article from The Prophet of May 25, 1844, on the authority of the apostles. The last page is filled out with an article on recent flooding along the Mississippi, and a short piece on the restraint of the Mormons following the assassination.

Flake 4782. CtY, CSmH, CU-B, MH, NjP, ULA, UPB, US1C, UU.

234 List of provisions furnished by Reuben Hedlock, (licensed passenger broker), for each adult passenger from Liverpool to New Orleans. [31 lines] 36, Chapel Street, Liverpool. [Liverpool? 1844?]

Broadside 22 x 13.5 cm. On pale blue paper.

Listed in this broadside are the provisions supplied to those immigrating to the United States aboard the Mormon charters, together with the fares: adults, £4; children under fourteen, £2; children under one year, free.[83] It was certainly printed after Hedlock arrived in England on September 30, 1843, and before the British Mission headquarters moved from 36, Chapel Street to Stanley Buildings, Bath Street, about June 1, 1845. Indeed it was likely printed before Wilford Woodruff replaced Hedlock as president of the British Mission in January 1845. It is entered at this point because in June and September 1844 the Star advertised a Mormon emigrant charter departing for New Orleans that September, and because Hedlock printed a similar notice in the New-York Messenger of August 9, 1845, with the fares now increased to £4, 4s. for adults and £2, 2s. for children.[84]

US1C.

235 Listen to the voice of truth. Vol. I. New York, 1844. No. 1. A sketch of the faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints particularly for those who are unacquainted with our principles. [Caption title] [At foot of p. [4]:] [Printed by S. Brannan, & Co. No. 7 Spruce street, New-York, j [1844]

[4] pp. 23 cm.

Only the first number of Listen to the Voice of Truth is located, and it is probably the only one published. Its appearance is noted in The Prophet of August 31, 1844:

We this week publish the first number of a series of cheep comprehensive TRACTS illustrating the great truths we are contending for. . . . The one now published was written by Professor Pratt. . . . They are printed on fine paper 8vo. 4 pp. fine print. Price 40 cents per hundred copies or 400 pages.

We would further say that a Society has been formed by the saints of New York, and a small fund raised for the purpose of circulating them gratuitously, which will evidently be the means of removing a great deal of prejudice from the minds of those who are unacquainted with our faith and principles. We hope the Saints in Boston, Philadelphia, and other places will go and do likewise.

The main text is a reprint, with at least one, probably inadvertent, omission, of pp. 27–36 of the 1842 edition of Orson Pratt’s Remarkable Visions (item 147), beginning with “First, we believe in God the Eternal Father,” which gives “a sketch of the faith and doctrine” of the Latter-day Saints (see item 82). This is followed by “Columbian Bard’s” poem, taken from Parley Pratt’s Mormonism Unveiled: Zion’s Watchman Unmasked (items 45–48, 146), and the locations of Mormon meetings in Philadelphia, New York, Brooklyn, and Boston.

Flake 4947. NN, UPB, WHi.

236 The doctrine and covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints; carefully selected from the revelations of God. By Joseph Smith, president of said church. Second edition. Nauvoo, III: Printed by John Taylor. 1844.

[i–ii][5]–448 pp. 15 cm.

On July 17, 1840, Joseph Smith and the Nauvoo high council appointed George W. Harris and Samuel Bent as traveling agents to solicit orders for a new hymnal, a new edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Book of Mormon—which, at the time, Ebenezer Robinson was seeing through the press in Cincinnati (see item 83). Robinson finished printing the 1841 hymnal (item 103) in March, and in November of that year he moved his print shop to a new building across the street which also housed a stereotype foundry and bindery. He seems to have begun stereotyping the Doctrine and Covenants after this move. In the Times and Seasons of January 1, 1842, he announced that the new edition was being stereotyped and would be printed in the spring. That same month, at a meeting with Joseph Smith, the Twelve expressed their opposition to Robinson’s publishing Church books because of what they perceived to be his too proprietary view of them. On February 3 they appointed John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff to edit the Times and Seasons and take charge of the printing office under Joseph Smith’s direction, and the next day Robinson transferred the print shop to Joseph Smith (see item 60).[85]

One year later, the shop again turned its attention to the Doctrine and Covenants. Woodruff records in his journal that they began stereotyping the book on January 30, 1843. John Taylor’s accounts indicate that by December 30, 1843, the shop had stereotyped pages 111–409, suggesting that Robinson had gotten to page 110 and then Taylor and Woodruff picked up the stereotyping at that point.[86] During February 1843 Joseph Smith and W. W. Phelps helped read the proof. On November 7 the Twelve appointed Parley Pratt, Wilford Woodruff, John Taylor, and Brigham Young to raise $500 to buy paper for the new edition. The following month, Joseph Smith directed the Twelve to raise money to send to Orson Hyde, who then was in the east, to buy paper as well as additional type and metal for the stereotyping. Finally, on June 12, 1844, the Nauvoo Neighbor ran a notice, dated June 11, that “the Book of Doctrine and Covenants will be published in about one month from this time.” Fifteen days later Joseph and Hyrum Smith were murdered and John Taylor severely wounded at Carthage Jail, and this undoubtedly delayed the completion of the book; indeed the final section of the book is a statement by Taylor on the murders. The Times and Seasons of September 2 quotes from the new edition, so it was probably finished some time in August.[87]

Making up the new edition are: the title page with a copyright notice on the verso, the “Lectures on Faith” (pp. [5]–86) from the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants (item 22), 111 sections numbered with roman numerals (pp. [87]–445), and an index (pp. [446]–448). The minutes of the August 17, 1835, general assembly are not included, but all 103 numbered sections in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants are reprinted in the 1844 edition.[88] These are numbered the same in the two editions, with the following exceptions: since two sections are numbered 66 in the 1835 edition, that part beginning at the second of the two sections designated 66 up to section 99 is numbered 67 through 100 in the 1844 edition; the final three sections of the 1835 edition are numbered 108–10 in the 1844. Of the eight new sections, 101–4 and 107 print revelations received by Joseph Smith between February 24, 1834, and January 19, 1841. The number of section 103 (now D&C 124) is omitted. Excerpts from this section were earlier published in the Times and Seasons of June 1, 1841. Sections 105 and 106 (now D&C 127–28) comprise Joseph Smith’s two letters of September 1 and 6, 1842, on baptism for the dead, originally published in the Times and Seasons of September 15 and October 1, 1842. Section 111, “Mar- tyrdom of Joseph Smith and his Brother Hyrum,” is a commentary on the assassination by John Taylor (now D&C 135).

The 1844 impression of the second edition must have comprised relatively few copies, given its scarcity today. The book was reprinted from the same stereotype plates, but with some reset pages, in 1845 and in 1846 (items 270, 302), apparently in larger numbers since these later impressions are today more common. One usually finds the 1844 Doctrine and Covenants bound in plain brown sheep with gilt bands and the title in gilt on the backstrip. The LDS Church has a presentation copy, inscribed by Leonora Taylor and dated October 27, 1844, in a binding of red horizontally striated sheep with gilt borders on the covers and a gilt decorated backstrip, the owners name in gilt at the bottom.

Flake 2861. CtY, ICN, MH, MolnRC, NN, OClWHi, UPB, US1C, WHi.

237 HEDLOCK, Reuben. [Small pamphlet in Welsh on the first principles. Liverpool? 1844]

All that is known about this tract—apparently the first Mormon book in Welsh—comes from a comment in Reuben Hedlock’s letter of September 3, 1844, to the Twelve: “The Church in South Wales is progressing rapidly. I have published a small pamphlet in the Welsh language, on the first principles.” Near the beginning of 1843 William Henshaw began proselytizing in Merthyr Tydfil and made his first converts that February. A year and a half later, the Mormon population in the environs of Merthyr Tydfil stood at nearly two hundred. One of these converts undoubtedly translated Hedlock’s tract into Welsh.[89]

Dennis A.

238 DAVIS, Elisha Hildebrand. [Placard announcing that E. H. Davis will preach a funeral sermon on the death of Joseph Smith. London? 1844?]

What is known about this unlocated “placard” comes from The Prophet of March 1, 1845, which reprints an article from the “London. Morn Adv.”:

Mormonism in London. During the last week placards were distributed extensively throughout the metropolis announcing that Elder G.[sic] H. Davis, from America a particular friend of the notorious Joe Smith, the Mormon prophet, . . . would preach a funeral service on the prophet’s death, at the Assembly-rooms, Theobald’s road, on last evening (Sunday) at half-past six o’clock.

The article comments, with some surprise, that the house was crowded with “respectably attired persons the majority being females,” and it goes on to describe Davis’s discourse. The Assembly Rooms on Theobald’s Road, Bloomsbury, were the regular meeting place for the Saints in London (see items 250–51).

Davis arrived at Liverpool with Elijah F. Sheets, J. B. Meynell, and Joseph A. Stratton on August 24, 1844. The next day Sheets and Stratton preached in Liverpool on the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. At the end of September Davis was assigned to preside in London. One might guess that soon after he arrived there he followed Sheets’s and Stratton’s example in order to attract some attention to his mission. The following June he would invite Wilford Woodruff to preach another such funeral sermon in London (item 266).[90]

Elisha H. Davis was born in Westonship, Ohio, October 22, 1815. He joined the Church in August 1838, and the following January began laboring as a missionary with Lorenzo D. Barnes in the eastern states. In England he presided over the London Conference for two years, and in January 1847 he sailed, with a new bride, for America. For about five years he and his wife lived near Council Bluffs, and in 1852 they made the trek to Utah. They eventually settled in Lehi, where Davis died on July 31, 1898.[91]

239 YOUNG, Brigham. A few words to emigrants and to all who wish to purchase property in Nauvoo and its vicinity. [At end:] Brigham Young. Nauvoo, Nov. 12, 1844. [Nauvoo, 1844?]

Broadside 33 x 30.5 cm. Ornamental border.

Buying and selling land in Nauvoo was a major component of the city’s economy, and the Church was the biggest seller. Starting on December 20, 1843, for instance, the Nauvoo Neighbor ran a notice signed by William Clayton urging immigrants to purchase properties from the trustee-in-trust, as these sales would provide funds for the Church and assist the poor. From May to December 1843, Brigham Young himself advertised lots which he had for sale.[92] By the end of 1844, however, the real estate market in Nauvoo had collapsed. In February 1845 the Rigdonite Messenger and Advocate claimed that houses could be bought in Nauvoo for half of the cost to build them.[93]

On August 8, 1844, the Church membership voted to sustain the leadership of the Twelve and thus handed the reins to Brigham Young, the senior member (see the next item). The following day, the Twelve appointed Newel K. Whitney and George Miller as trustees-in-trust with the responsibility for the temporal affairs of the Church (see item 142).[94]

In this circular, Young urges those immigrants looking to purchase property in Nauvoo to contact Whitney and Miller, or one of the Twelve, “for it is your duty.” He continues that he can furnish houses and lots on terms as good as anyone’s. “The reason of giving my name to the emigrants, is because the brethren are, and have been run after continually by apostates, who wish to destroy this people, and are prophecying our destruction, and seek to fulfil their prediction, and they are ready to call Christ and Baal brothers for a penny at the corner of every street.” A similar plea was published by Orson Hyde in the Times and Seasons of January 1, 1845, and in The Prophet of February 8, which warned new converts that certain men, falsely claiming to be Latter-day Saints, were fraudulently attempting to exchange Nauvoo real estate for properties in the East.

George Miller was born in Orange County, Virginia, November 25, 1794, converted to Mormonism in August 1839 (see item 58), and quickly rose to positions of prominence. On January 19, 1841, he was called to be a bishop in Nauvoo (D&C 124:21); named to preside over the high priests quorum that October; promoted to brigadier general in the Nauvoo Legion in September 1842; and taken into the Council of Fifty when it was organized on March 11, 1844 (see items 201, 275, 345). Two months after he and Whitney were designated trustees-in-trust, Whitney was sustained as the first bishop of the Church and Miller the second. In 1847 Miller broke with Brigham Young, joined Lyman Wight in Texas the following year, and aligned himself with James J. Strang in 1850 (see items 345, 303, 310). Soon after Strang’s death in 1856, he left Beaver Island and started for California, but died en route at Marengo, Illinois.[95]

Flake 10,062. US1C.

240 Supplement to the Millennial Star. December, J844. Conclusion of Elder Rigdon’s trial. [Caption title] [At end:] Liverpool: Edited and published by Thomas Ward, 36, Chapel-Street. James and Woodburn, Printers, 39, South Castle-Street. [1844]

8 pp. 22.5 cm.

Sidney Rigdon arrived in Nauvoo from Pittsburgh on August 3, 1844, and immediately began to promote himself as Joseph Smith’s successor. Five days later, the Nauvoo Saints, with only a few exceptions, voted to sustain the leadership of the Twelve. But Rigdon continued to press his claim to succession, and on September 8, eight members of the Twelve, the senior bishop Newel K. Whitney, and a special high council deliberated over his actions and then excommunicated him. Rigdon returned to Pittsburgh with a few followers and set up his own church, and in October he issued the first number of his church’s new periodical, the Messenger and Advocate.[96]

Rigdon’s September 8 “trial” is reported in detail in the Times and Seasons of September 15, October 1 and 15, 1844. The first installment of this report in the Times and Seasons is reprinted in the Millennial Star for December 1844. The third installment is included in the December 1844 supplement. This also contains extracts from the Illinois State Register of November 1 and 11, 1844, on anti-Mormon activity in Hancock County, a letter from Reuben Hedlock, and extracts from The Prophet of November 2, both supporting the leadership of the Twelve. Three notices are at the end, the third asserting that “no individuals professing to come from America, or elsewhere, [will] be permitted to preach, unless they bring legal credentials from the presidency in Liverpool.” The supplement is routinely bound with the fifth volume of the Star.

Flake 4783. CtY, CSmH, CU-B, MH, NjP, ULA, UPB, US1C, UU.

241 The stick of Joseph, taken from the hand of Ephraim. A correct copy of the characters taken from the plates the Book of Mormon!! was translated from—the same that was taken to Professor Anthon of New York, by Martin Harris, in the year 1827, in fulfilment of Isaiah 29.11, 12. [First 9 lines] [New York? 1844?]

Broadside 37.5 x 30.5 cm. Gold print on black coated paper, ornamental border.

Following the nine lines given above, this broadside includes: a three-line quotation from Isaiah 29:11–12, one line of characters, a one-line quotation from Psalms 85:11, one line of characters, a one-line quotation from Hosea 8:12, one line of characters, a three-line quotation from Ezek. 37:19, and a two-line quotation from “An Aged Indian of the Stockbridge Tribe.”

Its publication is noted in The Prophet of December 14, 1844:

We have published a very neat specimen of the original characters or hieroglyphics that were copied from the plates which the Book of Mormon was translated from, and was presented by Martin Harris to Professor Anthon for translation.—We have been to some trouble in having it engraved by Mr. Strong, one of the most skillful engravers in the city of New York; those who wish to obtain a copy to preserve as a memorial, can procure them by applying to the Prophet Office, New York. One object in our publishing these Glyphs, is, to avail ourselves with means to sustain the Prophet, that those who feel an interest in the support of the Prophet may have something as a memorial of their charity and benevolence, as well as the wisdom that inspired our martyred Prophet, who translated the Book of Mormon by the gift and power of God.

One week later The Prophet itself reprinted the three lines of characters. Both sets of characters seem to have been printed from the same cut, except that in the newspaper the last half of the last line is turned upside down and reversed.

Some confusion has arisen because of a notation, in the hand of Thomas Bullock, on the back of a copy at the LDS Church archives, which asserts that it was “formerly owned by Hyrum Smith sent to the Historian Office March 22, 1860, by his son Joseph F. Smith.” Above this, in pencil, is the name “Mrs. Hyrum Smith.” This notation, of course, was made eight years after the death of Mary Fielding Smith and sixteen years after the death of her husband, Hyrum. So the inscription notwithstanding, this copy was likely owned by Mary Smith, but printed, as suggested above, after Hyrum Smith’s death.

The story of Martin Harris’s taking a transcription of some of the Book of Mormon characters to Charles Anthon, a professor of classics at Columbia College, was first printed in E. D. Howe’s Mormonism Unvailed (Painesville, 1834), pp. 269–74. It is told from a Mormon point of view in Joseph Smith’s history in the Times and Seasons of May 2, 1842.[97] Except for the reversed part of the third line, the characters reproduced in the broadside are imperfect copies of the first three lines in the manuscript now owned by the RLDS Church and reproduced in B. H. Roberts’s A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City, 1930), 1:106.

Flake 8464. UPB, US1C.

242 GRANT, Jedediah Morgan. A collection of facts, relative to the course taken by Elder Sidney Rigdon, in the states of Ohio, Missouri, Illinois and Pennsylvania. By Jedediah M. Grant, one of the Quorum of Seventies. Philadelphia: Brown, Biclcing & Guilhert, Printers, No. 56 North Third Street. 1844.

48 pp. 19 cm. Salmon printed wrappers.

Immediately after his excommunication on September 8, 1844, Sidney Rigdon returned to Pennsylvania and began to gather a following (see item 240). Benjamin Winchester, who had been at odds with the Twelve for almost three years, aligned himself with Rigdon, and at the end of September rented a hall in Philadelphia and began to conduct meetings in his behalf. In October a Rigdonite congregation was formally organized in Philadelphia, and during the first week in November Rigdon himself delivered a set of lectures there promoting his claim to the leadership of the Church. This struggle for succession is reflected in the record of the Philadelphia branch, which lists the excommunications of a number of branch members who had defected to the Rigdonite faction during October and November. By the end of the year these defections seem to have subsided, and by the spring of 1847 the Rigdonite church had all but disintegrated.[98]

Jedediah M. Grant, a member of the First Quorum of Seventy since February 1835, had presided over the Philadelphia branch from June 1843 to April 1844, and had resumed this position in July. In April 1854 he would be sustained as second counselor to Brigham Young in the First Presidency of the Church, a position he would hold until his death on December 1, 1856, at age forty.[99]

Grant obviously composed A Collection of Facts in response to the disaffections in the Philadelphia branch.[100] The Prophet of December 28, 1844, noted that it had just received copies and had them for sale at the office for 15¢ each. The following week it reported that Rigdon had brought suit against Grant over the tract. A year later the New-York Messenger offered A Collection of Facts at 12¢.[101]

The pamphlet opens with the claim that Rigdon possessed, “a yawning disposition after imaginary things . . .combined with great ambition, and over anxiety to be leader.” It asserts that he was the guiding influence behind the spirit of speculation that swept Kirtland in 1836–37, and that his 1838 Fourth of July oration “was the main auxiliary that fanned into a flame the burning wrath of the mobocratic portion of the Missourians” (item 49). And it comments on Joseph Smith’s rejection of him as his counselor in October 1843. More than a third is occupied with the report of Rigdon’s trial, reprinted, with omissions, from the Times and Seasons of September 15, October 1 and 15, 1844, or from The Prophet of November 16 and 23. Curiously, it includes an extract of a letter of Wilford Woodruff, printed in The Prophet of October 19, 1844, and Times and Seasons of November 1, but omits the part which reports Joseph Smith’s charge to the Twelve, just prior to his death, that they were now to bear the leadership of the Church. In the concluding sentence, Grant promises a second installment, also suggested by the wrapper title, but he did not publish one, probably because of Brigham Young’s instructions to him in January 1845 to ignore the Rigdonites.[102]

A Collection of Facts was originally issued in salmon printed wrappers, with the following wrapper title within an ornamental border: J. M. Grant’s Rigdon. Number one. Brown, Bicking & Guilbert, Printers, No. 56 North Third Street. 1844. One sheet Periodical. Postage—Under 100 miles, 1½ cts.; over 200 miles, 2½ cts. The rest of the wrapper is plain. Page 6 is misnumbered 9.

Flake 3683. CtY, MoInRC, UPB, US1C, UU.

243 TAYLOR, John. The seer. Written for the dedication of the Seventy’s Hall, and dedicated to President Brigham Young: by John Taylor. [Nauvoo, 1844?]

Broadside 20.5 x 10 cm. Ornamental border.

This was struck off for the dedication of the Seventies’ Hall, December 26, 1844-January 1, 1845, which took place over seven days in order to accommodate fifteen quorums of seventy with about one thousand members.[103] The song it prints was sung on the first day of the services by John Kay, accompanied by the Nauvoo Band, to the tune of “The Sea.”[104] Its text was reprinted from the same setting in the Times and Seasons of January 1, 1845, in the Nauvoo Neighbor of January 29 from a different setting, and in the Frontier Guardian of September 19, 1849. It was included in the Wight book (item 345) and in the 1847 Liverpool hymnal (item 340), and remained in the LDS hymnal until 1985.

John Taylor patterned it after the popular song “The Sea,” by Barry Cornwall.[105] It is in four verses of twelve lines each, rhyming in couplets. Its first two lines: “The seer;—the seer:—Joseph the seer—/ I’ll sing of the Prophet ever dear.”

The Seventies’ Hall was a two-story brick building on the northeast corner of Parley and Bain streets. John D. Lee superintended its construction. Although identified for the use of the quorums of seventy, it functioned as one of the community’s main meeting halls. Its first floor accommodated public gatherings; its second housed the seventies’ library.

Flake 8844a. UPB.

244 PHELPS, William Wines. A voice from the prophet. ‘‘Come to me.” By W. W [sic] Phelps, Esq.—Tune—“Indian Hunter.” —[Nauvoo, 1844?]

Broadside 20 x 10 cm. Ornamental border.

This too was used on the first day of the dedication of the Seventies’ Hall (see the preceding item).[106] It was also reprinted in the Nauvoo Neighbor of January 8, 1845, and the Times and Seasons of January 15, from the same setting, and in The Prophet of February 15. It appeared in the LDS hymnal from 1847 to 1948 (see item 340).

The song, written in 8 four-line stanzas, was sung to the tune of “Indian Hunter,” after which it was patterned.[107] It is cast in the form of a plea from the departed Joseph Smith to those still struggling with life’s problems. Its first two lines: “Come to me, will ye come to the saints that have died,—/ To the next better world, where the righteous reside.” The first four stanzas are a slight reworking—to reflect Joseph Smith’s passing—of Phelps’s earlier “Vade Mecum (translated) Go With Me.” This was printed in the Times and Seasons of February 1, 1843, along with a long poetic response, purportedly by Joseph Smith, which was modeled on “The Vision” (see item 52).[108]

Flake 6354. US1C.

245 The death of the prophets. [At head of left column] [At head of right column:] Written while crossing the Atlantic, by W. Clayton. [N.p., 1844?]

Broadside 25.5 x 19 cm. In two columns, ornamental border.

Virtually nothing is known about this piece. Its left column contains an eight-stanza poem which laments the murders of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, while promising that the Saints will ultimately find refuge and Joseph and Hyrum will reign with the resurrected Christ. The first stanza: “Oh, Columbia’s sons of freedom, /What is that we hear of you; /Have you slain two men of wisdom?/Yes! the story is too true. / Holy Spirit! / Shew the wicked what they do.” The right column contains William Clayton’s song “With Darkness Long We’ve Been O’erwhelm’d,” first printed on the last page of Journal of Heber C. Kimball (item 93) and reprinted, without changes, in the Wight hymnal (item 345) and, with changes, in a broadside (item 106) and in The Prophet of August 3, 1844.

The broadside’s typography, particularly its border, which is the same as that of item 52, suggests it is a British imprint. And the reference, “Zion’s cities shall be founded in the western hemisphere,” tends to date it before the Mormons reached Utah.

Flake 2740a. CSmH.

246 LITTLE, Jesse Carter, and George Bryant Gardner. A collection of sacred hymns, for the use of the Latter Day Saints. Selected and published by J. C. Little and G. B. Gardner. Bellows Falls: Printed by Blake and Bailey. 1844.

80 pp. 14 cm. Ornamental border on title page.

The Little-Gardner book is the first Mormon hymnbook with music. Exactly when or under what circumstances it was published is not clear. Little, a merchant, and Gardner, a musician, both lived in Peterborough, New Hampshire, thirty miles southeast of Bellows Falls, Vermont, and Little was the presiding elder there. So one might guess that they collaborated in publishing the book for the use of the large Mormon congregation in Peterborough.[109]

Jesse C. Little was born in Belmont, Maine, September 26, 1815. Early in his life he moved with his family to Peterborough, where he eventually married and owned a store. In April 1839 he converted to Mormonism, and by October 1844 he was the presiding elder in Peterborough. Six months later, Parley Pratt ordained him a high priest and called him to lead the Church in New Hampshire. The following year, as presiding elder in the eastern United States, he negotiated the call of the Mormon Battalion with President Polk (see items 304, 306, 313). In the spring of 1847 he left his wife and children in Peterborough, joined the pioneer company, and entered the Great Salt Lake Valley that July; then he returned to the east in the fall to resume the leadership of the Church in the eastern states. In 1852 he and his family immigrated to Utah. For eighteen years he served as second counselor to Edward Hunter, the presiding bishop. He died in Salt Lake City in 1893 after a lingering illness.[110]

George B. Gardner was born in New Ipswich, New Hampshire, April 4, 1813. In 1841 he moved to Peterborough, and in November of that year was converted to Mormonism by Eli P. Maginn. John E. Page ordained him an elder in February 1843, and from time to time during the next two and a half years, he labored as a missionary in the neighboring towns. In September 1845 he moved to Nauvoo, and fourteen months later settled with the Saints at Winter Quarters, where he lived until he made the trek to Utah in 1850. For fifteen years he lived in southern Utah and then for twenty years in northern Arizona, where he died in 1898. Gardner remarks in his autobiography that he led choirs and taught singing throughout his years in southern Utah and northern Arizona.[111]

Their book contains forty-eight numbered songs (pp. 4–78), preceded by Scale, Signature, Notes and Rests (pp. [2]–[3]), and followed by an index of first lines (pp. [79]–80). Tunes and bass lines accompany the texts of the first thirty-one hymns; only the texts are included for the last seventeen. Three are specifically identified as composed by Mary Judd Page, nos. 40, 42–43, and three are identified as composed by W. W. Phelps, nos. 45–47. The songs came from two sources, thirty-eight from the Nauvoo hymnal (item 103), twenty-seven from the Page- Cairns book (item 102); seventeen are common to both. Its bindings include half or three-quarter black or brown sheep with marble paper boards, the title in gilt on the backstrip; three-quarter brown sheep with brown cloth covered boards, the title in gilt on the backstrip; and full brown sheep with a blind stamped border on the covers, gilt bands and gilt title on the backstrip.

Flake 4956. CSmH, CtY, MH, RPB, UPB, US1C, Vt.

247 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] Batavia: Printed by D. D. Waite. 1844.

15 pp. 22 cm.

This is a faithful reprint of item 96, including the quotation on the title page and Robert B. Thompson’s preface. Exactly when or under what circumstances it was published is not known. D. D. Waite of Batavia, New York, also printed Charles B. Thompson’s Evidences in Proof of the Book of Mormon (item 134), and Thompson was assigned to New York to stump for Joseph Smith’s presidential candidacy; so one might conjecture that Thompson published this edition of An Address to Americans as part of the campaign, perhaps as a fund-raiser.[112]

Flake 5663. ICN.

248 Poetical facts. [N.p., 1844?]

Broadside 39 x 18.5 cm. Text in two columns, ornamental border.

Poetical Facts contains three poems, the second of which, “Charter of Nauvoo,” does not seem to be in any other Mormon source. In 8 four-line verses, its first verse is: “Illinois legislation, it rules with gentle care, / Accepted our petition and answered well our prayer, / O we’ve always had to wander as strangers it is true, / Till legislation granted us our charter for Nauvoo.” Who composed it is not known.

The first poem, entitled “The Mobbers of Missouri,” is printed in The Prophet of July 27, 1844. Joseph Smith III remembered hearing it sung to the tune of “The Hunters of Kentucky” when he visited his father and uncle in Liberty Jail.[113] Modeled on the War of 1812 song “The Hunters of Kentucky,” it is in 6 eight-line verses with a two-line chorus.[114] The first verse: “Come gentlemen and ladies too, / Who love your country’s glory; / Hark, if you’ve nothing else to do, / While I relate a story; / And mark what’s done, like days of old, / By mortals in their fury,—/ For ‘tis not often you behold / Such mobbers as Missouri.”

The third poem, entitled “Mission of the Twelve,” is Parley Pratt’s two-part hymn, “How Fleet the Precious Moments Roll,” first printed in The Millennium, a Poem (item 21) and included in the Rogers, Elsworth, Page-Cairns, Little-Gardner, and Adams books (items 50, 61, 102, 246, 289); The Millennium and Other Poems (item 63); the 1840 hymnbook (item 78); and, except for the Nauvoo book, in the official LDS hymnal thereafter up to 1948.

It would seem that this broadside was printed in 1844. In the original version of “How Fleet the Precious Moments Roll,” the first two lines of the third verse read, “And eighteen hundred thirty five, / Is rolling swiftly on the wing.” In Poetical Facts the first line is changed to “And eighteen hundred forty-four.”[115] Moreover, “Charter of Nauvoo” speaks favorably of the Illinois legislature for passing the Nauvoo charter, which it repealed on January 29, 1845. Poetical Facts is undoubtedly a British imprint. Its border matches that of the Norwich edition of An Epistle of Demetrius (item 333), and the third verse of “The Mobbers of Missouri” refers to pounds, the British monetary unit. The only located copy was sold by the University of Michigan Clements Library in May 1995 and is now owned by a private collector.

249 SNOW, Eliza Roxcy. Lines on the assassination of Generals Joseph Smith & Hyrum Smith, first presidents of the Church of Latter-day Saints, who were massacred by a mob in Carthage, Hancock County, Illinois, on the twenty-seventh June, 1844. By Miss Eliza R. Snow. [Below border:]. J. Heap, Printer. [N.p., 1844?]

Broadside 24.5 x 19 cm. Text in two columns, ornamental border.

Eliza Snow’s “Lines on the Assassination,” dated at Nauvoo, July 1, 1844, was first published in the Times and Seasons of that date. It was reprinted in the Nauvoo Neighbor of July 17, The Prophet of August 17, the Millennial Star of September 1844, the Wight hymnal (item 345), the Frontier Guardian of July 25, 1849, and in her Poems, Religious, Historical, and Political (Liverpool, 1856), pp. 142–45. When or where this broadside edition was printed is not known. Its typography suggests it is a British imprint. And the difference in title and the slight differences in punctuation between the versions in the Times and Seasons and Millennial Star suggest it was reprinted from the Star.

The poem consists of eleven stanzas of varying lengths, in rhyming couplets. Its third stanza: “Oh, wretched murderers! fierce for human blood! / You’ve slain the prophets of the living God, / Who’ve borne oppression from their early youth, / To plant on earth the principles of truth.”

Flake 7840. US1C.

250 SNOW, Lorenzo. [2 lines] The only way to be saved. [1 line] An explanation of the first principles of the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (4 lines] By Lorenzo Snow, an American missionary. London: Printed by F. Shephard, High Street, Islington. 1844.

12 pp. 18 cm.

251 SNOW, Lorenzo. [2 lines?] The only way to be saved. [1 line] An explanation of the first principles of the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. [4 lines] By Lorenzo Snow, an American missionary. London. [Printer’s name and date?]

12 pp. 16 cm.

The only located copy of item 251 has been cropped, taking, most likely, the quotation at the head of the title page and the printer’s name and date of publication at the bottom. But it is clearly a different edition from item 250 and the 1841 first edition (item 129). Both items 250 and 251 are faithful reprints of the 1841 edition, differing from it only in a few trivial changes of punctuation and the four-line quotation added to the title page of each. At the end, both give the address of Mormon meetings in London as “the Large Assembly Rooms, No. 8, Theobald’s Road, Bloomsbury, London,” while the 1841 edition lists “Castle Street Chapel, near the Session House, Clerkenwell.” So one might infer that items 250 and 251 were printed about the same time.

During the first four months of 1844, John Cairns (see items 102, 197) presided over the London Conference, which included five branches and more than three hundred members. That fall Elisha H. Davis took charge of the conference (see item 238).[116]

Item 250: Flake 8212. US1C. Item 251: Flake 8211. UPB.

252 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. Fourth edition. Liverpool: Published and sold by R. Hedlock and T. Ward, 36, Chapel Street, and by the agents throughout England. 1844.

336 pp. 10.5 cm.

In October 1844, the Millennial Star reported that the third European edition of the hymnbook was out of print and a new edition was then in press, which would “be forwarded and completed with the greatest possible dispatch.” It seems, however, that this book was not finished until after the first of the year. Wilford Woodruff, who arrived in England on January 3, 1845, remarks in his journal that, “During AD 1845 I Published . . . in Liverpool England . . . 3,000 copies of the Hymn Book.” The Star of August 15, 1851, also notes that a fourth edition of 3,000 was published in 1845.[117]

This edition, printed in a larger run, did not sell out as quickly as the two preceding ones (items 130, 172). At the end of 1845, 2,166 copies remained unsold in the Millennial Star office, and the office still owed Mr. Fazakerly £24 3s. 7d. for binding them.[118] In November 1846 the Star advertised the hymnal for 1s. 9d., and six weeks later it reduced the price to Is. 6d. retail and 1s. 3d. wholesale—the price that would be maintained for the next edition (item 340). By the following April the book was out of print.[119]

Other than a few minor spelling changes and a different numbering of the songs, the fourth edition is essentially a line-for-line reprint of the third (item 172). It includes the same 272 hymn texts (pp. [5]–324), in the same sequence, but numbered 1–155, 157, 156, 158–272. The imprint Liverpool: Printed by James and Woodburn, South Castle Street appears on the verso of the title page. Reuben Hedlock’s and Thomas Ward’s preface to the fourth edition (p. [4]) follows the preface to the first (p. [3]). An index of first lines is at the end (pp. [325]–36). The Brigham Young University copy is bound in black sheep, with wide gilt ornamental borders on the covers, gilt decorated panels and title between raised bands on the backstrip, and gilt edges. The LDS Church’s is in brown blind stamped sheep, a circular design within an ornamental border on the covers, the backstrip plain except for the title in gilt.

Flake 1763. UPB, US1C.

253 Nauvoo Neighbor—Extra: Saturday, January 18, 1845. [At head of first column:] The voice of Nauvoo! Proceedings of the city council. [Nauvoo, 1845]

Broadside 40.5 x 28 cm. Text in four columns.

On September 18, 1844, four days before a warrant was issued for his arrest for the murders of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, Thomas C. Sharp began a column in the Warsaw Signal, headed “Mormon Thieves,” in which he listed every allegation of horse stealing and petty larceny that he could find against the Saints.[120] He brought this campaign into sharper focus on December 18, when, in the Signal, he urged the anti-Mormons to send in reports of Mormon misdeeds to be forwarded to the Illinois legislature, which would meet at the end of the month and again take up the repeal of the Nauvoo charter. After the exchange of insults in the early issues of The Wasp, the Saints had all but ignored Sharp. But by January 1845 it was certainly clear to the Church leaders that his campaign was having an effect on some of the state legislators.

At the Sunday meeting on January 5, Brigham Young exhorted the congregation to rise up against “the thieving, swearing, gambling, bogus-making, retailing spirituous liquors, bad houses, and all abominations practiced in our midst by our enemies, who, after they could not live among us any longer would go out to the world and publish that these things were practiced by us.” If the Saints did not eliminate these elements, he declared, they would eventually force them to leave.[121] The following Sunday Brigham Young, John Taylor, and others met with the seventies and with the high priests to select certain men to travel about Illinois and Iowa and answer the charges of the anti-Mormons. The next day the city council appointed a committee, which included Taylor, to draft a set of resolutions “pertaining to the impositions practised by the Anti-Mormons, and to take precautionary measures to prevent thefts.” These were presented at a public meeting on January 14, which also drew up a set of resolutions, including one to send fifty men about the state to present the Mormon point of view. The Nauvoo Neighbor extra of January 18 was struck off for this “public relations” mission.[122]

The extra prints the resolutions of the city council and those of the public meeting. Both sets of resolutions charge that the allegations of thievery are false, that acts of non-Mormons in and about Nauvoo have been laid at the Mormons’ door, and that anti-Mormons have pilfered their own goods and destroyed their own property in order to blame the Saints. Both ask that a police force of five hundred be raised in Nauvoo. In addition, the extra includes a statement from Joseph A. Kelting, deputy sheriff of Hancock County, dated January 17, 1845, that after a careful search of the city he is convinced that the only stolen property passing in and out of Nauvoo is handled by a gang of non-Mormons who “screen themselves under the cloak of Mormonism, in order that the Mormons may bear the blame.”[123]

Initially the resolutions of the city council and those of the public meeting were printed in the Neighbor of January 15. From a rearrangement of this setting, they were reprinted in the extra of January 18 together with Kelting’s statement. This setting was used again to print the entire text of the extra in the Times and Seasons of January 15—with two corrections. Kelting’s statement was printed a third time in the Neighbor of January 22.

The Neighbor of February 12 reported, “Our messengers who went into the country with an ‘Extra’ from this city not long since, as far as returned, bring very favorable reports as to the disposition of the inhabitants with respect to Nauvoo; good, a union of honest men can do much.” But two weeks earlier, the Illinois legislature had revoked the Nauvoo charter in its entirety by a vote of two-to-one (see item 154).

Flake 5731b. US1C.

254 Times and Seasons—Extra. Nauvoo, January 22, 1845. Circular of the Twelve, and trustees in trust. [At head of first column:] An epistle of the Twelve, to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in all the world. Greeting: [Nauvoo, 1845]

Broadside 40 x 31 cm. Text in four columns.

This epistle, dated in the broadside January 14, 1845, was actually composed by Brigham Young, John Taylor, Willard Richards, and Amasa Lyman at Taylor’s house the evening of January 11.[124] It describes the progress on the Nauvoo Temple and urges those able-bodied men “who have it in their hearts to stretch forth this work with power” to come to Nauvoo for the summer and work on the building. It asks the branches to send whatever raw materials, livestock, manufactured goods, and money they can to help finance the project. By December, it reports, the temple should be sufficiently complete for the Saints to begin using it. Further, it counsels those away from Nauvoo to pay monies only to traveling elders with written authorization from the Twelve. Following the epistle is a statement by Newel K. Whitney and George Miller, the trustees-in trust for the Church, which lists those elders authorized to collect funds (see item 239). A final paragraph outlines the procedure for trading land away from Nauvoo for properties in or near the city.

Finishing the temple was an overriding concern of the Twelve. At the time they issued this epistle, they were also contemplating the possibility of moving from Nauvoo, and the revelation to Joseph Smith of January 19, 1841 (D&C 124) mandated that they finish the temple enough so the Saints could participate in its ordinances before they evacuated the city (see item 275). On March 15, 1845, for example, the Twelve decided to put all available help to work on the temple, which, within two days, increased the number of laborers by 105.[125]

The text of the broadside was printed from the same typesetting in the Times and Seasons of January 15, 1845. It was reprinted in The Prophet of February 22.

Flake 1501a. UPB, US1C.

255 Conference. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will hold their conference in the Philadelphia Chapel, North Wing, Bradford, on Sunday, February 23rd, 1845, to commence at ten o’clock in the morning, two in the afternoon, and six in the evening; when there will be present on the occasion, two Americans, one of whom belongs to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Also, there will be preaching on the fulness of the everlasting gospel, as revealed by the angel of the Lord in these last days, on the following evenings, Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday, in the said chapel, to commence at eight o’clock each evening. N.B. People of all persuasions are invited to attend. J. Parkinson, Printer, Market-Street, Bradford. [1845]

Broadside 43 x 34 cm.

The two Americans here were Wilford Woodruff and Elijah F. Sheets. Woodruff arrived in Liverpool from the United States on January 3, 1845, and came to Bradford on February 19. He was the first member of the Twelve in England since the fall of 1842, and this was his first visit to Bradford since his arrival, so it was an occasion for the Bradford Saints. On February 23 he addressed the conference, preached the following evening, and then returned on the 25th. During his stay in Bradford, he visited the grave of Lorenzo D. Barnes and collected Barnes’s effects from the family that had cared for him during his illness (see items 115–16, 151, 152). Woodruff summarized the meetings in his journal and published a less detailed report of them in the Millennial Star of March 1845.[126]

Elijah Sheets, a twenty-three-year-old Pennsylvanian, had presided for almost four months over the Bradford Conference, which included branches at Bradford, Leeds, and Idle, with a combined membership of 168. His mission in England extended from August 1844 to January 1846, and in the summer of 1847 he immigrated to Utah. He served as the bishop of the Salt Lake City Eighth Ward for forty-eight years and, in the 1870s, as traveling bishop and assistant trustee-in-trust for the Church. In 1888 he spent eighty days in the Utah penitentiary for polygamy. He died in Rexburg, Idaho, July 3, 1904.[127]

Item 255 was probably published by Edward Milnes, the presiding elder in the Bradford branch. Born in England in 1803, Milnes joined the Church in 1841 and led the Bradford branch for several years, before he and his family sailed for America in February 1852.[128]

Flake 1904a. US1C.

256 Proclamation of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latterday Saints. To’tilt the kings of the world; to the president of the United States of America; to the governors of the several states; and to the rulers and people of all nations: greeting: [Caption title] [Dated at end:] New York, April 6, 1845. [New York? 1845?]

16 pp. 22 cm.

Proclamation of the Twelve Apostles derived from the revelation to Joseph Smith of January 19, 1841 (D&C 124), which, in its opening verses, enjoined him to make a “solemn proclamation . . . to all the kings of the world, to the four corners thereof, to the honorable president-elect, and the high-minded governors of the nation.” The revelation directed Robert B. Thompson to assist in its writing, and he helped produce a manuscript draft, now in the LDS Church archives, which apparently was not finished because of his death in August 1841. At the end of that year Joseph Smith spoke to one of his scribes about the proclamation. And again on November 21, 1843, he instructed Willard Richards, Orson Hyde, John Taylor, and W. W. Phelps “to write a proclamation to the Kings &c. of the Earth,” but his presidential campaign and then his assassination apparently interrupted this effort. That Proclamation of the Twelve Apostles was published in fulfillment of the revelation is made clear by Wilford Woodruff in the Millennial Star of October 15, 1845, and that it was actually composed by Parley Pratt is acknowledged by Brigham Young in his letter to Parley of May 26, 1845.[129]

Proclamation of the Twelve Apostles was certainly printed at the shop of The Prophet, which advertised it on March 1, 1845:

Just Published. A few specimen copies of a proclamation to all the Kings, Presidents, Governors, Rulers and People of the earth, revealing the state of Nations, Kingdoms and Empires. This work is in pamphlet form, 16 pages of large, beautiful type, and only a few copies have been printed. No more will be printed till we get the signatures of the Twelve, from the West, to the same.—Therefore if any wish a copy, they would do well to apply immediately.—Price 10 cts. single copies, or six Dollars per 100. P. P. Pratt.

Implicitly the “signatures of the Twelve” came in Brigham Young’s May 26 letter, which spoke approvingly of the proclamation and of Parley’s activities in New York. Parley Pratt stated on the pamphlet’s last page that he would endeavor to print 100,000 copies at The Prophet office for gratis distribution. A notice in the New-York Messenger of August 23 indicates that before he left New York, he instructed Sam Brannan to print and circulate more copies, and this notice asks the presiding elders to each send in ten dollars which would pay for one thousand pamphlets—a plea that was repeated in the Messenger five weeks later. It would seem, however, that no more were printed in the United States. Instead, in October, Wilford Woodruff published 20,000 in Liverpool, and two months later Dan Jones got out 4,000 in Welsh (items 285–86), most of which were distributed gratis.[130]

Dated at the end, April 6, 1845, the proclamation declares that the kingdom of God is established on the earth, that its authority rests with the Latter-day Saints, and that all must repent of their sins and be baptized into the kingdom. To the kings and rulers of the earth it says, “You are not only required to repent and obey the gospel . . . but you are also hereby commanded, in the name of Jesus Christ, to put your silver and your gold, your ships and steam-vessels, your railroad trains and your horses, chariots, camels, mules, and litters, into active use, for the fulfilment of these purposes.” The American Indians, it asserts, are a remnant of the tribes of Israel and must be educated and civilized, for they are to assist in building the New Jerusalem in America while the Jews rebuild the old Jerusalem. It concludes with a series of one-sentence statements summarizing the fundamentals of Mormonism, each followed by the phrase “And we know it.”

The revelation of January 19, 1841, enjoined Joseph Smith to write the proclamation “in the spirit of meekness.” But those outside of Mormonism must have viewed Proclamation of the Twelve Apostles as an arrogant tract—a fact implicitly acknowledged in the Star of October 15, 1845, which urged the elders to use wisdom in distributing it “so as not unnecessarily to expose themselves to difficulties and persecution.”

Flake 1511. CU-B, MB At, MH, MoInRC, NN, UPB, US1C, UU.

257 HARDY, John. The true church of Jesus Christ contrasted with the systems of men. [At end:] Manchester, March 27, J845. [Above border at foot:] Jacques, Printer, Oldham Road. [Manchester, 1845?]

Broadside 22 x 14.5 cm. Ornamental border.

258 DUFF, J. G. The martyrs of Jesus safely lodged behind the vale. [At end:] J. G. Duff. [Below border at foot:] Jacques, Printer, Oldham-rd. Manchester. [1845?]

Broadside 21 x 14 cm. Ornamental border.

Each of these broadsides contains the text of a song in six verses. That both were printed about the same time is suggested by the similarities in format and typography, particularly the peculiar ornamental borders. The song in The True Church of Jesus Christ Contrasted with the Systems of Men was published in The Prophet of June 29, 1844, over John Hardy’s name (see items 153, 186), and reprinted in the Times and Seasons of February 1,1845, and in the Nauvoo Neighbor of February 5. It would appear, therefore, that the date on the broadside refers to the date it was printed. J. G. Duff is undoubtedly the John G. Duff whom the Millennial Star of July 15, 1847, warned the Saints about because he had been “borrowing money in different places, and defrauding and deceiving.” Who published the broadsides is not known. It is conceivable that these were song sheets printed for the April general conference in Manchester.

Neither song ranks with the better LDS hymns. Nevertheless, the song in item 257 was included in the LDS hymnal from 1851 to 1890. Hardy patterned it after the popular song “The Rose That All Are Praising,” to whose tune it was to be sung (see item 295).[131] Its first two lines: “The God that others worship is not the God for me; / He has no parts or body, and cannot hear nor see.” And the first four lines of item 258: “Where are now the Ancient Patriarchs, / Where are now the Hebrew Worthies, / Where is now the Prophet Daniel, / Safely lodged behind the Vale!”

Item 257: Flake 9021a. US1C. Item 258: Flake 3023. US1C.

259 Grand concert. The inhabitants of Nauvoo and its vicinity, are respectfully informed that a grand concert of vocal and instrumental music, will be held at the Concert Hall in this city, on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, April 7, 8, & 9, 1845, at 6 o’clock, p.m., as follows: [First 9 lines] [At end:] Doors open at 6 o’clock, p.m.; performance to commence at half past 6 o’clock. Admittance 12½ cts. The proceeds to be appropriated to the Nauvoo Band. [Nauvoo? 1845?]

Broadside 61x21 cm.

Nauvoo boasted two bands, the more prominent that of William Pitt which performed at and was the beneficiary of this April concert. Those performing in Pitt’s band are listed at the bottom of the bill: “W. Pitt, Superintendent of the Orchestra;—Violins, Messrs. Pitt, [William] Clayton, and [Jacob F] Hutchinson;—Violincello, [James] Smithies;—Clarionetts, [James] Standing and [Martin H.] Peck;—Flutes, D. H.[Daniel S.J Cahoon, A[ndrew] Cahoon, and Smith;—Cornopian, S[tephen] Hales;—Trumpets, [John] Kay and [Robert T] Burton;—Tromboon, C. S.[Charles H.] Hales.”

Also listed in the playbill are the performers and their numbers. Some examples: Monday evening—Glee, “Fair Nauvoo” by Mrs. Cahoon, Mrs. Baylis, Messrs. Pack and Cahoon; Tuesday evening—Song, “The Hole in the Stocking” by Mr. Kay; Wednesday evening—Finale, “God Save the Band” by the Choir and Band. Hosea Stout noted in his diary that each of the performances lasted four and a half hours![132] The Nauvoo Neighbor of April 16 judged them “excellent,” a “great credit to the genius and talent of the saints.”

These concerts were held soon after the Concert Hall was finished. Located a block north of the temple, it was thirty by fifty feet with arched ceilings and “sounding jars.” It accommodated Church and other public meetings as well as various musical productions.[133]

William Pitt was born in Gloucestershire, England, and, at the age of twentysix, was baptized into the Church in June 1840 by Thomas Kington (see item 100). He immigrated to Nauvoo in 1841 and brought with him some of the instruments used by his band. In 1850 he made the overland trip to Utah, where he continued to perform until his death in 1873.[134]

Flake 3662e. US1C.

260 JONES, Dan. Y farw wedi ei chyfodi yn fyw: neu’r hen grefydd newydd. Traethawd yn dangos anghyfnewidioldeb teyrnas Dduw. Gan Capt. D. Jones. [15 lines] Gwrecsam: Argraffwyd gan William Bayley, Heol-Estyn. 1845. [The dead raised to life: or the old religion anew. Treatise showing the immutability of the kingdom of God. By Capt. D. Jones. Wrexham: Printed by William Bayley, Estyn Street. 1845.]

iv[5]–48 pp. 19 cm. Printed wrappers.

Flake 4469. Dennis 1. CSmH, UPB, US1C, WsCS, WsN, WsS.

261 DANIELS, William M. A correct account of the murder of Generals Joseph and Hyrum Smith, at Carthage, on the 27th day of June, 1844; by Wm. M. Daniels, an eye witness. Published by John Taylor, for the proprietor; Nauvoo, III.; J845. [Wrapper title]

[1]–14[4] 15–24 pp. 23 cm. Yellow, blue, gray, or buff title wrapper.

William M. Daniels came in contact with the anti-Mormons ten days before the assassination of Joseph and Hyrum Smith and remained with them for reasons not satisfactorily explained in his pamphlet or at the trial of those accused of the murders.[135] Seven days after the assassination he came to Nauvoo and swore out a straightforward affidavit outlining what he had seen. The following day he told his story to Governor Ford. He was the key witness before the grand jury that indicted nine men for the murders in October 1844, and he was the prosecution’s star witness at the trial of Levi Williams, Thomas Sharp, Mark Aldrich, Jacob C. Davis, and William N. Grover for the murder of Joseph Smith, May 21–30, 1845. Unfortunately, A Correct Account came out three weeks before the trial, in time for the defence to use it to discredit Daniels’s testimony.[136]

A Correct Account was actually written and published by Lyman O. Littlefield, a hand in the Times and Seasons shop to whom Daniels repeatedly told his story. This Daniels admitted at the trial and Littlefield acknowledged in his books The Martyrs (Salt Lake City, 1882), p. 71, and Reminiscences of Latter-day Saints (Logan, 1888), p. 172. Littlefield first approached the Quincy Whig about printing the pamphlet, even though he was employed at the Times and Seasons. A hand in the Quincy Herald shop supplied a copy of the manuscript to Thomas Sharp, who published this early version, along with suitable editorial comments, in the Warsaw Signal of December 25, 1844.[137] One might guess that, early on, Littlefield wanted A Correct Account to appear to be a non-Mormon production. The pamphlet was first advertised in the Nauvoo Neighbor of April 30 and in the Neighbor the next two weeks. On May 7 Daniels took out a copyright in the district court.[138] Littlefield ran a notice in the Neighbor, June 4–18, repudiating two fifty-dollar notes he had given to Daniels as he had “not had value received”—probably a reference to Daniels’s performance at the trial which discredited the book and jeopardized its sale.

A Correct Account describes Daniels’s movements with the anti-Mormons and the events surrounding the assassination, and it identifies the leading participants. It is marred, however, by a fantastic story of a flash of light from the heavens that dispersed the mob after Joseph Smith had been shot by the well-curb outside Carthage Jail. Early in his testimony at the trial Daniels stood by the story of the light; later he claimed that certain details were Littlefield’s embellishments. The defense, of course, made the most of these discrepancies, and ultimately the prosecution excluded his testimony, all but guaranteeing that Sharp, Williams, and the others would be acquitted.

The title wrapper of A Correct Account is plain except for the title on the front. It exists in two states, with and without the following three-line copyright notice at the head of the title: Entered according to the act of Congress, in the year 1845, By Wm. M. Daniels, In the clerk’s office of the district court of Illinois. One of the copies at Yale, without the copyright notice on the wrapper, has two misspelled words, deamons and innosence, on the fourth page, lines 4 and 22, which appear in corrected form in all other located copies. Misspellings common to all copies appear on p. 11, line 27; p. 13, line 24; and p. 16, line 12. In all copies except the one at Yale just mentioned, two crude woodcut plates—on the same side of a sheet folded to make two leaves—are inserted between pages 14 and 15. One shows the interior of Carthage Jail with armed men at the door and Hyrum Smith lying dead on the floor. The other shows the exterior of the jail at the moment the flash of light interrupted the mutilation of Joseph Smith’s body. Daniels’s narrative (pp. [3]–23) is preceded by a preface and a note to the reader (pp. [l]–2) directing orders for the pamphlet to Littlefield—“Price 25 cents.” A crude woodcut caricature of Thomas Sharp is on p. 7. Littlefield’s six-stanza poem “The Martyrs” is on the last page.

Littlefield included Daniels’s narrative, with modifications, in The Martyrs, pp. 71–86. About 1917, Daniel Macgregor reprinted A Correct Account in a twenty-six-page pamphlet, without Littlefield’s poem and with a single redrawn plate showing the flash of light outside Carthage Jail.

Daniels was born in Monroe County, New York, March 27, 1821, and came to Illinois about 1837. He joined the Church after the murder of the Smiths but before November 1844, and he received a patriarchal blessing from Uncle John Smith two weeks before the trial began. Littlefield claimed in The Martyrs that Daniels’s whereabouts had been unknown to him since 1846.[139]

Flake 2658. CSmH, CtY, CU-B, DLC, ICN, IHi, MH, MiU-C, MoSHi, NN, ULA, UPB, US1C, UU.

262 WATT, George Darling. Phonography, Rules for writing. [Signed at end:] G. D. Watt, Teacher. [Nauvoo? 1845?]

Broadside 31 x 20.5 cm. Ornamental border.

George D. Watt was the first person baptized into the Church in Great Britain. Born in Manchester in 1815, he encountered the Mormon missionaries in Preston and was baptized on July 30, 1837. Five years later he immigrated to Nauvoo, returned to Great Britain as a missionary, 1846–50, and in 1851 made the overland journey to Utah. While he was in England, he learned Pitman shorthand, and in Nauvoo and in Utah he reported the discourses of the Church leaders and taught this skill to others. In the early 1870s he aligned himself with the dissenters led by William S. Godbe and was excommunicated from the Church. He died in Kaysville, Utah, in 1881. Watt conceived of and founded the Journal of Discourses, a semimonthly periodical which ran from 1853 to 1886 and which consists of stenographic reports of the speeches of the Church leaders—a record of immense value.[140]

The Nauvoo Neighbor of April 30, 1845, noted that “Phonography [i.e., stenography] . . . has been commenced in this city by professor Watt. We called in the other day, where several of our leading men were practising with dexterity, life, and determination. It goes well: Mormonism embraces everything good.” One week later, Watt began advertising his class in the Neighbor—thirteen lessons for $1. In the Neighbor of July 16, he proposed the Phonographical Society of “The City of Joseph,” the object of which was “the mutual improvement of its members, in the science and art of Phonography, and for the diffusion of its principles all over the world.”

Phonography Rules for Writing was undoubtedly struck off for Watt’s class. It contains ten rules, the first nine technical, the last practical: “Practice and persevere.” It is certainly a Nauvoo imprint: its border elements, for example, match those of Circular of the High Council (item 296). In 1851 Watt published a larger book for his Utah students, Exercises in Phonography. Designed to Conduct the Pupil to a Practical Acquaintance with the Art.

UPB.

263 HYDE, Orson. Speech of Elder Orson Hyde, delivered before the High Priest’s [sic] Quorum in Nauvoo, April 27th, 1845, upon the course and conduct of Mr. Sidney Rigdon, and upon the merits of his claims to the presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. City of Joseph [Nauvoo], Ill.: Printed by John Taylor: 1845.

36 pp. 18 cm.

264 HYDE, Orson. Speech of Elder Orson Hyde, delivered before the High Priests’ Quorum, in Nauvoo, April 27th, 1845, upon the course and conduct of Mr. Sydney [sic] Rigdon, and upon the merits of his claims to the presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Liverpool: Printed by James and Woodburn, 39, South Castle Street. 1845.

36 pp. 19 cm.

Speech of Elder Orson Hyde marks another chapter in Orson Hyde’s ongoing confrontations with those who challenged the Twelve for the leadership of the Church after the death of Joseph Smith (see item 303). Hyde was one of the principal speakers at Sidney Rigdon’s trial on September 8, 1844 (see item 240). And after Rigdon’s excommunication, Hyde continued to attack him in print. Rigdon, in turn, singled out Hyde for a little abuse from time to time, while he maintained a constant barrage against the Twelve and those who supported them.[141]

Hyde begins his speech with some references to the priesthood and the kingdom of God, and he advances the novel idea that those who persecute the Latter-day Saints can obtain forgiveness only if the Saints specifically grant it to them. He describes in great detail Rigdon’s moves to gain control of the Church, and he argues at length in justification of the Twelve sitting in judgment of a member of the First Presidency. He refers to Nancy Rigdon’s reputation for profligate behavior and asserts that Joseph Smith’s attempts to reform her were taken as an effort to secure her as a plural wife (see items 156–57). In passing, he states that blacks were cursed with slavery because of their neutrality during the war in heaven (p. 30)—an idea Brigham Young repudiated in 1869.[142]

The Nauvoo Neighbor of May 7, 1845, indicated that it was then printing Hyde’s speech in pamphlet form and would complete it in three or four days. A month before, the general conference had voted to rename Nauvoo the City of Joseph.[143] Speech of Elder Orson Hyde is the only Nauvoo book to bear that imprint.

The Liverpool edition is a faithful reprint of the Nauvoo edition, except for some trifling changes in punctuation and capitalization and the changes in the references to the Doctrine and Covenants from the Nauvoo edition to the Liverpool. It was first advertised in the Millennial Star of August 1, 1845, at 3d. each, with the following note:

The profits of this Publication are for the sole benefit of the author, Brother Hyde, and as we give our own labours and responsibility gratuitously, we shall expect all our Agents to do the same, and to sell them for cash, and return the full amount of the same, specifying at the time, if sent with other returns, the exact amount. As the edition is small, early application will be absolutely necessary.

But one wonders if Hyde derived much income from the book. Two years later the Star was still advertising it, now at the reduced price of 2d.[144]

Item 263: Flake 4170. MoInRC, NN, UPB, US1C, UU. Item 264: Flake 4171. CSmH, CtY, CU-B, MH, NN, UPB, US1C.

265 The book of doctrine & covenants, of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; selected from the revelations of God. By Joseph Smith, president. First European edition. Liverpool: Wilford Woodruff, Stanley Buildings, Bath Street. [1845]

xxiii[1]–336 pp. 17 cm.

Upon assuming the presidency of the British Mission, Wilford Woodruff addressed the Saints in the Millennial Star of February 1845 and remarked that he would probably publish an edition of the Doctrine and Covenants in England as soon as circumstances allowed. Then on March 1 he received a letter informing him that John Greenhow was stereotyping the Doctrine and Covenants in Pittsburgh with the intent of printing a few copies in England and obtaining the English copyright so the Church would not be able to publish the book in Great Britain. That day he examined the British copyright laws, and on the next he wrote to Stationers’ Hall for more information. The March issue of the Star announced that he was then taking immediate steps to publish the Doctrine and Covenants, and it cautioned the Saints not to buy any unauthorized edition.[145]

Woodruff contracted with James and Woodburn to print the book in 3,000 copies, and on April 4 he made an initial payment of £15. On June 7, forty-eight hours after he had obtained the last sheets from the printer, he secured the copyright at Stationers’ Hall and deposited a copy with the British Museum. Four days later he paid James and Woodburn a second installment of £53 10s., and on November 7 he made the last of six payments totaling £120 7s.[146] At the end of the year 2,259 copies remained unsold, and the Millennial Star office still owed Mr. Fazakerly £35 15s. 1d. for binding the book.² Initially it was offered at 4s. retail and 3s. 6d. wholesale—undoubtedly with a cloth binding, but in January 1847 the Star dropped the price to 2s. 6d. and 2s.[147]

The 1845 Liverpool Doctrine and Covenants is a reprint of the 1844 Nauvoo edition (item 236).[148] It collates: a half-title (pp. [i–ii]); the title page (p. [iii]), with Entered at Stationers’ Hall and Liverpool: Printed by James and Woodburn, 39, South Castle Street on the verso; a preface signed by Thomas Ward and dated June 14th, 1845 (pp. [v]–ix); a new alphabetical index (pp. [xi]–xxiii); the Lectures on Faith (pp. [1]–64); and 111 sections numbered with roman numerals (pp. [65]–336). Why Ward’s preface is dated June 14 when the printing was completed on June 5 is a mystery. Some copies give James and Woodburn’s address on the verso of the title page as 30, South Castle Street. And one copy examined has 223 for the number of page 323.

The book’s bindings include full black or tan calf or sheep, the covers diced or plain with a gilt and blind stamped border, raised bands with gilt ornamental panels and the title in gilt on the backstrip, the edges plain or gilt; and blue, green, or brown blind stamped cloth, an arabesque within an ornamental border on the covers, the title in gilt on the backstrip. The LDS Church owns Wilford Woodruff’s copy, which is bound in brown calf, the covers diced with gilt ruled borders, Woodruff’s name in gilt on the front cover, and a metal clasp; the backstrip with raised bands, gilt ornamental panels, and a black leather label; and all edges gilt.

Flake 2863. CSmH, CtY, DLC, MH, MoInRC, NN, UHi, US1, UPB, US1C.

266 [Placard announcing that Wilford Woodruff will preach a funeral sermon upon the death of Joseph and Hyrum Smith on Sunday, June 22, 1845. London? 1845?]

Like Elisha H. Davis’s earlier London placard (item 238), this one also is not located, but it is mentioned in the Millennial Star and in Wilford Woodruff’s journal.[149]

Woodruff arrived in London on June 6, 1845, and the next day he took out a copyright for the Doctrine and Covenants (see the preceding item). For twenty days he remained in the city, during which time he preached, helped Davis baptize new converts, and visited a number of London’s major tourist attractions.[150] On June 22 he delivered his last sermon of the visit, which he describes in his journal:

As the City had been placarded during the week saying that W Woodruff would preach a funeral sermon upon the death of the Prophet & Patriarch Joseph & Hiram Smith . . . , services to commence at 1/2 past 6 oclock in the evening[,] at an early hour the people began to gather. And the house was soon filled with a large respectable congregation. I took for my text the xvi Ch. Rev 3 to 7 verses. I treated upon the life and character of Those men the origen rise & Progress of the Church the Administering of the Angel of God unto them their Persecution & marterdom. The spirit of God rested upon me and I deeply felt the wait of the subject. The house was almost as still as the house of Death. The strictest attention was paid And a good impression seemed to be made upon the minds of the people. At the close of the meeting A Collection was taken up & about £1.10 was taken in all. At the Close of the meeting I felt satisfied with the labours of the day & felt thankful for the privilege of bearing my testimony before about three hundred Saints And many respectable citizens in the city of London.

Davis undoubtedly urged this subject upon Woodruff because of the success he had had with it about nine months earlier (see item 238).

267 New-York Messenger. New York, Boston, and Philadelphia: July 5, 1845–December 15, 1845.

1 v. (21 nos. in 160[2] pp.) 34 cm.

When word reached Sam Brannan in New York early in May that the authorities in Nauvoo had disfellowshipped him, he immediately left for Nauvoo in an effort to clear himself. On May 24, 1845, the Twelve restored him to fellowship and explicitly sustained him in his management of The Prophet (item 211).[151] That day Parley Pratt issued the fifty-second number of the newspaper. After a hiatus of six weeks, the paper resumed publication, now with a new name, New-York Messenger, and a new format. Why these changes were made is not clear. Perhaps they were intended to suggest that the paper was different from the one which so vigorously promoted George J. Adams and William Smith and that it was now more an “official” organ of the Church.[152]

The early issues assert:

“New-York Messenger” (Continuation of the Prophet.) is published every Saturday at No. 7 Spruce Street NY. Boston, No. 16, Boylston Square. Philadelphia, corner of Third and Dock. At two dollars per annum, All communications should be sent (Post Paid,) to S. Brannan, No 7, Spruce street.[153]

For each of the first twenty issues, the masthead lists S. Brannan, publisher, and P. P. Pratt, editor. Parley, however, left New York on August 4, and it seems clear that Brannan did most of the editing.[154] As in the case of The Prophet, points of distribution for the Messenger were established in Boston and Philadelphia, undoubtedly in an attempt to increase circulation.

The first twenty issues appeared, without a lapse, on successive Saturdays between July 5 and November 15, 1845. Each has eight pages, in three columns. These twenty issues are continuously paged and numbered vol. 2, nos. 1–20 (whole nos. 53–72), maintaining the numbering of The Prophet. By the time he put the twentieth number together, Brannan knew he would soon sail for the Pacific coast, and this number announced that one additional issue of the Messenger would be published toward the end of December.[155] The last issue is a broadsheet, dated December 15, 1845, and erroneously numbered vol. 2, no. 20.

Like The Prophet, the Messenger prints minutes of conferences, letters from the elders, and excerpts from the Times and Seasons, Nauvoo Neighbor, and Millennial Star. Most issues contain one or two windy letters from Lyman O. Littlefield, the Messenger’s “Nauvoo correspondent”—who drew the comment from Brannan in issue 16, “We would inform our correspondent at the City of Joseph, that he is rather too lengthy.” Parley Pratt supplied the Messenger with articles while he was in New York (see item 269), and Orson Pratt contributed regularly after he arrived there about August 20—some of these marking the beginning of his writings on speculative theology. The Messenger prints a long extract from Lansford W. Hastings’s The Emigrants’ Guide, to Oregon and California (Cincinnati, 1845), pp. 85–142, with gaps, in nine installments beginning with the second number. Beginning with the fourteenth number (October 4), it reprints a number of documents pertaining to the Saints’ difficulties in Hancock County, including Backenstos’s five proclamations (items 275, 276, 278, 279, 281), the broadside of September 24 announcing the Mormons’ intention to leave Illinois (item 280), Brigham Young’s correspondence with J. J. Hardin, and the October Circular to the Whole Church (item 284). The last two issues deal with the move to the west coast on the Brooklyn.

As in the case of its predecessor, the Messenger was not supported out of its subscriptions, and about once each month it carried a plea to the Saints to help increase its circulation.[156] Brannan wrote to Brigham Young on August 29, 1845, about his financial stresses and suggested the use of tithing funds to make up the paper’s losses. On September 15 Young wrote back that he and Orson Pratt should decide whether to continue the Messenger, but they should not use tithing funds to support it. In this letter Young also urged Brannan to take his press and a company of Saints to San Francisco, a suggestion he followed when he sailed on the Brooklyn five months later (see items 297, 322).[157]

Flake 5797. CtY, NN, UPB[5 nos.], US1C.

268 MEYNELL, James B. A few incidents of travel in England connected with the immutable principles of truth, called the gospel of Jesus Christ. By J. B. Meynell, missionary to the British Isles. Boston: Printed by John Gooch, Minot’s Building, Spring Lane, cor. Devonshire Street. 1845.

24 pp. 20.5 cm. Pink printed wrappers.

Little is known about James B. Meynell beyond his mission experiences in England in 1844–45, which are the subject of his book. Born in England, he was living in New York City with his wife and three children in 1840 and had joined the Church by the fall of 1841. He was called to his mission in April 1844 at a conference in New York and arrived in Liverpool on August 24. Even though he had a sister in Wales, he labored as a missionary in Lancashire—where he was saddened by the poverty he saw there—and then in Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcester, and Herefordshire. In April 1845 he returned to the United States. The New-York Messenger of July 12, 1845, reported that he had “lately returned” to Boston. One might guess that he published his book about this time.[158]

A Few Incidents of Travel is the second Mormon book from the press of John Gooch (see item 232). About half of it describes Meynell’s mission experiences, and the last ten pages contain a typical discussion of the basic tenets of Mormonism—faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost. Its concluding paragraph refers to the progress of the Church in England and reports the membership totals gathered at the Manchester conference of April 6, 1845, for which Meynell was the clerk. It was issued in pink printed wrappers, the title page reprinted within a ruled border on the front, the rest of the wrapper plain.

Flake 5379. MH.

269 PRATT, Orson. The prophetic almanac, for 1846. Being the second after bissextile or leap year. Calculated for the eastern, middle and western states and territories, the northern portions of the slave states, and British provinces. By Orson Pratt, A.M. New-York: Published at the “New York Messenger” office, No. 7, Spruce street. Price 6 1/4 cents single—$4 per hundred. [1845] [At head of title:] No. 2.—To be continued annually.

[24] pp. 19.5 cm. Ruled border on each page.

On July 26, 1845, about three and a half weeks before Orson Pratt arrived in New York to assume the leadership of the Church in the eastern states, the New-York Messenger began advertising his second Prophetic Almanac, “now published and for sale.” The Messenger office printed the almanac in an edition of 5,000, and from Orson’s plea in the Messenger of October 18, it is clear that he hoped to derive an income from it.[159]

Each of its pages is enclosed in a ruled border, continuing the format of the Prophet Almanac for 1845 (item 229); none of the pages are numbered. Its calendar, unlike the previous one, gives no world dates other than Independence Day but includes the birthdays of prominent Mormons and other key dates in the Church’s history. The second page lists the times when the two solar eclipses in 1846 could be seen in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Nauvoo, and New Orleans. Filling in below the calendar are two articles, both apparently by Parley Pratt, taken from the Messenger of July 12, 1845: “Heaven”; and “Review of the World,” which contrasts Mormonism with Catholicism and Protestantism.[160] Following the calendar are Parley’s “Four Kinds of Salvation,” from The Prophet of March 8, 1845, or the Millennial Star of June 1841; and his “Materiality,” in The Prophet of’May 24, which argues for a corporeal, anthropomorphic God. These are followed by two other pieces: “Christ and the World,” an anti-Millerite piece, probably also by Parley Pratt, cast in the form of a first-person statement by Jesus Christ, from The Prophet of March 8; and “A Parable,” from The Prophet of May 10 and May 24, or the Times and Seasons of March 15 and April 1, 1845, where it is signed “A.” The last page advertises the Messenger and its printing and book shop. Because of the preponderance of his articles in Prophetic Almanac for 1846, one might be tempted to conjecture that Parley had a hand in putting it together.

Flake 6515. CSmH, DLC, MoInRC, NN, UPB, US1C, UU.

270 The doctrine and covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints; carefully selected from the revelations of God. By Joseph Smith, president of said church. Third edition. Nauvoo III: Printed by John Taylor. 1845.

[i–ii][5]–448 pp. 15 cm.

On April 10, 1845, the Twelve agreed to print more copies of the Doctrine and Covenants. A note in the Times and Seasons of May 15, which issued about a month late, suggests that this second impression was then in press. About ten days after he reached New York, Orson Pratt announced in the New-York Messenger of August 30, 1845, that he had several hundred copies of the Doctrine and Covenants for sale at $1.25 each. Five days later he wrote to Brigham Young that he had sold about forty copies and had got 350 others bound at 80 a copy.[161] One might infer that the second impression was finished in July or August and that some of the books were bound on the east coast.

The 1845 Nauvoo Doctrine and Covenants was reprinted from the stereotype plates of the 1844 edition (item 236) and is largely identical to it. The title page is reset, and the copyright notice is changed on the verso of the title page: Entered according to the act of Congress, in the year 1845, by N. K. Whitney and George Miller, Trustees in Trust of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, In the clerk’s office of the district court of Illinois. A few other pages are reset as well, and were reset again for the 1846 impression (item 302), probably because of damage to the stereotype plates: pp. 363, 414, 416–19, 424–32.[162] Usually the book is found in full plain brown sheep, with gilt bands and a leather label or the title in gilt on the backstrip.

Whitney and Miller actually secured the copyright on September 20, 1845, to cover the new material added to the 1844 edition. Perhaps they were prompted by John Greenhow’s effort to stereotype the Doctrine and Covenants in Pittsburgh (see item 265).[163]

Flake 2862. CtY, CU-B, DLC, ICHi, ICN, MH, MoInRC, NN, OClWHi, UPB, US1C, UU, WHi.

271 SMITH, Joseph. The voice of truth, containing General Joseph Smith’s correspondence with Gen. James Arlington Bennett [sic]; appeal to the Green Mountain Boys; correspondence with John C. Calhoun, Esq.; views of the powers and policy of the government of the United States; pacific innuendo, and Gov. Ford’s letter; a friendly hint to Missouri, and a few words of consolation for the “Globe;” also, correspondence with the Hon. Henry Clay. [1 line] Nauvoo, III: Printed by John Taylor. 1844. [1845]

64 pp. 24.5 cm. Yellow printed wrappers.

Voice of Truth gathers under one cover the bulk of Joseph Smith’s political statements, together with his most important discourse, the King Follett funeral sermon. With his name attached to the copyright notice on the verso of the title page, it seems clear that the book was compiled by W. W. Phelps, who actually wrote most of the contents. The dedicatory poem (p. [3]), dated June 1844, and the fact that Phelps obtained the copyright on June 22 suggest it was put to press shortly before Joseph Smith’s death, probably as a piece for his presidential campaign (see item 201).[164] But his assassination interrupted the printing, and the unfinished book lay in the Times and Seasons shop until it was eventually completed as a memorial to him. Phelps’s poem “The Cap Stone” is printed on the back wrapper from a rearrangement of the same setting used to print the poem in the Times and Seasons of August 1, 1845, and the Nauvoo Neighbor of August 6 refers to the book, which suggest that it was finished about this time.

The first four items following the preface (pp. [5]–6) were each printed earlier as separates (items 198–99, 187, 201, 209–10, 213–20): Joseph Smith’s correspondence with James Arlington Bennet (pp. [7]–14), his appeal to the Green Mountain Boys (pp. [15]–20), his correspondence with John C. Calhoun (pp. [21]–26), and his views on government (pp. 26–38).

On February 16, 1844, Joseph Smith directed Phelps to write “Pacific Innuendo,” the fifth piece in Voice of Truth (pp. [39]–43), which was first printed in the Times and Seasons of February 15 and the Neighbor of February 21.[165] This was prompted by a letter from Thomas Ford of January 29—published in the Warsaw Signal of February 14 and included with “Pacific Innuendo”—which Ford wrote in response to an anti-Mormon meeting in Carthage on January 24. In this letter Ford deplores the threat of violence, asserts that he is bound by law in his dealings with the Mormons, and declares that he will meet any outbreak of violence with executive action. “Pacific Innuendo” applauds Ford’s statement. It assures the citizens of Hancock that the Mormons pose no threat to them, and it urges the Saints “to shew the love of God, by now kindly treating those who may have, in an unconscious moment, done them wrong.”

Phelps also wrote “A Friendly Hint to Missouri” (pp. 43–46) at Joseph Smith’s direction and read it to the First Presidency and the Twelve the evening of March 8, a few days before Orson Pratt left for Washington with two memorials to Congress (see items 188, 229).[166] Signed by Smith and dated March 8, 1844, it is a plea to the state of Missouri, in a conciliatory tone, to redress the losses of the Saints. It was first printed in the Neighbor of March 13 and in the Times and Seasons of March 15.

“The Globe,” the seventh article in Voice of Truth (pp. 46–50), also bears Phelps’s style. It first appeared in the Neighbor of April 17 and the Times and Seasons of April 15. Signed by Joseph Smith and dated April 15, 1844, it responds to an article in the Washington Daily Globe of March 14 which is critical of Joseph Smith’s views on government, particularly the plank on a national bank. Asserting that it is “extraneous, irrelevant and kick shawing” to associate him with any party or personalities, “The Globe” repeats Joseph Smith’s views on a national bank, prison reform, slavery, and increased presidential powers without expanding upon them.

Joseph Smith’s exchange of correspondence with the 1844 presidential candidates is discussed above (see items 187, 199, 201, 214). Although he responded to Calhoun in January, he waited to reply to Henry Clay until May 13, 1844—twelve days after Clay was nominated for the presidency by the Whigs. The entire exchange with Clay (pp. [51]–59), including Clay’s letter of November 15, 1843, was first printed in the Neighbor of May 29 and the Times and Seasons of June 1. Joseph Smith’s letter to Clay of May 13 was certainly written by Phelps and is little more than an ad hominem attack.[167]

The King Follett funeral discourse, headed Joseph Smith’s last Sermon, delivered at the April Conference, 1844, is added in Voice of Truth as an appendix (pp. 59–64). It is not listed on the title page and was not originally intended to be included in the pamphlet, but it is noted on the printed wrapper. Follett, fifty-five years old and a convert of 1831, was crushed in a well on March 9 and buried “with Masonic honors” the next day.[168] Although Joseph Smith preached at the funeral, he used Follett’s death as the point of departure for his greatest discourse, delivered at the general conference on April 7. Thomas Bullock, William Clayton and Willard Richards each recorded the sermon, and Wilford Woodruff reported it in his journal.[169] Bullock’s and Clayton’s reports were “amalgamated” to produce a text which was printed in the Times and Seasons of August 15, 1844. This text was reprinted in Voice of Truth.[170] The two versions are identical except for a handful of changes in punctuation and capitalization, the correction of that to than on p. 60, line 5, the omission of the phrase the same glory on p. 61, line 14, and the correction of the to he on p. 63, line 2 from the bottom. Treating a number of distinctive doctrines, the discourse’s most dramatic ideas are those summarized in the couplet formulated by Lorenzo Snow: “As man now is, God once was: as God now is, man may be.”[171] (See items 45–47, 229.)

Voice of Truth was issued in yellow wrappers with the following wrapper title on the front: The voice of truth, containing the public writings, portrait, and last sermon of President Joseph Smith. Nauvoo, III: Printed by John Taylor: 1845. Phelps’s poem “The Cap Stone” is printed on the back wrapper, with two lines of “errata” at the bottom. The LDS Church has a copy with what appears to be an earlier variant wrapper, of the same white paper as the text, with the added line By W. W. Phelps just below The Cap Stone on the back. A primitive profile portrait of Joseph Smith in military dress, apparently from a wood engraving, signed “R.C,” is at the top of p. [51]. Who R.C was is not known.

Flake 8000. CtY, ICN, IHi, MH, MoInRC, NN, UPB, US1C, UU.

272 BRANNAN, Samuel. Religious notice. Elder S. Brannan of New-York City, late from the city of Nauvoo, will deliver six lectures touching the prominent features of the faith and doctrine of the Latter Day Saints, generally known by the name of Mormons, commencing on Sunday the 31st. of August, 3 o’clock P.M. for six successive Sabbaths, during the afternoon service only, at the American Republican Hall corner of Broadway and Grand streets, (entrance on Broadway,) [13 lines] [New York? 1845?]

Broadside 18 x 20 cm.

As the title indicates, this handbill advertises six lectures scheduled for successive Sunday afternoons, August 31–October 5, 1845, and gives the topics in the order they would be presented: the most prominent errors of modern Christianity; the authenticity of the Book of Mormon; the Melchisedec Priesthood established; Zion to be established on the continent of North America; the apostasy of the Christian world; and that there is to be another gospel dispensation after the first Christian era. Undoubtedly it was printed at the shop of the New-York Messenger.

On September 4, 1845, Orson Pratt reported to Brigham Young from New York,

Bro. Brannan is a go-a-head man and is a very powerful preacher he has commenced a course of lectures in this city which are well attended he has circulated about twenty thousand hand-bills.[172]

Brannan wrote to Young on October 9 that “some seven or eight during my course of lectures avowed their belief in the doctrine who never heard Mormonism before.” He noted also that he and Orson Pratt would commence a second set of lectures on November 21 and would advertise them with 20,000 new handbills.[173] Whether this second handbill was ever printed is not known.

Flake 803. NN.

273 The British and American Commercial Joint Stock Company. Capital £ 10,000, with power to increase the same; in shares of one pound each. Provisionally registered according to the act of Parliament 7th and 8th vict. c. 110. [24 lines] Applications for shares, must be made to the provisional directors, at the office of the company, addressed to Mr. Thomas Ward, Stanley Buildings, Bath Street, Liverpool. [Liverpool? 1845?]

Broadside 25 x 20.5 cm.

The British and American Commercial Joint Stock Company was a lofty dream that married business and religion, and ended in disaster. The germ of the idea was contained in the Epistle of the Twelve of March 20, 1842 (item 142), which proposed sending manufactured goods from England to Nauvoo with payment to be made in Nauvoo land and the proceeds from the sale of the goods to be used to bring English Saints to America. Although this was never implemented, the idea undoubtedly remained in the minds of some and helped spawn the Joint Stock Company.

The Joint Stock Company itself seems to have been the brainchild of Reuben Hedlock. On February 25, 1844, five months after he replaced Thomas Ward as president of the British Mission, Hedlock wrote to Brigham Young, Willard Richards, and Theodore Turley, proposing that they form a company to manufacture woollen and cotton goods in Nauvoo, financed by stock offered at £10 per share, which he would use to purchase the machinery.[174] Brigham Young’s letter to Hedlock of May 3, 1844, appears to have supported the idea.[175]

Wilford Woodruff reached Liverpool on January 3, 1845, and assumed the leadership of the British Mission, with Hedlock and Ward as his counselors. Two months later the Millennial Star ran an article signed by Woodruff, Hedlock, and Ward, which proposed that a joint stock company be organized among the British Saints along the lines suggested by Hedlock thirteen months earlier. This proposal was formally accepted on April 8 by the general conference in Manchester, which named the company the Mutual Benefit Association, authorized a capitalization of £30,000 in shares of 10s. each, and chose Thomas Ward its president.[176] By August the officers had become aware of the new act of Parliament that defined and regulated joint stock companies and, at the suggestion of their lawyers, had changed the name to British and American Commercial Joint Stock Company and had reduced the initial capitalization to £10,000 in shares of £1. That month they began soliciting investors in the Star.[177] The following month the Star reported that more than 2,700 had applied for shares. In mid-October the trustees and directors met to draw up a charter (item 299), now for a company empowered to trade in either direction between America and Britain and manufacture goods on either side of the Atlantic. Not until May 1846, however, would the registration with the British government be completed.[178]

Woodruff returned to the United States on January 22, 1846, leaving Hedlock and Ward to preside again over the British Mission. During the next eight months Ward promoted the Joint Stock Company in the pages of the Star. In the issue of March 15, for example, he wrote that the purpose of the company was to relieve the poverty of the Saints so they could gather with the main body of the Church, and in the issue of June 15 he claimed, “the Joint Stock Company is fully appreciated by the Twelve, and has been a daily subject of their prayers, and that they consider it one of the greatest things that has ever been devised for carrying out the great purposes of God.”

The Twelve, of course, had been preoccupied with evacuating Nauvoo since September 1845 (see items 274–84, 296). Had they not, the Joint Stock Company certainly would not have progressed to the point it did. But in July 1846, at Council Bluffs, they disfellowshipped Hedlock and Ward and dispatched Orson Hyde, John Taylor, and Parley Pratt to investigate the enterprise.[179] Hyde and Taylor arrived in Liverpool on October 3, and that day they issued a circular (item 312) which called for a conference in Manchester on October 17 and enjoined to Saints to invest “no more for the present” in the Joint Stock Company, “an Institution wholy independent of the Church.” At the Manchester conference the shareholders voted to dissolve the company, and on December 3 the directors formally brought it to an end.[180]

A complete financial statement of the Joint Stock Company was published in the Star of December 6. It shows that the company took in £ 1644. Of this, the officers paid about £500 in salary and expenses to themselves and to the directors and nearly £300 to their lawyers in the effort to register the company; they also loaned £504 to Reuben Hedlock, who refused to account for the money. They made just one investment, some razors, bought and sold for a profit of 40 pence. A mere £226 remained which could be returned to the shareholders.[181]

Item 273 is a prospectus, required by the act of Parliament on joint stock companies, which was issued provisionally while the company was seeking registration.[182] It lists thirteen provisional directors, including Thomas Ward and Reuben Hedlock, and two trustees, Richard James, the printer, and Samuel Downes, subsequently the company’s treasurer. The trustees served until the registration of the company was completed and then vacated their positions.[183] The prospectus states, “the purposes of the above-named Company are for Trading as Merchants between the United Kingdom and America, and for Manufacturing the produce of those countries, or either of them.” It goes on to say that it is the intention of the directors to increase the capitalization of the company to £30,000, “if practicable.”

An entry for September 24, 1845, in the financial statement reads: “James and Woodburn on account of stationery and printing . . . £15 6s. 8p.” Since a copy of the prospectus had to be submitted with the application for complete registration before any public solicitation, and such a solicitation first appeared in the Star of August 15, 1845, one might infer that item 273 was printed by James and Woodburn some time that August.[184]

Flake 856. UPB, US1C.

274 Neighbor—Extra. Nauvoo, Sept. 12, 1845. [At head of first column:] Mobbing again in Hancock! [Nauvoo, 1845]

Broadside 28 x 20.5 cm. Text in two columns.

This is the first of a series of broadsides leading to an official statement from the Mormons that they would evacuate Illinois. It announced the renewal of violence against the Saints, the roots of which lay in an incident eleven weeks earlier. On June 24, 1845, the day set for the trial of those indicted for Hyrum Smith’s murder, Minor Deming, the Hancock County sheriff, who had been elected by the Mormon bloc (see items 225, 228), was surrounded by a group of anti-Mormons when he entered the courthouse, and in the ensuing scuffle, he shot and killed one of them. The next day he was indicted for murder, and in July he resigned as sheriff, necessitating a special county election on August 11. Jacob B. Backenstos, a non-Mormon with ties to the Saints, was elected sheriff with the help of a solid Mormon vote by a margin of three to one (see the next item).[185] The anti-Mormons were outraged. The Warsaw Signal of September 3 excoriated Backenstos and called for the forceful expulsion of the Mormons from the state. Six days later, in Green Plains, five miles southeast of Warsaw, shots were fired at a schoolhouse where some of the anti-Mormons were meeting. They blamed the Saints, and on Wednesday, September 10, began burning Mormon houses in the Morley settlement, about six miles south of Green Plains.[186]

The Neighbor Extra of September 12, 1845, reports this violence. It asserts that the anti-Mormons actually shot at the schoolhouse themselves in order to provoke a move against the Saints. It lists by name five of the eleven buildings burned and identifies Levi Williams, a resident of Green Plains and one of those tried for Joseph Smith’s murder, as the leader of the house burners. At the end it reprints a part of the article in the Signal of September 3 which urged violence against the Saints. Its text was reprinted from the same setting in the Neighbor of September 10, which appeared at least three days late and reported that forty-four houses and outbuildings had been burned at that point in the vicinity of the Morley settlement. It was also reprinted in the New-York Messenger of October 4. A number of affidavits concerning the house burnings are in the Neighbor of September 17.

Flake 5732. US1C.

275 BACKENSTOS, Jacob Benjamin. Proclamation to the citizens of Hancock county: [Signed and dated at end:] J. B. Backenstos, Sheriff of Hancock county Illinois. [3 lines] Green Plains, Hancock county, Ills., Sept. 13th 1845. [Nauvoo? 1845]

Broadside 33 x 32 cm.

Jacob Backenstos, a “Jack Mormon,” had ties to the Saints through his brother William, who was married to a niece of Emma Smith. Born in Pennsylvania in 1811, Backenstos served as clerk of the Hancock circuit court in 1843 and in August 1844 was elected by the Mormon bloc to the Illinois legislature, where he argued against the repeal of the Nauvoo charter (see item 228). The following year he was elected sheriff of Hancock County and was immediately confronted with the violence that ultimately drove the Saints from Illinois (see the preceding item). Fifteen days after Congress declared war with Mexico, he was commissioned a captain of mounted riflemen, and at the battle of Chapultepec he was breveted a lieutenant-colonel for gallantry and meritorious service. In 1849 he marched with the mounted riflemen to Oregon, settled with his family in the Willamette Valley, and there resigned his commission in 1851. On September 25, 1857, he drowned himself in the Willamette River near Portland.[187]

In his capacity as sheriff of Hancock, Backenstos issued five proclamations over a period of twelve days (items 275, 276, 278, 279, 281). All of these were undoubtedly printed by the Times and Seasons print shop, since it is certain that four were. Thus they are included here, even though they are technically not Mormon pieces.

On Thursday, September 11, the Twelve learned of the house burnings in the Morley settlement, and that day Brigham Young wrote to Backenstos, informing him of the outbreak of violence and requesting him to take immediate action. The same day the Twelve met in council and, according to John Taylor’s report, agreed that

as we were going West in the Spring to keep all things as quiet as possible and not resent anything. After the trouble we had had to finish the Temple to get our endowments, we thought it of more importance than to squabble with the mob about property, seeing that the houses were not of much importance, and no lives were taken. Thinking by these pacific measures that they would be likely not to molest us; and to show the surrounding country that we were orderly disposed people, and desirous of keeping peace.[188]

Two days later Backenstos met with the Twelve and requested a company of Mormons to help him suppress the violence. When they declined and urged him to call upon the law abiding citizens of the county, he issued his first proclamation.[189] Dated at Green Plains, it describes some of the depredations and quotes the laws of Illinois that arson is punishable by a prison term of one to ten years and is considered murder if a life is lost. It commands the house burners to desist immediately and return to their homes, and it calls on the law abiding citizens of Hancock to hold themselves as a posse comitatus. In a postscript it enjoins those in Nauvoo to remain in the city but to hold two thousand men in readiness should they be needed.

This proclamation was reprinted in the Nauvoo Neighbor of September 10 which, as noted above, appeared late, and in the issues for September 24 and October 1. It was also reprinted in the New-York Messenger of October 11 and in the Millennial Star of December 1.

The idea of “going West in the Spring” was in the minds of the Twelve as early as January 1845 when they discussed sending a company to California. On February 4, 1845, six days after the Illinois legislature repealed the Nauvoo charter, Brigham Young and the Twelve reorganized the Council of Fifty, which had not met since the assassination (see items 201, 345), and during the following month the Council considered the question of moving west at least four times.[190] In April it sent letters to President Polk and the governors of all the states, except Missouri and Illinois, exploring the possibility of asylum.[191] By August it was examining a number of locations including Vancouver, California, and Oregon.[192] That month the Nauvoo Neighbor began running extracts from Lansford W. Hastings’s The Emigrants’ Guide, to Oregon and California and other articles on Oregon, California, and Texas. On August 28 the Twelve decided to pick three thousand able-bodied men to start with their families for Upper California in the spring. And on September 9 the Council of Fifty moved that Brigham Young “select such a portion of this Council as he may choose to remove west, and they select and organize the company subject to the final revision of the President.” Two days later Brigham Young had picked a group from the Council of Fifty who would start west in the spring.[193] During this entire period the Twelve’s overriding concern was the completion of the Nauvoo Temple (see item 254). By the summer of 1845 it was certainly apparent to them that if the Mormons could remain in Nauvoo until the following spring, the temple would be finished enough for the Saints to participate in its ordinances before they evacuated the state.

Flake 3815. CtY, US1C.

276 BACKENSTOS, Jacob Benjamin. Proclamation No. 2. To the citizens of Hancock County, III, and the surrounding country. [Signed and dated in the fourth column:] J. B. Backenstos, Sheriff, Hancock County, III. Sept. 16th, A.D. 1845, half past 2 o’clock P.M. [Nauvoo, 1845]

Broadside 41 x 28.5 cm. 17 lines after title, followed by 115 lines in four columns.

From the moment violence broke out in the Morley settlement, the anti-Mormons continually threatened the life of Jacob Backenstos, and on September 15, he learned that an armed force was after him. The next day, as he was traveling along the Warsaw-Carthage road, four men on horseback began to pursue him, one of them Franklin A. Worrell, the commander of the guard at Carthage Jail at the time Joseph and Hyrum Smith were murdered. Backenstos whipped his horse and soon came upon Orrin Porter Rockwell and two other Mormons. Jumping out of his buggy with pistol in hand, he ordered the Mormons to assist him and commanded the four in pursuit of him to stop. When one of them leveled a musket at him, he told Porter Rockwell to shoot. Rockwell took aim at Worrell’s belt buckle and shot him off his horse. The pursuers retreated and then returned with a wagon to carry the fatally wounded Worrell back to Warsaw. Backenstos headed for Nauvoo, where he issued his second proclamation that afternoon.[194]

Most of this proclamation is an account of the events leading up to the shooting of Worrell. At the end Backenstos again commands the house burners to stop and return to their homes. He calls on all the able-bodied men in the county to resist the rioters, and he directs the posse comitatus to go to the nearest points of conflict and defend the Mormons. In a postscript he remarks that the Saints have acted with “more than ordinary forbearance.”

Proclamation No. 2 was reprinted in the Nauvoo Neighbor of September 17, mostly from the same setting, and reprinted again in the Neighbor of September 24 and October 1. It was also reprinted in the New-York Messenger of October 11 and in the Millennial Star of December 1.

At the time he issued Proclamation No. 2, Backenstos apparently did not know the identity of the man that Rockwell had shot or that he had been fatally wounded.[195] Proclamation No. 3 (item 278) identifies the man as Worrell and states that he had died. Backenstos was tried for the shooting, on a change of venue, in Peoria that December and acquitted. Rockwell was tried in Galena in August 1846 and acquitted when Backenstos testified that he had acted on his orders.[196]

Flake 3816. CtY, ICHi, UPB, US1C.

277 Proclamation: To Col. Levi Williams, and the mob party, of whom he is the supposed leader, who have been and are still engaged in burning the houses and property of the peaceable citizens of Hancock county: [First 6 lines] [Signed and dated at end:] Brigham Young, John E. Page, George A. Smith, P. P. Pratt, Orson Spencer, Samuel Bent, Amasa Lyman, Willard Richards, Charles C. Rich, Isaac Morley, John Taylor. Nauvoo Sept. 16, 1845. [Nauvoo, 1845]

Broadside 16.5 x 8 cm.

Jacob Backenstos wrote to Brigham Young on September 15 that he had been unable to raise a force sufficient to stop the house burners, and he requested Young to ready two thousand well-armed men for immediate service. In response, Brigham Young asked the sheriff to “wait a few days” before involving the Mormons, to see whether the citizens of Hancock could prevail against the rioters. Nevertheless that morning Young and the officers of the Nauvoo Legion decided to put the Legion on immediate alert. The same day the constable from Carthage came to Nauvoo with writs for Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Willard Richards, John E. Page, Daniel Garn, William Smith, and George A. Smith, on a complaint for “aiding and abetting Joseph Smith in treasonable designs against the state.”[197]

The next day, at a meeting in Willard Richards’s office, the Twelve consented to Brigham Young’s proposal that they seek peace with the anti-Mormons by agreeing to evacuate Hancock in the spring. Here also they decided to increase the work force on the temple. Proclamation to Col. Levi Williams was immediately struck off and delivered to the anti-Mormons.[198] Following the preamble included in the title above, this proclamation names Peter Haws, Andrew H. Perkins, Erastus H. Derby, David D. Yearsley, and Solomon Hancock to confer with the anti-Mormons and inform them of the Mormons’ intention to leave the county in the spring, provided that all hostilities and all “vexatious law suits” cease. It requests a response in writing.

On September 18, A. B. Chambers, an intermediary from the anti-Mormons, came to Nauvoo and met with the Twelve. The terms of Proclamation to Col. Levi Williams were acceptable to the anti-Mormons, he reported, but some objected to the preamble. Declining to alter it in any way, the Twelve withdrew the proclamation and told Chambers that the next move was up to the anti-Mormons.[199] Andrew H. Perkins reported on the 19th that the anti-Mormons had pledged to leave the Saints in peace during the winter if they would commit to leave the state by the first of next April. He also indicated that the spirit of the anti-Mormons “appeared to be broken and that the counties around were in [the Mormons’] favour.”[200] During the next four days others enquired into the Saints’ intentions. To a committee from Macomb, for example, the Twelve repeated that they were not bound by Proclamation to Col. Levi Williams since the anti-Mormons had not acceded to its terms, but they would leave in the spring if those in the surrounding counties would assist them in disposing of their property; they appointed A. W. Babbitt, D. H. Wells, and E. A. Bedell to confer with the Macomb committee.[201]

Peter Haws and David D. Yearsley (see items 216–17) were members of the reactivated Council of Fifty (see item 275). Born in Leeds County, Ontario, Canada, on February 17, 1796, Haws joined the Church in Canada and came to Nauvoo about 1840. The following year he was appointed a member of the committee to build the Nauvoo House (D&C 124:62). In October 1845 he was named the captain of the eighth company of one hundred (see item 284), and in 1846 he went west to Council Bluffs. There he became estranged from the Church, and in 1849 he was excommunicated. Eventually he moved to California, where he died in 1862.[202]

Andrew H. Perkins was born in Jackson County, Tennessee, December 5, 1808. In 1843 he was elected a commissioner of Hancock County, and two years later he was called to be a captain of a company of one hundred. When the Mormons left Illinois, Perkins settled in Council Bluffs, where he served on the high council and again as a county commissioner. He made the overland journey to Salt Lake City in 1849, and in 1850 he was elected associate judge for Great Salt Lake County. He died in Salt Lake City, March 18, 1851.[203]

Erastus H. Derby was born in Franklin County, Massachusetts, September 14, 1810, and converted to Mormonism in Illinois about 1840. In 1846 he moved with the Saints to western Iowa, and that year he separated from the Church and went into Missouri. He lived in Ohio and Illinois, and in 1871 he settled in Le Sueur, Minnesota, where he died December 3, 1890.[204]

Solomon Hancock was the presiding elder in the Morley settlement when violence first broke out on September 10. Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, August 15, 1794, he joined the Church in 1830 and two years later settled in Missouri, where he served on the high councils in Clay and Caldwell counties. When the Saints moved into Illinois, he located near the south edge of Hancock County, and on February 14, 1845, was chosen to preside there. He moved west in 1846, and died near Council Bluffs on December 2, 1847.[205]

Of the signers of Proclamation to Col. Levi Williams, Young, Page, Smith, Pratt, Lyman, Richards, and Taylor were apostles. Spencer was the mayor of Nauvoo; Bent was a member of the Nauvoo city council and a member of the high council (see item 296); Rich was a Nauvoo city alderman and would become a member of the Twelve in 1849. Morley had been the presiding elder in the Morley settlement until he was succeeded by Solomon Hancock in February 1845.[206]

Flake 1426. US1C.

278 BACKENSTOS, Jacob Benjamin. Proclamation No. 3. To the citizens of Hancock County, III., and the surrounding country. [Signed and dated at end:] J. B. Backenstos, Sheriff H. Co., III. Hancock County, Ill., Sept. 17th, A.D. 1845. [Nauvoo, 1845]

Broadside 31 x 28 cm. 5 lines after title, followed by 165 lines in four columns.

279 BACKENSTOS, Jacob Benjamin. Proclamation No [sic] 4. To the citizens of Hancock County, Ill., and the surrounding country. [Signed and dated at the end of fourth column:] J. B. Backenstos, Sh’jf, H. C. III. Bank of the Mississippi river, near Montehello, Sept. 20th A.D. 1845. [Nauvoo, 1845]

Broadside 41 x 28.5 cm. Text in four columns.

Backenstos’s third and fourth proclamations summarize his movements from Tuesday, September 16, to Saturday, September 20. He opens Proclamation No. 3 with the remark that the rioters “have become more infuriated than ever”—undoubtedly a result of the shooting of Franklin Worrell (see item 276; see, e.g., the Warsaw Signal of September 17, 1845). He mentions that some prominent people, including the Carthage and Warsaw postmasters and the Hancock County assessor, had been driven from their homes (see item 281). On the evening of September 16, he reports, he rode from Nauvoo to Carthage to rescue his family and others—accompanied by George Miller and about one hundred of the Nauvoo Legion.[207] At Carthage they dispersed some house burners, and near Warsaw, the next afternoon, they pursued another group of them, “killing two, and wounding, it is believed, others.” Backenstos asserts that he has a posse comitatus of almost two thousand well-armed men, and another two thousand in reserve. He declares that should any persons burn their own property in order to charge it against the Mormons, they would be dealt with as arsonists.

Backenstos appears to have exaggerated the strength of his forces, undoubtedly in an attempt to intimidate the rioters. Stephen Markham led a company of about one hundred Mormons on September 17 to reinforce George Miller and his troops.[208] On the 18th Backenstos and Miller requested Brigham Young to send them six hundred men and two cannons, which Young decided against the morning of September 19 because he did not want them to make a direct attack. That day Backenstos asked for fifty wagons each carrying eight well-armed men plus the teamster, and a cannon, to rendezvous with him and Miller between Carthage and Warsaw the next morning. In response, Brigham Young directed J. H. Hale to lead two hundred of the Legion to join Miller and Backenstos, “a large force being deemed unnecessary.” So apart from some reconnoitering parties of twenty or forty men, it would seem that the Mormons provided Backenstos with about four hundred troops.[209]

Proclamation No. 3 was reprinted in the Nauvoo Neighbor of September 17 from the same setting, and reprinted again in the next two issues. The text in the Neighbor is corrected to say that the “killing two, and wounding, it is believed, others” took place on September 17, not on September 16. It was further reprinted in the New- York Messenger of October 11 and in the Millennial Star of December 1.

In Proclamation No. 4 Backenstos tells of riding to the southwest part of Hancock on the afternoon of September 18 with two hundred mounted men—Miller’s and Markham’s troops—with the intent of attacking the rioters the next day. Instead of launching this attack—undoubtedly because of Brigham Young’s request not to make a direct assault—he turned toward Carthage, armed with a number of arrest warrants for the leaders of the rioters, and at sundown he entered the town. Before his troops could surround Carthage, however, all of those he sought to arrest escaped, except Anthony Barkman, whom he took into custody (see items 280, 282). About noon on September 20 Backenstos headed for his rendezvous with J. H. Hale’s company, and en route he learned that the rioters had fled into Missouri. He reports that, to his knowledge, no houses had been burned since September 16, and, therefore, he declares the county at peace. Included in this proclamation are Backenstos’s letter of September 18 to the rioters asking them to surrender and to give up the state arms, and Levi Williams’s contemptuous reply of September 19.

Proclamation No. 4 was reprinted in the Nauvoo Neighbor of September 24 and October 1 from the broadside typesetting, in the New-York Messenger of October 11, and, without Levi Williams’s letter of September 19, in the Millennial Star of December 1. The Neighbor of September 24 also proclaimed that “peace reigns in Hancock county . . . and law and order prevails.”

Item 278: Flake 3816a. US1C. Item 279: Flake 3817. UPB, US1C.

280 Nauvoo, September 24, 1845. Whereas a council of the authorities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, at Nauvoo, have this day received a communication from Henry Asbury, John P. Robbins, Albert J. [sic] Pearson, P. A. Goodwin, J. N. Ralston, M. Rogers, and E. Conyers, Messrs. Committee of the citizens of Quincy, requesting us to “communicate in writing our disposition [First 11 lines of first column] [Signed at end:] By order of the Council. Brigham Young, Prest. Willard Richards, Clerk. [Nauvoo, 1845]

Broadside 28 x 14 cm. In two columns.

On September 24 Brigham Young, several of the Twelve, and about fifty others rode to Carthage, where twelve men, including Willard Richards, John Taylor, and W. W. Phelps, were to be tried on a complaint by Anthony Barkman for their involvement in the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor (see items 223, 224, and items 279, 282). At the hearing Barkman admitted that he knew none of the defendants, and they were discharged for want of evidence.[210] When the group returned to Nauvoo that evening, they were met by a committee from Quincy, named in this entry’s title, which included some prominent Masons and a former Quincy mayor.[211] This committee handed the Church leaders a report of a public meeting two days before which urged the Mormons to move from Hancock “within a reasonable time” and expressed the opinion that should they so agree, the anti-Mormons would cease their efforts to expel them.[212] That night item 280 was struck off, and the next morning it was formally presented to the Quincy committee.[213]

In reality addressed to Governor Ford and the citizens of Illinois, this circular was an official statement that the Mormons would evacuate Illinois the following spring “for some point so remote, that there will not need to be a difficulty with the people and ourselves”—provided that those in Hancock and the surrounding counties assist them to dispose of their property and cease vexatious law suits and violent acts against them. A concluding paragraph remarks, “it is a mistaken idea that we ‘have proposed to remove in six months;’ for that would be so early in the spring, that grass might not grow nor water run, both of which would be necessary for our removal, but we propose to use our influence, to have no more seed time nor harvest among our people in this county after gathering our present crops.”

In spite of his declaration of peace (item 279), Backenstos kept troops in Carthage, and the Nauvoo Legion remained on alert. On September 25 word reached Nauvoo that the anti-Mormons were collecting near La Harpe and in Madison, Iowa, and the next day a report came from Carthage that some anti-Mormons were beginning to assemble there.[214] About this time Thomas Ford appointed John J. Hardin to lead a contingent of volunteers to Hancock to restore order, and on September 27 Hardin issued a proclamation that no armed force in Hancock County was to exceed four persons.[215] Three days later he and 320 volunteers entered Nauvoo, accompanied by Stephen A. Douglas, William B. Warren, and state attorney general James A. McDougal, special representatives of Governor Ford.[216] That day the Warsaw Signal issued an extra reporting various public meetings, including one in Quincy on the 26th at which the proposals of the Mormons in the September 24 broadside were accepted.[217] Hardin and his associates conferred with the Church leaders until October 2. The Nauvoo Neighbor of October 1 prints a letter from them, dated October 1, asking for a written statement of the Mormons’ intentions, together with a long reply from Brigham Young of the same date which includes the text of the September 24 broadside—reprinted from the same typesetting. Here Young comments that arrangements to move from Illinois had commenced before the recent outbreak of violence, that one thousand families, including the Twelve, are “fully determined to remove in the spring, independent of the contingency of selling our property,” that “some hundreds of farms, and some 2000 or more houses [are] for sale in this city and county,” and that “we do not intend to sow any wheat this fall.”

Hardin and his associates wrote to the Twelve on October 3 that they had met with the anti-Mormons from Hancock and representatives from nine surrounding counties and had received their acceptance of the propositions outlined by Brigham Young on October 1. “By carrying out in good faith, your proposition to remove as submitted to us,” their letter continues, “we think you should be, and will be permitted to depart peaceably next spring for your destination west of the Rocky Mountains.” This letter and one to the anti-Mormons dated October 6 are printed in the last issue of the Neighbor, October 29. The entire exchange between Brigham Young and J. J. Hardin is also published in the Warsaw Signal of October 15, the Signal extra To the Anti-Mormon Citizens of Hancock and the Surrounding Counties, the New-York Messenger of October 25, and the Millennial Star of December l.[218] Item 280 is reprinted in the New-York Messenger of October 18 and in the Millennial Star of December 1.

Flake 1454. CSmH, CtY, ICHi, NjP, UPB, US1C, UU.

281 BACKENSTOS, Jacob Benjamin. Proclamation No. 5. To the citizens of Hancock County, and the surrounding country. [Signed and dated in the third column:] J. B. Backenstos, Sheriff, H. C Carthage, Sept. 25, 11 o’clock a.m. 1845. [Nauvoo, 1845]

Broadside 46.5 x 31 cm. Text in four columns.

Much of Backenstos’s last proclamation is a commentary on the events of the preceding two weeks. He reports that the “mobbers” had not yet returned to Hancock County but were collecting in the adjoining counties and in Missouri and Iowa. The Mormons who evacuated the Morley settlement lost more than two hundred head of cattle and a number of horses, he claims, and several non-Mormons living near Warsaw or Carthage had cattle stolen. Since each of the non-Mormons who reported stolen cattle had opposed the house burnings, while not a single head was reported stolen from someone engaged in the burnings, it was, he suggests, the house burners who did the stealing. He identifies Thomas Sharp as “the head of this band of mobbers,” and he condemns Sharp’s attack on his account of the killing of Franklin Worrell (item 276) in the Warsaw Signal Extra of September 24. He brands as a fraud a proclamation purportedly by Governor Ford of September 21.

The proclamation concludes with three affidavits. The first, by John Harper, dated September 22, asserts that he heard Noah M. Rickard, Frank Worrell, and others volunteer to go after Backenstos, and it gives Rickard’s account of the killing of Worrell. The second, by E. B. Rose, the Hancock County treasurer and assessor, dated September 21, states that he was threatened and ordered to leave the county by an armed band on September 15. The third, by James Bellows, dated September 25, says that twelve armed men, two of them named, drove him from his house on September 10.

Proclamation No. 5 was reprinted in the Nauvoo Neighbor of October 1, 1845, from the same setting. It was also reprinted in the New-York Messenger of October 25 and, without the three affidavits, in the Millennial Star of December 1.

Flake 3818. ICHi, US1C.

282 BARKM AN, Anthony. To the public: [Signed and dated at end:] Antony [sic] Barkman. Nauvoo, Sept. 26, 1845. [Nauvoo, 1845]

Broadside 25 x 10 cm.

Anthony Barkman, an anti-Mormon and one of the Carthage Greys who guarded Joseph Smith at the time of his assassination, was arrested by Jacob Backenstos in Carthage on September 19 (see item 279).[219] Hosea Stout notes in his diary that Barkman signed the complaint on which he, Willard Richards, John Taylor, W. W. Phelps, and eight others were tried on September 24 and acquitted after Barkman admitted that he had been induced to perjure himself (see item 280).[220] In To the Public Barkman acknowledges that he was arrested for perjury—a charge undoubtedly arising out of his complaint against Richards, Taylor, and the others. He further admits to threatening the life of Sheriff Backenstos, and states that during the time he was in custody in Nauvoo, he was well treated by the people there. One might conjecture that Backman issued this statement in exchange for his freedom.

To the Public was reprinted from the same setting in the Nauvoo Neighbor of October 1, and reprinted again in the New-York Messenger of October 25. Flake 303. CtY, UPB, US1C.

283 Notice There will be a meeting held of the American citizens of Lee County, without reference to their political or religious principles, at Montrose in said county of Lee, on Saturday, the 11th inst, for the purpose of ascertaining their rights as such. Oct. 3, 1845. By order of many citizens. [Nauvoo? 1845]

Broadside 21 x 30 cm.

This broadside appears to be a Nauvoo imprint: its typefaces and typographical ornament match those of items 228 and 239. One infers that it called a meeting of the Mormons and their supporters to organize for the upcoming Lee County election on November 1, in which two delegates to the Iowa legislature would be chosen. Two days before this announcement was issued, the anti-Mormons met in Montrose and resolved that the Saints had to leave Lee County. Heightening the anxiety of the old citizens was the fear that the Nauvoo Mormons would move into Lee County when they evacuated Illinois. On October 16 they met again, “without distinction of party,” and nominated two anti-Mormon candidates, William Patterson and Jesse B. Brown, one a Democrat, the other a Whig. Two days later the Mormons and “Jack Mormons” convened in Montrose and nominated James D. Gidney and John Spain. But the eagerness to rid the county of the Saints was pervasive, and on November 1 the anti-Mormons easily carried the election.[221]

Flake 5874a. US1C.

284 Circular, to the whole Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. [At head of first column:] First meeting in the temple. [Nauvoo, 1845]

Broadside 42.5 x 30 cm. Text in four columns.

Two days after Hardin and his associates wrote to the Twelve that the anti-Mormons from Hancock and the nine surrounding counties had accepted the propositions outlined by Brigham Young on October 1 (see item 280), the Saints began a series of meetings in the Nauvoo Temple—an implicit statement that it was finished enough for them to consider evacuating Nauvoo. On Sunday October 5, they gathered for worship services in the main story, prepared with a temporary floor and seats. During the morning and afternoon meetings, the Twelve called the first companies which would make the westward trek in the spring. The next day they convened the general conference and here formally presented the proposition to move west to the Church membership.[222] Thomas Bullock and William Clayton took minutes of these meetings. On October 11, for most of the day, Clayton met with the Twelve and others at John Taylor’s house and helped prepare Circular to the Whole Church “for the agents to take abroad with them.” That day the Twelve also appointed additional “captains of companies”—men who would lead one hundred families westward, bringing the number of captains to twenty-five.[223]

Circular to the Whole Church opens with some comments on the temple and a short outline of the October 5 meeting. This is followed by “Extract from the minutes of a general conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, held in the House of the Lord in the City of Joseph, Oct. 6th, 7, & 8, 1845,” which is a summary of the October 6 meetings only, mostly Parley Pratt’s discourse which argues for finishing the temple even though the Saints were about to leave Nauvoo:

We do not want to leave a desolate place, to be a reproach to us but something that will be a monument of our industry and virtue. Our homes, our farms, this Temple and all we leave will be a monument to those who may visit the place of our industry, diligence and virtue. There is no sacrifice required at the hands of the people of God but shall be rewarded to them an hundred fold, in time or eternity.

At the end of this summary is the most important business of the conference:

On motion, it was unanimously resolved that this people move, en masse, to the West. On motion, it was unanimously resolved that we take all of the saints with us to the extent of our ability, that is, our influence and property.

Following “Extract from the minutes” is an epistle “To the brethren of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, scattered abroad throughout the United States of America,” signed at the end, “Brigham Young, Pres’t. Willard Richards, Clerk.” This speaks about the decision to leave Illinois and refers to the “unparallelled union of the great body of the Saints” at the conference. It declares that the utmost diligence of all will be required to prepare for the migration west and to complete the temple. It asserts that the temple will be ready enough “in a few days” for the administration of its ordinances, and it invites the Saints to come with their families to Nauvoo in sufficient time to participate in these ordinances “previous to the great imigration of the Church in the spring.” A postscript directs that “all wagons that are hereafter built be constructed to the track of five feet width from centre to centre.” At the bottom of the fourth column are a “List of Committees” to dispose of Mormon lands and the names of the twenty-five “Captains of Companies for Removal in the Spring.”

Most of the text of Circular to the Whole Church is printed from the same typesetting in the Times and Seasons of November 1, 1845. The first six paragraphs of “Extract from the minutes” are replaced in the Times and Seasons by a much fuller account which includes the minutes of the meetings of October 7 and 8.[224] The Times and Seasons prints only the second of the two seemingly conflicting motions to move west. “Captains of Companies” is not included in the Times and Seasons, but it and “List of Committees” are reprinted, from the same setting, in the final issue of the Nauvoo Neighbor, October 29, 1845. Circular to the Whole Church is also reprinted, without “Captains of Companies,” in the Warsaw Signal of October 29; without “List of Committees” in the New-York Messenger of November 1; and without “List of Committees” and “Captains of Companies” in the Millennial Star of December 1.

The LDS Church owns three variant copies of item 284, typographically identical except for a misspelling in the title and the location of the postscript in “To the brethren”: (1) with Saints in the title spelled Saitns and the postscript preceding the lines Brigham Young, Pres’t. Willard Richards, Clerk; (2) with Saints spelled correctly and the postscript preceding Brigham Young, Pres’t. Willard Richards, Clerk; and (3) with the postscript following Brigham Young, Pres’t. Willard Richards, Clerk. In the Times and Seasons, the postscript follows the signatures of Young and Richards.

Flake 1339. ICHi, UPB, US1C.

285 Proclamation of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. To all the kings of the world, to the president of the United States of America; to the governors of the several states, and to the rulers and people of all nations. Greeting. [Caption title] [At foot of p. 16:] Liverpool: Published by Wilford Woodruff, Stanley Buildings, Bath Street. James and Woodburn, Printers, South Castle Street. [1845]

16 pp. 22.5 cm.

286 Annerchiad y Deuddeg Apostol yn Eglwys Iesu Grist; [sic] Saint y Dyddiau Diweddaf. At holl frenhinoedd y ddaear, at raglaw, ac at lywiawdwyr Unol Daleithiau yr Amerig, ac at lywyddion, a holl bobl y byd. [Caption title] [Proclamation of the Twelve Apostles in the Church of Jesus Christ; [sic] of Latter-day Saints. To all the kings of the earth, to the president and to the governors of the United States of America, and to the rulers and all the people of the world.] [At foot of p. 12:] Cyfieithwyd a chyhoeddwyd gan Capt. Jones. Argraffwyd gan John Jones, Rhydybont. [Translated and published by Capt. Jones. Printed by John Jones, Rhydybont] [1845]

12 pp. 17 cm.

The second edition of Proclamation of the Twelve Apostles (item 285) has Wilford Woodruff’s note “To the English Reader” at the end, dated at Liverpool, October 22, 1845. That day, his diary indicates, Woodruff received the first copy from James and Woodburn, whom he had engaged to print 20,000 copies of the tract, and he immediately sent it to Dan Jones to be republished in Welsh. Five days later the new edition was out of press, and he began mailing copies to the clergy and others. On November 1 the Millennial Star advertised the proclamation at 2d. each. “I thank God,” Woodruff wrote in his journal, “that I am an instrument in his hands of printing & Circulating this important Proclamation through Britain & Europe.” In the Star of October 15 he emphasized that it was necessary to distribute the proclamation “in order that the present generation may be left without excuse,” that most would have to be distributed gratis, and the Saints would have to bear the costs.[225]

At the end of the year 2,400 copies remained in the Millennial Star office—and the printer’s bill of £45 had yet to be paid. Elisha H. Davis reported from London the following May that he had “been lately sending the proclamations to the lords, dukes, viscounts, marquises, bishops, members of parliament, and all kinds of BIG men. I fold them up nicely in an envelope, and superscribe the title, name, and private residence, and send them through the post office.”[226] The Star again advertised Proclamation of the Twelve Apostles in its issue of July 1, 1847, now at a remainder price of three halfpence each or l0d. per hundred.

The Liverpool edition is a faithful reprint of the New York edition (item 256), except for the deletion of but on p. 4, line 12; a half dozen spelling changes; and numerous changes in punctuation and capitalization. Woodruff’s note “To the English Reader” explains that he had not altered the text, which the English reader should understand was written in America, and he invites any donations to help underwrite the publication.

Dan Jones seems to have completed his translation of the proclamation on December 1, 1845, the date of his note “At y Darllenydd Cymreig” [To the Welsh Reader]. Just before midnight two days later he himself finished printing 4,000 copies on his brother’s press in Rhydybont.[227] The Welsh edition translates the Liverpool edition except for the last three paragraphs of main text. Jones’s “To the Welsh Reader” includes a translation of the first sentence of Woodruff’s “To the English Reader.”[228]

Item 285: Flake 1512. CSmH, CtY, CU-B, ICN, MH, MoInRC, NjP, NN, UHi, ULA, UPB, US1C, UU. Item 286: Flake 1509. Dennis 2. CSmH, UPB, US1C, WsN.

287 Neighbor—Extra. Nauvoo, Nov. 19, 1845. [At head of first column:] Murder and arson. Edmund Durfee shot—two houses burned. [Nauvoo, 1845]

Broadside 30.5 x 20.5 cm. Text in three columns.

In spite of the agreement reached during the first few days of October (see item 280), tensions remained high between the Mormons and anti-Mormons in Hancock County. A reorganized county grand jury indicted Jacob Backenstos for the shooting of Franklin Worrell (see item 276) but refused to hear any testimony from the Mormons about their burned houses.[229] During the last week in October, Abitha Williams, a suspected counterfeiter himself, swore out a complaint in Iowa against Brigham Young and the Twelve for making bogus money, and federal writs were issued for their arrest. W. B. Warren, the major commanding the state militia in Hancock County, refused to serve the writs, however, because he felt they were merely vexatious and would jeopardize the departure of the Saints in the spring.[230]

Nor did the house burnings stop in the southern part of the county. Anti-Mormons burned two houses and three stables in the Morley settlement on October 18 and a third house on the 21st.[231] On November 13 they burned Samuel Hicks’s house. Two days later some anti-Mormons set fire to a straw stack near Solomon Hancock’s barn, and as several men rushed to rake the burning straw away from the barn, the anti-Mormons shot at them from ambush. Edmund Durfee died instantly.[232] The Quincy Whig deplored the murder, insisting it was the act of drunks, while the Warsaw Signal denied that Durfee had been shot by “sound anti-Mormons” and hinted unconvincingly that he must have been killed by Mormons. Three days after the murder, an anti-Mormon meeting in Carthage specifically condemned the violence.[233]

Neighbor Extra of November 19, issued three weeks after the last regular number of the paper, prints two affidavits describing Durfee’s murder and the destruction of Hicks’s house. The first column and a half editorializes on the violence and is surprisingly conciliatory. Pleading for peace while the Saints prepare for the exodus, it declares, “We have nearly two thousand five hundred wagons commenced for our Pacific journey next Spring, but such outrages certainly are not calculated to aid us in getting ready.” A note at the end of the third column speculates about resuscitating the Nauvoo Neighbor in order to advertise Mormon properties for sale.

Edmund Durfee, a native of Rhode Island, converted to Mormonism in Ohio in 1831. He was called to the Second Quorum of Seventy in February 1836, moved to northern Missouri the following year, and then located in the Morley settlement after the exodus from Missouri. His buildings were among the first ones fired when the anti-Mormons began burning houses in the Morley settlement on September 10 (see item 274). He was fifty-seven years old at the time of his death.[234] On November 24 the Church leaders learned that those accused of his murder had been released by an anti-Mormon magistrate in Carthage, who refused to hear any Mormon witnesses.[235]

Flake 5733. ICHi, US1C.

288 New-York Messenger Extra. Saturday, Dec. 13, 1845. To emigrants. [At head of first column] [New York, 1845]

Broadside 40 x 28 cm. In three columns.

Four weeks before this extra appeared, the Messenger announced that a company of Latter-day Saints would sail from New York to the Pacific coast on January 26—a venture that culminated in the sailing of the Brooklyn on February 4, 1846 (see item 297). The main article of this extra, occupying two-thirds of the first column, states that about three hundred had indicated a desire to sail to the Pacific coast, but only sixty could afford the passage. It appeals to the wealthy to underwrite the emigration of the needy—a plea Orson Pratt also had made in the Messenger four weeks earlier. Passage for each person, it continues, is $50, $25 for children age six to thirteen years old, and each passenger needs $20-$25 worth of provisions. It reports that negotiations are underway with a New York merchant to transport the Saints at cheap rates, contingent, however, upon his obtaining a government freight contract. The extra up to this point is reprinted in the Times and Seasons of January 15, 1846. At the bottom of the first column is a letter to President Polk urging him to support the freight contract.

On September 9, 1845, the Council of Fifty appointed a committee of five to determine the needs of those traveling overland to the West, and on October 4 this committee gave its recommendation.[236] Essentially this outfit, for a family of five, is listed in the second column of the extra. The rest of the second column and the third column are filled out with short news items, one referring to the letter in the New York Sun of December 9 allegedly by Emma Smith renouncing Mormonism (but repudiated by her in the Times and Seasons of January 15, 1846), another reporting that George J. Adams was delivering anti-Mormon lectures in St. Louis.[237] Here also the extra noted, “We shall continue to publish a small extra every week, until the last of January or the time of our departure” (see item 298).

Two days after the extra, the final number of the Messenger announced that the ship Brooklyn had been chartered and would sail on January 24 rather than the 26th.

Flake 5798. CtY, NN, UPB, US1C.

289 ADAMS, Charles Augustus. A collection of sacred hymns, for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Selected and published by Charles A. Adams. Bellows Falls: Printed by S. M. Blake. 1845

iv[5]–160pp. 10.5 cm.

Charles A. Adams remains an obscure figure. Born in Jaffrey, Cheshire County, New Hampshire, August 17, 1824, he received a patriarchal blessing from Hyrum Smith in Nauvoo in December 1843 and was called four months later to campaign for Joseph Smith in New Hampshire. At some point he labored in Peterborough, seven miles from his place of birth, so it would have been natural for him to have his hymnbook printed in Bellows Falls, thirty miles to the northwest, by the shop that printed the Little-Gardner book (item 246). When the Saints went west, Adams remained in New England. In 1855 he married Sarah Holder in Lynn, Massachusetts; five years later he died.[238]

Adams’s marriage record gives his occupation as “music teacher.” One might infer that his hymnbook grew out of his musical background and perhaps includes some of his own compositions. The book contains 104 hymn texts, numbered 1–18, 17, 20–44, 47–106 (pp. [5]–155). These are preceded by a preface (pp. [iii]–iv), which is taken from the 1835 hymnal (item 23), and followed by an index of first lines (pp. [156]–60). Most of the songs came from three sources: seventy-three are from the 1841 Nauvoo hymnal (item 103); twenty others are from the 1839 Elsworth book (item 61); and four not in either of these two came from either the Page-Cairns or the Little-Gardner book, probably the latter (items 102, 246). Of the remaining seven songs, one is from the 1840 hymnal (item 78) or Parley Pratt’s Millennium and Other Poems (item 63). Another is W. W. Phelps’s “Praise to the Man,” first published in the Times and Seasons for August 1, 1844, and included in the official LDS hymnal from 1847 to the present (see item 340). “Adieu to Honor, Wealth and Fame” is in the Wight book (item 345), but except for this, it and the other four songs do not seem to be in any other Mormon hymnbook. Adams’s book includes forty of the hymns in the 1835 hymnal and fifty-two of those in the 1840. It occurs in two states: with and without the article A at the beginning of the title. It is bound in brown sheep, with double gilt bands and the title in gilt or a black leather label on the backstrip.

Flake 14. CtY, MH, RPB, UPB, US1C.

290 [Mormon hymns. New York, 1845. 8 hymns on broadside sheet.] f°.

This entry appears in “List of Works in the New York Public Library Relating to the Mormons,” Bulletin of the New York Public Library XIII (1909). The item itself has been missing from the Library since 1947, when Dale Morgan attempted to locate it.

291 PRATT, Parley Parker. A dialogue between Joe. Smith and the Devil! [Caption title] [New York? 1845?]

12 pp. 18 cm.

292 PRATT, Parley Parker. A dialogue between Josh. Smith & the Devil. [First 4 words of p. 3, line 2:] Good morning, Mr. Devil. [Liverpool? 1846?]

16 pp. 22 cm.

293 PRATT, Parley Parker. A dialogue between Josh. Smith & the Devil. [First 5 words of p. 3, line 2:] Smith—Good morning, Mr. Devil. [Liverpool? 1846?]

16 pp. 22 cm.

A Dialogue Between Joe Smith and the Devil is probably the first work that can be classified as Mormon fiction. Parley Pratt composed it while he was stumping for Joseph Smith’s presidential candidacy in the eastern states in the spring of 1844:

In the spring I went to Boston as a missionary, and on business. . . . Visiting North Bridge, a short distance from Boston, and having a day’s leisure, I wrote a dialogue entitled “Joe Smith and the Devil,” which was afterwards published in the New York Herald, and in various papers in America and Europe. It was finally published and republished in pamphlet form, and had a wide circulation; few persons knowing or mistrusting who was the author.[239]

The dialogue was printed on the front page of the New York Herald, August 25, 1844, and reprinted in The Prophet six days later and in the Nauvoo Neighbor of September 25. Exactly when the first pamphlet edition was published is not clear; History of the Church says it was in 1845.[240] The form of the title and the typography suggest that the twelve-page edition is the first. Its typography also suggests it is a New York imprint, probably from the press of The Prophet.

Both sixteen-page editions are virtually identical. One might guess that item 292 is the earlier since its opening line on p. 3 coincides with that of the twelve-page edition, and Josh. Smith on p. 2 is changed to Joseph Smith in item 293. Items 292 and 293 appear to be British, and as most Mormon printing occurred in Liverpool at this time, they are tentatively entered as Liverpool imprints. A catalogue of publications in the Millennial Star of July 1, 1847, includes one item identified simply as Dialogues, offered at Id. each or 8s. 4d. per hundred. And the European Mission financial records lists a few sales of “Dialogues” in April 1847.[241] Since these entries most likely refer to Dialogue Between Josh. Smith & the Devil, 1846 has been assigned as a tentative date of publication. Perhaps Parley Pratt published it himself while he was in England, October 14, 1846, to January 19, 1847.[242]

All three pamphlet editions also include “Dialogue Between Tradition, Reason, and Scriptus,” originally published in Orson Pratt’s Prophetic Almanac for 1845 (item 229). A quarter of this is omitted in item 291; it is reprinted in full in both items 292 and 293.

In the New York Herald and Nauvoo Neighbor the title is given as “Joe Smith and the Devil. A Dialogue.” Since “Joe Smith” was the usual anti-Mormon appellation for Joseph Smith, it undoubtedly was unacceptable to The Prophet, which put a period after Joe, perhaps hoping to suggest an abbreviation fox Joseph. This period was perpetuated in the title of the twelve-page edition; but by the time the pamphlet was reprinted in England, a better abbreviation apparently was sought for, hence Josh. The dialogue was republished several times in Utah in the 1880s, now with Joe. or Josh, replaced with Joseph

It is an amusing piece of satire. Its devil is a likable fellow with a sense of humor, whose admissions are hardly flattering to the orthodox Christian churches. Its point, of course, is that modern Christendom is corrupt and that Mormonism is the only true Christian religion.

Item 291: Flake 6568. CSmH, US1C. Item 292: Flake 6569. ICN, MH, MoInRC, NN, UHi, UPB, US1C, UU. Item 293: Flake 6569. CtY, MoInRC, UHi, UPB, US1C.

294 SPARKS, Quartus Strong. Priestcraft exposed: false religion unmasked, derided, and slain; hypocrisy unveiled: truth vindicated, sectaries mad: and Babylon falling! By Q. S. Sparks, minister of the gospel, Hartford, Conn. [6 lines] Hartford: Printed for the publisher. 1845.

iv[5]–37 pp. 18.5 cm.

Quartus S. Sparks was born in Northampton, Massachusetts, October 27, 1820. By November 1841 he had joined the Church and was laboring as a missionary on Long Island. In April 1844 he and Elisha H. Davis were called to campaign for Joseph Smith in Connecticut, and two months later The Prophet noted that Sparks was in Hartford. On January 5, 1845, he was appointed the presiding elder in Hartford, and thirteen months later he and his family sailed on the Brooklyn for San Francisco. For a time he presided over the Mormon branch in San Francisco, and in 1853 he settled in San Bernardino, where he served on the first city council and as principal of the city schools. There he also took up the practice of law. When the Mormons evacuated San Bernardino in 1857, he remained behind, estranged from the Church. He died in Redlands, California, August 1, 1891.[243]

Exactly when Sparks published Priestcraft Exposed is not known. The verso of the title page bears the copyright notice, Entered according to Act of Congress, 1845, by Q. S. Sparks, in the District Court of the State of Connecticut. But a search of the copyright records revealed no entry for Sparks or his book.[244] Generally Priestcraft Exposed is an attack on the professional clergy (see e.g., items 92, 291–93), and it does not mention the Mormons except for three passing references. It contrasts the characteristics of modern Christendom with what it infers were those of the primitive church. It argues that the clergy are corrupted by their university training, producing arrogance and causing them to rigidly interpret the scriptures. It also attacks them for serving God for pay: “The primitive system was all for God: the modern system is all for money.” Undoubtedly its title was inspired by Parley Pratt’s Mormonism Unveiled: Zion’s Watchman Unmasked (items 45–48, 146).

Flake 8307b. UPB.

295 TAYLOR, John. Upper California. [N.p., 1845?]

Broadside 20 x 14.5 cm. Ornamental border.

This broadside contains the text of a song in six verses, which, according to William Clayton’s journal, John Taylor composed and revised at a meeting of the Council of Fifty in April 1845.[245] To a note in the Nauvoo Neighbor of May 7, 1845, that John C. Fremont was organizing an expedition to California, Taylor added eight lines of verse that are either an early version of his song or someone else’s upon which his was modeled: “The upper California, / O that’s the place to be; / It lies between the mountains, / And great Pacific sea. / With a climate pure as Naples, / And budding liberty, / O clear away the rubbish, / And let us there be free.” The first verse of the broadside version differs mainly in the last two lines: “The Upper California, O that’s the land for me, / It lies between the mountains, and great Pacific Sea, / The saints can be supported there, and taste the sweets of liberty / With flocks and herds abounding, O that’s the land for me, O that’s, &c.” The song is clearly patterned after “The Rose That All Are Praising” (see item 257).[246]

When or where this broadside was published is not known. The song appears in the LDS hymnal from 1851 to 1890, with a series of textual changes. The broadside version seems to antedate those in the hymnal. In August 1857, when the Tenth Infantry was then marching to Utah, Taylor quoted the third verse, “We’ll burst off all our fetters and break the Gentile yoke . . . , “ and urged the Saints to sing his song as a kind of Mormon “Yankee Doodle.”[247]

Flake 8851a. US1C.

296 A circular, of the high council. [At head of first column:] To the members of the Church of Jesus Christ op [sic] Latter Day Saints, and to all whom it may concern: greeting. [At end of third column:] Done in Council at the City of Nauvoo, on the 20th day of January, 1846. Samuel Bent, James Allred, George W. Harris, William Huntington, Henry G. Sherwood, Alpheus Cutler, Newel Knight, Lewis D. Wilson, Ezra T. Benson, David Fullmer, Thomas Grover, Aaron Johnson. [Nauvoo, 1846]

Broadside 31 x 24 cm. Text in three columns, ornamental border.

Circular of the High Council is the first public announcement of the Mormons’ intention to establish a settlement in the Great Basin. Its first two paragraphs state that early in March “a company of pioneers, consisting mostly of young, hardy men, with some families” and outfitted with farming and milling equipment, seeds and grain, and a printing press will proceed west until they find a good place to make a crop, in some good valley in the neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains, where they will infringe upon no one, and be not likely to be infringed upon. Here we will make a resting place, until we can determine a place for a permanent location.

By the end of 1845 the Mormons had familiarized themselves with the reports of Benjamin Bonneville, John C. Fremont, Charles Wilkes, and Lansford W. Hastings.[248] During November and December the Times and Seasons spoke of the Pacific coast as the destination of the Saints, California, Oregon, or Vancouver.[249] But uncertainty persisted as late as December 26, when Brigham Young wrote to Sam Brannan that “we have not determined to what place we shall go.”[250] Circular of the High Council shows that by mid-January the Great Basin was being focused upon, at least as a temporary location.

The circular goes on to affirm the Mormons’ allegiance to the United States, and it declares that should hostilities break out over Oregon they would side with the United States. Undoubtedly this was written in response to rumors that the U.S. government would move to prevent the Saints from going west for fear they would align themselves with the British.[251] Further, it denies that they had been involved in counterfeiting money, a denial prompted by the action of the U.S. District Court in Springfield, which had indicted Brigham Young and several other apostles for counterfeiting a month earlier (see item 287).[252] And it repudiates the charges of Mormon violence and thievery that had been trumpeted by the Warsaw Signal, Quincy Whig, Sangamo Journal, and others for more than a year (see item 253). Ordinarily one would expect an announcement of this importance to be made by the Council of the Twelve. Perhaps it was issued over the names of the members of the high council to give them the opportunity to repudiate the counterfeiting charges then pending against some of the Twelve. The text of Circular of the High Council was reprinted from the same setting in the Times and Seasons of January 15, 1846, including the misprint in the title.

Parley Pratt bore some responsibility for organizing the pioneer company, and during December he was engaged in forming a list of one thousand men to make up the party.[253] On January 11 and 13 the Council of Fifty discussed an early start west, and on the 18th the Twelve met with the captains of emigrating companies in the attic of the temple to determine who could leave “should necessity compel our instant removal” (see item 284). Here Almon W. Babbitt, Joseph L. Heywood, John S. Fullmer, Henry W. Miller, and John M. Bernhisel were selected to dispose of the property of the Saints, once the exodus had begun (see item 318).[254] But it is clear that despite these preparations, the Twelve hoped for a more orderly evacuation of Nauvoo. At another meeting in the temple on January 24, four days after Circular of the High Council was issued, Brigham Young reiterated his intention “to start a company of young men and some few families perhaps within a few weeks. This company will travel until they can find a good location beyond the settlements, and there stop and put in a summer crop.”[255]

Then on January 29 two incidents occurred which altered those plans: during the day state troops moved about Nauvoo with the intent, it was reported, of arresting some of the Mormon leaders; and Brigham Young received a letter from Sam Brannan repeating the rumor that the federal government intended to intercept the Saints as they moved west and confiscate their arms.[256] Four days later a council of Church leaders agreed to begin the evacuation of Nauvoo immediately, and that afternoon Brigham Young informed the captains of hundreds and fifties of this decision.[257] On February 4 the first wagons were ferried across the Mississippi, and on the 15th Brigham Young, Willard Richards, and George A. Smith crossed into Iowa.[258]

All of the twelve men who signed the circular were sustained as members of the Nauvoo high council when it was first organized on October 5, 1839, except Allred, Benson, and Johnson, who were called on April 8, 1841, October 7, 1844, and January 19, 1841, respectively. Bent, Cutler, and Fullmer were also members of the Council of Fifty. In July 1846 Benson was called into the Twelve. Bent and Huntington died in the Iowa camps that August; Knight died in Nebraska the following January. Allred, Sherwood, Wilson, Fullmer, Grover, and Johnson made the trek to Utah and assumed positions of responsibility there.[259] Cutler and Harris went as far as Iowa. Harris waited for the Saints to return to Missouri and died near Council Bluffs sometime between 1857 and 1860. Cutler “reorganized” the church in Manti, Iowa, in 1853 and died there in 1864.[260]

Flake 1338. CtY, CU-B, NjP, TxDaDF, UPB, US1C, UU

297 Rules and regulations for the emigrants on board the ship. Daily duty, &c. [New York? 1846?]

Broadside 31x19 cm.

Both copies of Rules and Regulations in the LDS Church archives have Brooklin or “Brooklyn” written in manuscript by the printed title. That the broadside was in fact issued for the passengers of the Brooklyn is further established by its inclusion in the Times and Seasons of February 15, 1846, following the text of the February New-York Messenger Extra (next item) which describes the ship’s departure. A note in the Times and Seasons suggests that it was printed just prior to the sailing of the Brooklyn on February 4.[261]

The genesis of the voyage of the Brooklyn dates to September 15, 1845, when Brigham Young wrote to Sam Brannan, “I wish you together with your press, paper, and ten thousand of the brethren, were now in California at the Bay of San Francisco, and if you can clear yourself and go there, do so.”[262] On November 8 the New-York Messenger ran an article which suggested that it was cheaper to go to the Pacific coast by water than by land. Four days later the New York branch resolved to move “one and all, west of the Rocky Mountains, between this and next season, either by land or water.” The Messenger of November 15, which reported this resolution, also carried Orson Pratt’s “Farewell Message” which announced that Brannan would lead a company of Saints by sea to the Pacific coast. Between December 13 and December 15 Brannan chartered the Brooklyn, a sailing ship “nearly new, of four hundred and fifty tons measurement,” which was scheduled to depart New York on January 24 (see item 288). Its cost was $1,200 per month plus expenses.[263] Inevitable delays postponed its sailing until February 4, when it slipped its moorings with a company of about 230 men, women, and children, and a full cargo of agricultural and manufacturing tools, grain, paper, various raw materials, dry goods, school books, two milk cows, forty or fifty pigs, a flock of chickens, and the Messenger press.[264] Almost six months later, on July 31, 1846, it dropped anchor in San Francisco Bay (see item 322).[265]

Rules and Regulations lists twenty-one items specifying the passengers’ daily routine aboard ship, for example, “Rule 20. A Health Officer will be detailed from the company every morning to inspect the State Rooms every day, and see that all are neat and clean, the Beds made, and all dirty clothes removed, put into bags, or rolled up and placed in the hold of the ship.” A note at the end says, “It is expected that the above rules will be strictly complied with by every emigrant (without having to enforce them,) until they are altered or others substituted in their place.”

US1C.

298 [New-York Messenger Extra, February 7, 1846. To our brethren and friends scattered abroad. New York? 1846?]

Broadside?

Not located. This extra is reprinted, however, in the Times and Seasons of February 15, 1846, and it is copied into William I. Appleby’s journal, where it is dated February 7, 1846.[266] Published by Appleby to inform the Saints of the sailing of the Brooklyn, it gives an account of the ship’s departure and describes its cargo (see the preceding item).

299 Deed of settlement of the British and American Commercial Joint Stock Company, established for the purpose of trading between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and North and South America. Registered 1846. Liverpool: Printed by R. James, 39, South Castle Street. MDCCCXLVL

31[1] pp. 21 cm.

This is the charter of the British and American Commercial Joint Stock Company (see item 273). Dated at the beginning January 10, 1846, it lists eighteen directors, including Thomas D. Brown, Wilford Woodruff, Amos Fielding, Samuel Downes, Hiram Clark, Dan Jones, Thomas Ward, and Reuben Hedlock, followed by 103 articles which define the purposes and procedures of the company and the duties of its officers. The Millennial Star of March 1, 1846, reports that 2,000 copies of the charter had just been published and were for sale at one penny each. An entry for February 13, 1846, in the published financial statement of the company reads, “James and Woodburn, for printing, &c. . . . £20,” and this financial statement shows that fifty-five copies of the charter were sold on March 2. So Deed of Settlement must have been printed sometime that February.

Flake 857. MH, US1C.

300 JONES, Dan. Ymddyddan rhwng meistriaid traddodiad, sectariad, a Sant. A “Mene Tekel” yr olafar ei gyhuddwyr. [Caption title] [Dialogue between the masters of tradition, a sectarian, and a Saint. And “Mene Tekel” of the last on his accusers.] [At foot of p. 24:] Argraffwyd gan John Jones, Rhydybont. [Printed by John Jones, Rhydybont.] [1846]

24 pp. 19 cm. Printed wrappers.

Issued in printed wrappers, with the following wrapper title within an ornamental border: Atebyddy gwrthddadleuon a ddygir ynfwyaf cyjfredinol drwy y wlad yn erbyn Saint y Dyddiau Diweddaf a V athrawiaeth a brojfesant; mewn ffurf o ymddyddan, er symud y rhwystrau oddiar ffordd y Cymry ymofyngar, heb “anmhwyllo ynghylch cwestiynau, ac ymryson ynghylch geiriau, o’r rhai y mae cenfigen, ymryson, cableddau, a drwg dybiau yn dyfod; ac na ddaliont ar chwedlau ac achau anorphen, y rhai sydd yn peri cwestiynau, yn hytrach nag adeiladaeth dduwiol, yr hon sydd trwy ffydd: gwnaed [pawd] felly.” Gan Capt. D. Jones. Merthyr-Tydfil: Cyhoeddwyd ac ar werth gan yr awdwr. Pris. 3c. [A reply to the objections which are most commonly brought throughout the country against the Latter-day Saints, and the doctrine which they profess; in the form of a dialogue to remove the obstacles from the path of the inquisitive Welsh without “doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, and evil surmisings; and neither giving heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do [everyone].” By Capt. D. Jones. Merthyr Tydfil: Published and for sale by the author. Price 3c]

Flake 4483. Dennis 3. CSmH, UPB, US1C, WsCS, WsN.

Notes

201

[1] Calhoun’s and Clay’s letters are in Times and Seasons, 1 January and 1 June 1844. Cass’s letter is in “Journal History,” 9 December 1843.

[2] Faulring, An American Prophet’s Record, 443–44.

[3] History of the Church 6:187–89, 197, 210, 214, 224–26. Faulring, An American Prophet’s Record, 444–45. Richard D. Poll, “Joseph Smith and the Presidency, 1844,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 3 (autumn 1968): 17–21. Kenneth W. Godfrey, “Causes of Mormon non-Mormon Conflict in Hancock County, Illinois, 1839–1846” (Ph.D. diss., Brigham Young University, 1967). Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 2:349. “Joseph Smith and Others Trustee &c In Account with John Taylor,” Whitney MSS, UPB. The Nauvoo Neighbor advertised Views in its issue of February 28.

[4] History of the Church 6:230–33, 244–45, 248, 268, 356. Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 2:366. Faulring, An American Prophet’s Record, 458, 476–77. George D. Smith, ed., An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton (Salt Lake City, 1991), 126–27, 129–31, 153–54. Millennial Star 26:328. Bennet denied he was of foreign birth but declined the nomination. Godfrey, “Causes of Mormon non-Mormon Conflict,” 62 n. 69. Cook, “James Arlington Bennet and the Mormons,” 247. See also item 198.

[5] History of the Church 6:321–26,335–40. This list was reprinted in Nauvoo Neighbor, 17 April 1844.

[6] See, e.g., B. H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City, 1930), 2:209.

[7] See, e.g., “Autobiography of Dr. Ephraim Ingals,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 28 (1936): 295. George Miller, Correspondence of Bishop George Miller with the Northern Islander (Burlington, Wise? 1916?), 20. Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 2:349, 366ff. History of the Church 6:516.

[8] Faulring, An American Prophet’s Record, AAA. Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 2:349. On August 6, 1863, Phelps wrote to Brigham Young that he had been ordained by Joseph Smith to write Views. Godfrey, “Causes of Mormon non-Mormon Conflict,” 36 n. 28.

[9] These errors are: tranquility, p. 3, line 4 from the bottom; surprized, p. 4, line 12; imports for imposts, p. 4, line 22; enterprize, p. 5, lines 21 and 28; Aact, p. 5, line 21; Father’s for Fathers, p. 5, line 37; Crocketts for Crockford’s, p. 5 line 44; bases for basis, p. 6, line 12; Munroe, p. 6, line 25; teritory, p. 6, line 28; and for an, p. 7, line 31; puseudo, p. 8, line 31; Our- for Cur-, p. 9, line 3; teritory, p. 11, lines 46 and 47; enterprize, p. 11, line 49; and petioned, p. 11, line 50.

[10] History of the Church 6:386–97. Poll, “Joseph Smith and the Presidency,” 20.

202

[11] During this period, and for most of its run, The Prophet advertised An Appeal to the Inhabitants of the State of New York on its back page at 250 each or $12 per hundred. New- York Messenger, 144.

[12] History of the Church 6:83–95, 98–99.

[13] Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt (New York, 1874), 367.

203

[14] Times and Seasons 5:506. History of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Independence, Mo., 1951), 3:199, 319, 495, 737–42. Saints’ Herald 28:260.

204

[15] Rigdon’s memorial was actually presented to the Pennsylvania legislature: Journal of the Senate of the Commonwecdth of Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, Pa., 1844), 208–9.

[16] For biographical data on Benjamin Andrews, Alphonso Young, and Phineas Richards see, respectively, Black, Membership of the Church, 2:378; 48:30; and Jessee, The Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:584.

205

[17] History of the Church 6:81–83, 369. “Journal History,” 1 March 1844, 3.

[18] “Journal History,” 1 March 1844, 3.

[19] This estimate is high, of course, by a factor of about five.

206

[20] Mervin B. Hogan, “The Erection and Dedication of the Nauvoo Masonic Temple,” typescript, UPB. Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 2:373. History of the Church 6:287.

Brigham Young baptized W. G. Goforth on April 8, 1845. History of the Church 7:394.

[21] James C. Bilderback, “Masonry and Mormonism: Nauvoo, Illinois—1841–1849” (master’s thesis, University of Iowa, 1937), 67–70.

207

[22] Stanley B. Kimball, “Also Starring Brigham Young,” Ensign 5 (October 1975): 51–52.

[23] History of the Church 6:343, 349–50. Nauvoo Neighbor, 1 May 1844, 2. Warsaw Signal, 15 May 1844,3.

[24] Tullidge’s Quarterly Magazine 1 (January 1881): 347. Edward W. Tullidge, History of Salt Lake City (Salt Lake City, 1886), 740–67. John S. Lindsay, The Mormons and the Theatre (Salt Lake City, 1905), 4–7, 28–49. Messenger and Advocate (Rigdonite), 347–48, 427–28, 496. Salt Lake Tribune, 1 April 1890, 4–5. Black, Membership of the Church, 28:833. International Genealogical Index, UPB.

208

[25] Faulring, An American Prophet’s Record, 472. History of the Church 6:342–413.

[26] Faulring, An American Prophet’s Record, 473. History of the Church 6:343.

[27] Nauvoo Neighbor, 22 May 1844. Faulring, An American Prophet’s Record, 479–80.

[28] Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 129–31, 158.

211

[29] The Prophet, 18 May 1844. Times and Seasons 5:524–26.

[30] The Prophet, 25 May, 15 June, 24 August 1844. New-York Messenger, 157.

Henry J. Doremus was born in New Jersey, June 4, 1801. He married Harriet Fairbanks in New York six days before the first issue of The Prophet came out. He was a pioneer of 1847 and died in Salt Lake City, August 14, 1889. “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register,” 174. Black, Membership of the Church, 14:251–53. Kate B. Carter, Heart Throbs of the West (Salt Lake City, 1947), 8:428.

[31] New-York Messenger, 157. The Prophet, 26 April 1845. S. Brannan to B. Young, 22 July 1845; Brannan to Young, 29 August 1845; US1C.

[32] The Prophet, 21 December 1844.

[33] The Prophet, 2 November 1844.

[34] See e.g., The Prophet, 17 August, 19 October 1844; 8 March 1845.

[35] “Journal History,” 9 October, 3 December 1844. Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 2:471–74.

[36] Times and Seasons 3:844–45; 4:13; 5:457, 681. History of the Church 5:552. Messenger and Advocate (Rigdonite), 168, 172, 367, 396, 399. Gospel Herald, 6 September (p. 116), 25 October (p. 155), 8 November (p. 174), 15 November (pp. 182–83) 1849.

[37] Frank Soule, John H. Gihon, and James Nisbet, The Annals of San Francisco (New York, San Francisco, and London, 1855), 748–53. Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 3:606–7. Kate B. Carter, Our Pioneer Heritage (Salt Lake City, 1960), 3:474–85. Reva Scott, Samuel Brannan and the Golden Fleece (New York, 1944). Louis J. Stellman, Sam Brannan: Builder of San Francisco (New York, 1953). Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. “Brannan, Samuel.”

212

[38] “Alfred Cordon’s Journal, 1841 -44,” 194–95, 199–205, US1C. Times and Seasons 5:505, 606. The summary in the Times and Seasons gives the dates of the conference as May 24 and 25.

[39] “Early Church Information File.” “Journal History,” 1 October 1844, 4–6. Times and Seasons 5:764. Hajicek, Chronicles of Voree, 34–35, 48–51, 53, 58–59, 75, 79, 105, 123–28, 130–34, 144. Northern Islander, 1 May 1856, 2. “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’,” 27, 46, 48, 55, photocopy, UPB. I am grateful to John Hajicek for bringing the last two sources to my attention.

213

[40] Times and Seasons 5:505–6.

[41] “An Account of the Life of Elisha Hurd Groves,” US1C. Cannon and Cook, Far West Record, 101, 123.

214

[42] New-York Messenger, 144.

215

[43] Times and Seasons 5:506. Leonard J. Arrington, Charles C. Rich (Provo, Utah, 1974), 79–81. “The Life of Norton Jacob,” 7–10, typescript, UPB.

216–17

[44] Times and Seasons 5:505–6.

[45] “Early Church Information File.” “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register,” 27. Black, Membership of the Church, 47:981–83. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 129–30. “Journal History,” 24 October 1846, 2 October 1848.

218

[46] Sabin (83244B) lists this edition and locates a copy at the RLDS Church which has since disappeared. The only presently located copy, at the LDS Church, has two small views of the Nauvoo Temple in pencil on the blank p. 12.

219

[47] “Lorenzo Snow Journal 1840–44,” 48–50, US1C. Times and Seasons 5:505.

220

[48] Early Scenes in Church History (Salt Lake City, 1882), 23–24. Times and Seasons 5:505.

[49] Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:485–87. Andrew Jenson, Church Chronology (Salt Lake City, 1914), 17, 37, 46, 51, 56, 80, 101, 208. Loretta D. Nixon and L. Douglas Smoot, Abraham Owen Smoot: A Testament of His Life (Provo, Utah, 1994).

222

[50] Nauvoo Neighbor, 2 October 1844, reprints letters from Sidney Rigdon and Orson Hyde “from the People’s Organ.” But this refers to the St. Louis daily People’s Organ, which carries Rigdon’s and Hyde’s letters in its issues of September 16 and September 18, respectively.

[51] The People’s Organ, 7.

223

[52] History of the Church 6:357, 363. Faulring, An American Prophet’s Record, All. A copy of Prospectus of the Nauvoo Expositor is at US1C; it is reproduced in Lyndon W. Cook, “William Law, Nauvoo Dissenter,” BYU Studies 22 (1982): 69. See also Dale Morgan, A Bibliography of the Churches of the Dispersion (Salt Lake City, 1953), 121.

[53] William Law, his brother Wilson, and Robert D. Foster were excommunicated on April 18, 1844. Ten days later they met with other dissidents at Wilson Law’s home and organized a new church with William Law as president, Wilson his counselor, R. D. Foster and Francis M. Higbee apostles, and Charles Ivins the bishop. Wilson Law was dismissed from the Nauvoo Legion on May 9, Foster on May 10. Francis M. Higbee and Charles Ivins were excommunicated on May 18. Emmons was dropped from the city council on June 8. Chauncey L. Higbee had been cut off on May 24,1842, for “unchaste and unvirtuous conduct towards certain females, and for teaching it was right, if kept secret.” History of the Church 4:286, 296; 5:18; 6:341, 346–47, 355, 362, 398, 436. Faulring, An American Prophet’s Record, 475. William Law to the Editors of the Upper Mississippian, August 1844, in Warsaw Signal, 18 September 1844, 2.

Charles Ivins (1799–1875) was born in Cream Ridge, New Jersey, and converted to the Church by Benjamin Winchester. He moved to Nauvoo in 1841, and then to Keokuk in 1844, where he lived until his death. In Keokuk he ran a hotel, Ivins House, and was a town alderman. Jessee, The Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:557.

Charles A. Foster (1820-?), a physician, was born in England and seems to have come to Nauvoo about 1844. In 1860 he was living in Chicago. History of the Church 6:344–45, 348–49, 413–14, 426. 1860 Illinois census, Chicago 5 W., 10.

Robert D. Foster (1811–78), also a physician, was born in Northampton, England. He converted to Mormonism in 1839 and was a regent of the University of Nauvoo and a Hancock County magistrate. By 1850 he had moved to Canandaigua, New York, where he practiced medicine, and by 1860 he had returned to Illinois and was living in Loda, Iroquois County, where he died. Three years before his death, he wrote to Joseph Smith III and affirmed his belief in the prophetic calling of Joseph Smith, Jr. Jessee, The Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:545–46. History of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 4:93–94. 1850 New York census, Ontario County, Canandaigua, 174. 1860 Illinois census, Iroquois County, 297.

Chauncey Lawson Higbee (1821 -84) was born in Clermont County, Ohio. Subsequent to leaving Nauvoo, he studied law and entered its practice in Pike County, Illinois. He was elected to the Illinois legislature in 1854, to the state senate in 1858, to a circuit judgeship in 1861, and to the appellate court in 1877. He died at Pittsfield, Pike County. Jessee, The Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:552.

Francis Marion Higbee (1820-?) was also born in Clermont County, Ohio, joined the Church in time to be driven from northern Missouri, and settled in Nauvoo, where he was a colonel in the Nauvoo Legion. He remained in Hancock County at least until 1850, and died in New York. Jessee, The Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:553.

Sylvester Emmons (1808–81) was a native of Hunterdon County, New Jersey. He studied law in Philadelphia, and in January 1842 he came to Nauvoo, where he was elected to the city council thirteen months later. In 1844 he moved to Beardstown, Cass County, Illinois, and there he ran the Beardstown Gazette until 1852, served nine years as circuit clerk, filled two terms as mayor, served several terms as county master of chancery, and was justice of the peace. History of the Church 5:264–65; 6:438. Times and Seasons 3:686. William H. Perrin, History of Cass County, Illinois (Chicago, 1882), 239. I am grateful to Dean Jessee for bringing this source to my attention.

[54] Linda K. Newell and Valeen T. Avery, Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith (Garden City, N.Y., 1984), 95–105, 130–56. Lawrence Foster, Religion and Sexuality: Three American Communal Experiments of the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1981). Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 110. Cook, “William Law, Nauvoo Dissenter,” 47–72.

[55] History of the Church 6:430, 432–48. Dallin H. Oaks, “The Suppression of the Nauvoo Expositor,” Utah Law Review 9 (1965): 862–903. Morgan, A Bibliography of the Churches of the Dispersion, 122–23. Copies of the Expositor itself are at IHi, NN, UPB, and US1C.

[56] History of the Church 6:462–66, 483.

[57] History of the Church 6:496. Faulring, An American Prophet’s Record, 492.

Thomas Bullock (1816–85) was born in Staffordshire, England, began working as a law office clerk at age thirteen, secured a position as a government tax agent eight years later, and joined the Mormon Church in November 1841. In the spring of 1843 he and his family immigrated to Nauvoo, where he worked as one of Joseph Smith’s scribes. He was one of the clerks of the first overland pioneer company. In Utah he served as chief clerk of the territorial House of Representatives, Salt Lake County recorder, secretary of the Nauvoo Legion, and secretary to Brigham Young and the Twelve. He died in Coalville, Summit County, Utah. Jerald F. Simon, “Thomas Bullock as an Early Mormon Historian,” BYU Studies 30 (winter 1990): 71–88. Gregory R. Knight, “Introduction to the 1845–1846 Journal of Thomas Bullock,” BYU Studies 31 (winter 1991): 5–10. Kate B. Carter, Our Pioneer Heritage (Salt Lake City, 1965), 8:229–96.

224

[58] History of the Church 6:453–66, 479, 487–91. Oaks, “The Suppression of the Nauvoo Expositor.”

[59] History of the Church 6:492–505. Oaks, “The Suppression of the Nauvoo Expositor.” Warsaw Signal, 19 June 1844, 2: “We expect a six pounder to morrow night from Quincy.”

[60] Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:62–66.

225

[61] Maynard J. Brichford, Robert M. Sutton, and Dennis F. Walle, Manuscripts Guide to Collections at the University of Illinois at Urhana-Champaign (Urbana, 111., 1976), 184. International Genealogical Index, UPB. Thomas Gregg, The Prophet of Palmyra (New York, 1890 ), 299. Abigail Deming to Stephen Deming, 23 September 1845, as quoted in Dallin H. Oaks and Marvin S. Hill, Carthage Conspiracy: The Trial of the Accused Assassins of Joseph Smith (Urbana, 111., 1975), 206 n. 7. History of the Church 7:45, 111, 439. Nauvoo Neighbor, 10 September 1845, 3.

226–27

[62] Hart Fellows was born in Massachusetts, June 14, 1797, and was one of the pioneer settlers of Schuyler County, Illinois, locating there in 1824. In Schuyler he held such offices as circuit court clerk, county clerk, county recorder, probate judge, commander of the militia, and postmaster. About 1850 he moved to California, where he surveyed part of San Francisco and served as a county judge. He died in Sacramento, December 25, 1878. The Schuylerite 1:9, 13–14, 27, 63, 100; 3:56; 8:9. 1840 Illinois census, Schuyler County, 108; 1850 census, Schuyler County, 305. 1860 California census, Placer County, 713. International Genealogical Index, UPB.

Abraham Jonas (1801–64) was born in Devonshire, England, and came to America in 1819. In 1825, he moved to Kentucky where he served in the state legislature and as grand master of the Grand Lodge of Kentucky Freemasons. Again in Illinois he served a term in the state legislature and as grand master of the Grand Lodge of Illinois, 1840–42 (see item 140). He was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1844 and practiced law in Quincy until his death. Jessee, The Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:560.

For a biographical sketch of Thomas Ford, see Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. “Ford, Thomas.”

[63] History of the Church 7:165. Benjamin F. Gue, History of Iowa (New York, 1903), 4:219–20. Nelson C. Roberts and S. W. Moorhead, eds., Story of Lee County, Iowa (Chicago, 1914), 1:302–3. The History of Lee County, Iowa (Chicago, 1879), 543.

[64] History of the Church 7:165. 1850 Iowa census, Des Moines County, 468; 1860 census, Des Moines County, 692; 1870 census, Bremer County, 356. The History of Des Moines County, Iowa (Chicago, 1879), 401, 479–80, 495. History of Butler and Bremer Counties, Iowa (Springfield, 111., 1883), 862–63. W. V. Lucas, Pioneer Days of Bremer County, Iowa (Waverly, Iowa, 1918), 66–67, 119, 127. Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, “Letters from the Frontier: Commerce, Nauvoo, and Salt Lake City,” Journal of Mormon History 2 (1975): 43–44. I am grateful to Dean Jessee for calling this last source to my attention.

228

[65] “Journal History,” 17 July 1844.

[66] History of the Church 7:223, 226–27’. The election returns are reported in Signal, Extra, Wednesday, 7 August 1844, and in Nauvoo Neighbor, 14 August 1844.

229

[67] History of the Church 6:107, 116, 124–32, 262. Millennial Star 27:88–89.

[68] History of the Church 6:125–32.

[69] Congressional Globe 13:497. The docketed copies of both memorials are in the National Archives; microfilm 298 #20, UPB.

[70] The draft of this compensation bill is also in the National Archives; microfilm 298 #20, UPB.

[71] “Journal History,” 12 April (pp. 2–3), 26 April (p. 4) 1844. Prophetic Almanac for 1845, 18–19.

At this same time, the Mormons submitted two other petitions to the U.S. Congress. On March 21,1844, Joseph Smith directed Willard Richards to draw up a memorial asking Congress to authorize Smith to raise 100,000 armed volunteers to police the frontiers of Oregon and Texas. This memorial is dated March 26, 1844. Orson Hyde left for Washington with it on April 14. On May 6, Semple submitted it to the Senate, which referred it to the committee on foreign relations, where it apparently died. John Wentworth attempted to have it read in the House of Representatives on May 25, but was stopped by a vote of the House. The following month, Hyde presented it to President Tyler, who declined to involve the federal government. History of the Church 6:270, 274–77, 282–83, 286, 369–76. Congressional Globe 13:605, 664. “Journal History,” 12 April (pp. 2–3), 26 April (p. 4), 9 June, 11 June 1844. The docketed copy of this March 1844 memorial is in the National Archives; microfilm 298 #20, UPB.

In addition, on June 7, Semple submitted to the Senate, which referred it to the committee on public lands, a petition from Lyman Wight and Heber C. Kimball asking for either a grant or a long term sale of public land to the Mormons as compensation for their Missouri losses. This too apparently died in committee. Congressional Globe 13:694. The docketed petition is also in the National Archives; microfilm 298 #20, UPB.

[72] Millennial Star 27:88–89.

[73] The Prophet, 1 June 1844, 2.

[74] History of the Church 4:414. Breck England, The Life and Thought of Orson Pratt (Salt Lake City, 1985), 16.

[75] The King Follett discourse was first published in Times and Seasons, 15 August 1844.

[76] Pratt also prepared an almanac for 1849, which was never printed. Two manuscript copies are in the LDS Church archives. David J. Whittaker, “Almanacs in the New England Heritage of Mormonism,” BYU Studies 29 (fall 1989): 97, 111 n. 31.

230

[77] “Biography and Journal of William I. Appleby,” 126–27, US1C. See e.g., New-York Messenger, 144.

231

[78] History of the Church 6:576. “Journal History,” 9 October 1844. The Prophet, 14 September, 5 October, 2 November 1844.

[79] New-York Messenger, 144.

232

[80] John Hardy, History of the Trials of Elder John Hardy (Boston, 1844), 2, 12. “Early Church Information File,” microfilm, UPB. “Journal History,” 5 April 1849, 5–8; 25 March 1930, 3. Millennial Star 11:53. Frontier Guardian, 1 February 1849, 2; 20 February 1852, 2. Douglas C. McMurtrie, “The First Printing at Council Bluffs,” Annals of Iowa 18 (1931): 2–11. Family Group Record of John Gooch, microfilm 510,773, UPB. Deseret Evening News, 20 November 1919, sec. 2, p. 1. 1850 Iowa census, Pottawattamie County, 75.

[81] Ford’s broadside is item 860 in C. K. Byrd, A Bibliography of Illinois Imprints (Chicago, 1966); it is item 4200 in Flake. It was also republished in Signal, Extra, Wednesday, 7 August 1844, and in Warsaw Signal, 31 July 1844.

[82] The copy of Death of the Prophets at the William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, has the notation “This written by Elder Freeman Nickerson” in a contemporary hand along the left side of this text on p. 10.

⁴Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 2:497–99.

234

[83] A study of the Mormon emigration from Great Britain is P. A. M. Taylor, Expectations Westward: The Mormons and the Emigration of Their British Converts in the Nineteenth Century (Edinburgh and London, 1965).

[84] Millennial Star 4:94; 5:13, 64, 128, 200; 6:16. “Manuscript History of the British Mission,” US1C.

236

[85] Times and Seasons 1:25, 139–40; 3:639, 667; 5:636. Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 2:153 et passim. History of the Church 4:161, 164, 494–95, 513–14. Millennial Star 26:104–5, 119. The Return 2:302.

In The Return Robinson says, “In the spring of 1841,1 had a building erected suitable for a printing office, stereotype foundry, book bindery and dwelling combined. . . . Commenced stereotyping the book of Doctrine and Covenants and hymn book.” But he actually moved into the new print shop in November 1841; see Times and Seasons 3:615, and Richard P. Howard, “The Times and Seasons Building Number Two,” Saints’ Herald 118 (November 1971): 48.

[86] Wilford Woodruff s Journal 2:217. “Joseph Smith and Others Trustees &c In Account with John Taylor,” Whitney MSS, UPB.

[87] Times and Seasons 3:667; 5:636. Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 2:326. Millennial Star 26:311. History of the Church 5:264, 273; 6:66, 100.

[88] 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).

237

[89] Reuben Hedlock to Brigham Young and the Twelve, 3 September 1844, in “Manuscript History of the British Mission.” Ronald D. Dennis, Welsh Mormon Writings from 1844 to 1862: A Historical Bibliography (Provo, Utah, 1988), 221–22.

238

[90] “Manuscript History of the British Mission,” 24–25, 31 August, 6 September, 18 November 1844.

[91] “Early Church Information File.” “Manuscript History of the British Mission,” 18 October 1846; 19 January, 1 February 1847. Millennial Star 5:64, 166–68; 6:39–40; 7:39–41, 173, 185; 8:77, 121; 9:45. Deseret Evening News, 6 August 1898, 7. Hamilton Gardner, History ofLehi Including a Biographical Section (Salt Lake City, 1913), 359–60.

239

[92] Nauvoo Neighbor, 3 May-13 December 1843.

[93] Messenger and Advocate (Rigdonite), 101–3, 122.

[94] History of the Church 7:231–42, 247.

[95] “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register 10 Dec 1845–7 Feb 1846,” 2, UPB. “Early Church Information File.” Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 1:350; 2:366. History of the Church 4:216,286,312,424; 5:165; 7:247,297,618. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 126–27,129–31, 153–54. Millennial Star 26:328. H. W. Mills, ed., “De Tal Palo Tal Astilla,” Annual Publications Historical Society of Southern California 10:3 (1917): 86–172. Correspondence of Bishop George Miller With the Northern Islander (Burlington, Wise? 1916?). “Apostolic Testimony of Warren Post,” 29–30, in The Record of the Apostles of James (Burlington, Wise, 1992). “Journal History,” 7 October 1848.

240

[96] History of the Church 7:223–42, 266–69. Times and Seasons 5:647–55, 660–67, 685–87. The full name of the first issue of Rigdon’s periodical is The Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate. With the eleventh number its name is changed to Messenger and Advocate of the Church of Christ. It ran for thirty-four whole numbers, October 15, 1844-September 1846. Morgan, A Bibliography ofthe Churches of the Dispersion, 125–27.

241

[97] See, e.g., B. H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City, 1930), 1:99–109. History of the Church 1:19–20. James B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City, 1976), 41–42. Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History (New York, 1963), 50–53.

For a biographical sketch of Anthon, see Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. “Anthon, Charles.”

242

[98] “Philadelphia Branch Records,” microfilm, US1C. Journal of History 13 (1920): 509–35. Messenger and Advocate (Rigdonite), 14–15 et passim. “Journal History,” 3 December 1844. Morgan, A Bibliography of the Churches of the Dispersion, 110, 125–31. D. Michael Quinn, “The Mormon Succession Crisis of 1844,” BYU Studies 16 (1976): 187–233.

[99] Gene A. Sessions, Mormon Thunder: A Documentary History of Jedediah Morgan Grant (Urbana, 111., 1982), 275–83.

[100] New-York Messenger, 144.

[101] Brigham Young to Jedediah Grant, 21 January 1845, as quoted in Sessions, Mormon Thunder, 47–48.

243

[102] Juanita Brooks, ed., On the Mormon Frontier: The Diary ofHosea Stout (Salt Lake City, 1964), 1:13.

[103] History of the Church 7:330–4. Dean C. Jessee, ed., “The John Taylor Nauvoo Journal,” BYU Studies 23 (summer 1983): 7–16.

[104] Michael Hicks, Mormonism and Music: A History (Urbana and Chicago, 1989), 59–60. Helen Hanks Macare, “The Singing Saints: A Study of the Mormon Hymnal, 1835–1950” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1961), 303–4.

244

[105] History of the Church 7:330–44. Jessee, “The John Taylor Nauvoo Journal,” 7–16.

[106] Hicks, Mormonism and Music, 68. Macare, “The Singing Saints,” 312–17.

[107] Michael Hicks, “Joseph Smith, W. W. Phelps, and the Poetic Paraphrase of ‘The Vision’,” Journal of Mormon History 20 (fall 1994): 63–84.

246

[108] George A. Morison, History of Peterborough, New Hampshire (Rindge, N.H., 1954), 1:186–96. “Journal History,” 11 September 1842, 9 February 1843.

[109] Seth Chandler, History of the Town of Shirley, Massachusetts (Shirley, Mass., 1883), 507–8. Morison, History of Peterborough, New Hampshire, 1:192–93, 195. Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:242–43. Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 2:475. Deseret Evening News, 26 December 1893, 1. “Early Church Information File.” Family Group Record of Jesse C. Little, microfilm 439,492, UPB. New-York Messenger, 120, 128.

[110] Susan Easton Black, Membership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 1830–1848 (Provo, 1989), 17:717–22. “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register,” 203. “George Bryant Gardner,” in James Albert Jones, Some Early Pioneers of Huntington, Utah and Surrounding Area (N.p., 1980), 86–92.

247

[111] History of the Church 6:336.

248

[112] “The Memoirs of President Joseph Smith (1832–1914),” Saints’ Herald 81 (1934): 1414.

[113] Hicks, Mormonism and Music, 67.

[114] The Millennium and Other Poems, the Page-Cairns book, and the Little-Gardner book retain the original version of these two lines. The Rogers, Elsworth, and Adams books change the reference to the year to 1838, 1839, and 1845, respectively, consistent with the publication dates of the books. In the 1840 and later official hymnals these lines are changed to, “The moments that we labour here / Are rolling [passing] swiftly on the wing.”

250–51

[115] Millennial Star 4:94, 130, 195–99; 5:64, 140, 166.

252

[116] Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 2:497–98, 625. Millennial Star 13:249.

[117] Millennial Star 7:43.

[118] Millennial Star 8:144; 9:16, 105.

253

[119]History of the Church 1:274. Dallin H. Oaks and Marvin S. Hill, Carthage Conspiracy: The Trial of the Accused Assassins of Joseph Smith (Urbana, 111., 1975), 38.

[120] History of the Church 7:350. Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, 1:14.

[121] History of the Church 7:325, 351–56. Jessee, “The John Taylor Nauvoo Journal,” 21–31.

[122] Joseph Andrew Kelting was born in Philadelphia, October 13, 1811, and converted to Mormonism about 1836. In 1844 he campaigned for Joseph Smith in Tennessee, and after evacuating Nauvoo he lived in Kanesville, until he immigrated to Utah in 1852. He was elected to the territorial legislature from Utah County in 1853 and appointed territorial district attorney two years latter. During 1856–57 he served as a missionary in Australia. “Early Church Information File.” “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register,” 56. History of the Church 6:338. “Journal History,” 28 December 1851; 6 January, 31 December (sup. p. 2) 1852; 5 March, 1 August, 12 December 1853; 26 February 1854; 13 May, 24 December 1855; 11 January, 24 February (p. 4), 30 August 1856; 8 June (p. 2), 13 June, 22 June 1858; 26 September 1860. Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, 2:562, 565.

254

[123] Jessee, “The John Taylor Nauvoo Journal,” 18–21. History of the Church 7:351.

[124]“Journal History,” 15, 17 March 1845.

255

[125] Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 2:497–98, 509–18, 538–39.

[126] Millennial Star 5:64, 76, 156, 167, 172–73, 177, 195; 6:155; 7:9, 39–40. Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:614–16. F. Esshom, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah (Salt Lake City, 1913), 1157. Deseret Evening News, 4 July 1904, 4.

[127] Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 2:509. Millennial Star 3:30; 7:76; 9:80, 124, 244–45, 298; 10:212–14; 12:304; 13:16, 112, 176. Black, Membership of the Church, 31:190. “Utah Immigration Card Index,” microfilm, UPB. Ancestral File, UPB.

256

[128] Scott H. Faulring, ed., An American Prophet’s Record: The Diaries and Journals of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City, 1987), 428. Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 2:607–8. Brigham Young to Parley P. Pratt, 26 May 1845, UPB. History of the Church 4:274–75,483–84; 6:80, 176–77; 7:558.

[129] Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 2:607–9, 625. Millennial Star 6:136.

257–58

[130] Hicks, Mormonism and Music, 67. Macare, “The Singing Saints,” 308–12.

259

[131] Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, 1:34.

[132] David E. Miller and Delia S. Miller, Nauvoo: The City of Joseph (Santa Barbara and Salt Lake City, 1974), 128. History of the Church 7:363–64.

[133] “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register,” 23. “Early Church Information File.” “Journal History,” 4 July 1850, 2. Deseret News 22:57.

261

[134] A Correct Account, 3. A detailed summary of the testimony at this trial is given in Oaks and Hill, Carthage Conspiracy, 113ff.

[135] History of the Church 7:162–63, 168, 311–14, 420. Of the nine indicted for the two murders, Williams, Sharp, Aldrich, Davis, and Grover were tried for the murder of Joseph Smith in May 1845. After their acquittal, the prosecution declined to prosecute them for Hyrum Smith’s murder. Oaks and Hill, Carthage Conspiracy, 191–92. Biographical sketches of Williams, Sharp, Aldrich, Davis, and Grover are in Carthage Conspiracy, 53–59,217–18. See also items 148 (n. 2) and 277 (n. 2).

[136] The version of Daniels’s narrative in the Signal is essentially the same as that in A Correct Account. The newspaper version has less editorializing and includes a few details not in the pamphlet, e.g. it names “Mr. Wills” as the man who claimed to have shot Hyrum Smith and Minor Deming as the sheriff who guarded Daniels when he testified before the grand jury in Carthage.

[137] Copyright Records, Illinois, August 1821-September 1848, vol. 18, in Roger W. Harris, “Copyright Entries Works by and About the Mormons, 1829–1870,” photocopy, UPB.

[138] “Early Church Information File.” Nauvoo Neighbor, 6 November 1844, 3. Oaks and Hill, Carthage Conspiracy, 128, 135. Littlefield, The Martyrs, 71.

262

[139] Ida Watt Stringham and Dora Dutson Flack, England’s First “Mormon” Convert: The Biography of George Darling Watt (N.p., n.d.). Ronald G. Watt, “Sailing ‘The Old Ship Zion’: The Life of George D. Watt,” BYU Studies 18 (1977): 48–65.

263–64

[140] See, e.g., The Prophet, 2 November, 9 November 1844; 11 January 1845. Times and Seasons 5:739. Messenger and Advocate (Rigdonite), 42, 57, 74.

[141] “Journal History,” 25 December 1869, 1. Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 6:510–11.

[142] Times and Seasons 6:871.

[143] Millennial Star 9:208.

265

[144] Millennial Star 5:141, 159. Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 2:519–20.

On May 7, 1845, in Nauvoo, the Twelve discussed John Greenhow’s attempt. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 165.

Greenhow was converted to Mormonism in England in 1840 by John Taylor. He left England in September 1842 and reached Nauvoo four months later. After the death of Joseph Smith, he followed Sidney Rigdon, and in 1847 he edited and printed the Strangite Gospel Herald. Times and Seasons 4:91–92. History of the Church 5:9; 6:43–44.

[145] Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 2:553–54, 625. History of the Church 7:426. “Mr. Wilford Woodruff in account current with James & Woodburn,” in “Manuscript History of the British Mission,” 8 June 1845, US1C. Millennial Star 7:43.

[146] Millennial Star 7 A3; 8:144; 9:16, 208.

[147] 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).

266

[148] Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 2:561–62. Millennial Star 6:39–40.

[149] Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 2:553–76.

267

[150] Nauvoo Neighbor, 28 May 1845. New-York Messenger, 6. History of the Church 7:418.

[151] Times and Seasons 6:1007.

[152] With the ninth number, the Boston address is changed to No. 76, Essex Street.

[153] New-York Messenger, 37, 60, 67. Samuel Brannan to Brigham Young, 29 August 1845, US1C.

[154] New-York Messenger, 156–57.

[155] See, e.g., New-York Messenger, 19 July, 30 August, 20 September, 18 October. On June 5, 1845, Parley Pratt wrote to the Twelve that there was “little prospect of a periodical being supported” by the eastern Saints. “Journal History,” 5 June 1845.

[156] Brannan to Young, 29 August 1845. History of the Church 7:444–45.

268

[157] Times and Seasons 3:765; 5:526. Millennial Star 5:64, 166, 168, 177; 7:40. The Prophet, 3 August 1844. New-York Messenger, 12. “Journal History,” 29 November 1841; 3 April (p. 4), 1 August 1844. “Manuscript History of the British Mission,” 24, 31 August 1844. The 1840 census shows Meynell living in New York City with his wife and three young children, his age between 30 and 40. 1840 New York census, New York City 14th Ward, 371.

269

[158] New-York Messenger, 60, 67, 125.

[159] Parley Pratt acknowledges writing “Heaven” and “Materiality” in his Autobiography (New York, 1874), 376.

270

[160] History of the Church 7:395. Times and Seasons 6:904. Orson Pratt to Brigham Young, 4 September 1845, UPB. See also New-York Messenger, 144.

[161] I am grateful to John J. Hajicek for calling this to my attention.

[162] Copyright Records, Illinois, August 1821-September 1848, vol. 18, in Harris, “Copyright Entries.”

271

[163] Copyright Records, Illinois, August 1821-September 1848, vol. 18, in Harris, “Copyright Entries.”

[164] Faulring, An American Prophet’s Record, 446.

[165] Faulring, An American Prophet’s Record, 457.

[166] Faulring, An American Prophet’s Record, 479. B. H. Roberts included only a short summary of this letter in History of the Church 6:376–77.

[167] History of the Church 6:248–49, 302–17.

[168] These reports are reproduced in Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, The Words of Joseph Smith (Provo, Utah, 1980), 340–62.

[169] For a discussion of the events surrounding this discourse and the production of its various texts, see Donald Q. Cannon, “The King Follett Discourse: Joseph Smith’s Greatest Sermon in Historical Perspective,” BYU Studies 18 (1978): 179–92, and Stan Larson, “The King Follett Discourse: A Newly Amalgamated Text,” BYU Studies 18(1978): 193–208.

[170] Eliza R. Snow, Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow (Salt Lake City, 1884), 46.

272

[171] Orson Pratt to Brigham Young, 4 September 1845, UPB.

[172] Samuel Brannan to Brigham Young, 9 October 1845, US1C.

273

[173] “Manuscript History of the British Mission,” 25 February 1844.

[174] History of the Church 6:351–54.

[175] Millennial Star 5:157, 173–78. Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 2:534–35. Times and Seasons 6:935–38.

[176] Millennial Star 6:80; 7:149–53.

[177] Millennial Star 6:111, 144; 7:176. Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 2:606.

[178] Millennial Star 8:90–92, 102–3. Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 3:59.

[179] Millennial Star 9:11.

[180] The summary of this statement reported, “On making enquiry, we find that two out of three Joint Stock Societies here, obtained their ‘Complete Registration’ for less than One Hundred and Fifteen Pounds!” Millennial Star 8:156.

[181] Millennial Star 1:150–51.

[182] Millennial Star 7:174.

[183] Millennial Star 8:149; 7:150.

274

[184] History of the Church 7:428, 432, 439. Jessee, “The John Taylor Nauvoo Journal,” 59. Thomas Gregg, History of Hancock County, Illinois (Chicago, 1880), 338–39. Oaks and Hill, Carthage Conspiracy, 191–94.

[185] History of the Church 7:439–42. Neighbor Extra, 12 September 1845. Jessee, “The John Taylor Nauvoo Journal,” 88–90. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 182. Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, 1:62. Gregg, History of Hancock County, 339–40. Thomas Ford, History of Illinois (Chicago, 1854), 406–10.

The Morley settlement, or Yelrome, was located near the county line between Hancock and Adams counties, two or three miles north of Lima, Adams County. Isaac Morley was called to preside over the branch in that area on October 22, 1840, and was continued as such when the branch was reorganized on June 11, 1843. On February 14, 1845, he was succeeded by Solomon Hancock. History of the Church 4:233; 5:427; 7:373–74.

275

[186] History of the Church 6:43; 7:349, 368. Mary Audentia Smith Anderson, Ancestry and Posterity of Joseph Smith and Emma Hale (Independence, Mo., 1929), 304–5. Ford, History of Illinois, 407–8. Gregg, History of Hancock County, 240, 328, 450. Francis B. Heitman, Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army (Washington, D.C., 1903), 1:179. Raymond W. Settle, ed., The March of the Mounted Riflemen (Glendale, Calif., 1940). 1850 census, Oregon Territory, Clackamas County, no. 223. Genealogical Material in Oregon Donation Land Claims (Portland, Ore., 1957), 1:41. Portland Weekly Oregonian, 3 October (p. 2), 28 November (p. 3) 1857. Salem Oregon Statesman, 6 October 1857, 2. Chicago Weekly Democrat, 28 November 1857.

[187] Jessee, “The John Taylor Nauvoo Journal,” 88. History of the Church 7:439–40.

[188] Jessee, “The John Taylor Nauvoo Journal,” 90–91.

[189] History of the Church 7:350, 379, 387–88. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 157–61. For a discussion of the events leading up to the exodus see Lewis Clark Christian, “A Study of Mormon Knowledge of the American Far West Prior to the Exodus” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1972), 96ff.

[190] History of the Church 7:401–4. Jessee, “The John Taylor Nauvoo Journal,” 41–44.

[191] Christian, “A Study of Mormon Knowledge,” 111.

[192] Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 180–82. “Journal History,” 28 August, 9, 11, 13 September 1845.

276

[193] Proclamation No. 2. Proclamation No. 3. History of the Church 7:446–47. Gregg, History of Hancock County, 340–41. Ford, History of Illinois, 409–10. Harold Schindler, Orrin Porter Rockwell: Man of God Son of Thunder (Salt Lake City, 1966), 144–46. Warsaw Signal, 17 September 1845, 2.

Worrell was a lieutenant in the Carthage Greys and a prominent anti-Mormon. Born in Pennsylvania, April 13, 1823, he came to Quincy with his mother and brothers in the early 1840s, and located in Carthage, where he engaged in merchandising. John Hay claimed that he was buried beneath a wooden grave marker bearing the epitaph, “He who is without enemies is unworthy of friends.” In 1881 his widow married Thomas C. Sharp. Gregg, History of Hancock County, 768–69. Carthage Republican, 23 May 1906. Worrell File, Hancock County Historical Society, Carthage, Illinois. John Hay, “The Mormon Prophet’s Tragedy,” Atlantic Monthly 24 (1869): 675.

[194] Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 183.

[195] History of the Church 7:491, 493–94, 541. Schindler, Orrin Porter Rockwell, 153–55.

277

[196] “Journal History,” 15 September 1845. History of the Church 7:445. Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, 1:63. Hosea Stout commanded the Legion’s second cohort.

[197] “Journal History,” 16 September 1845. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 183.

Levi Williams was born in Madison County, Kentucky, in 1794, moved to Hancock County about 1831, and settled in Green Plains, southeast of Warsaw, where he lived until his death. A farmer, he served twice as a Hancock County road commissioner and as postmaster of Green Plains. In 1840 he was commissioned colonel and commanding officer of the 59th Regiment of the Illinois militia. Five years later, he, Thomas C. Sharp, and three others were tried and acquitted for the murder of Joseph Smith. He died at Green Plains, November 27, 1860. Gregg, History of Hancock County, 473, 565, 669–70. Charles J. Scofield, History of Hancock County in Newton Bateman, Paul Selby, and J. Seymour Currey, Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois (Chicago, 1921), 2:656. Biographical Review of Hancock County, Illinois (Chicago, 1907), 484–85,641–42. “Worthen Scrapbook,” 50,275, Hancock County Historical Society, Carthage, Illinois. 1850 Illinois census, Hancock County, 293. Oaks and Hill, Carthage Conspiracy, 58, 218.

[198] “Journal History,” 18 September 1845.

[199] Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, 1:68.

[200] “Journal History,” 22–23 September 1845.

[201] Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 129–31, 157–59. “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register,” 10. “Early Church Information File.” History of the Church 4:301, 311; 7:306, 482. Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, 1:89. Lyndon W. Cook, The Revelations of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City, 1985), 260–61.

[202] “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register,” 48. “Early Church Information File.” History of the Church 7:306, 482. Gregg, History of Hancock County, 449. Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, 1:307; 2:360. “Journal History,” 2 October, 7 October (p. 4) 1848; 8 April (p. 7), 31 December (sup. p. 3) 1849. Deseret News 1:228. Temple Index Bureau, UPB.

[203] “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register,” 109. “Early Church Information File.” Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, 1:160. “Journal History,” 1 June 1846. Ezra Clark Knowlton, The Utah Knowltons (Salt Lake City, 1971), 15–21.

[204] “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register,” 147. “Diary of Levi W. Hancock,” viii, 1, 43, typescript, UPB. Donald Q. Cannon and Lyndon W. Cook, eds., Far West Record (Salt Lake City, 1983), 70, 89, 97, 103, 111, 118, 152–53, 171. History of the Church 7:305–6, 373–74. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 158. Cook, The Revelations of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 77–78. Temple Index Bureau, UPB. George Brent Hancock, The Hancock and Adams Families (N.p., c. 1890), 22–39.

[205] History of the Church 5:427–28; 7:370, 373–74. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 158.

278–79

[206] Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, 1:64–66.

[207] Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, 1:65. H. W. Mills, ed., “De Tal Palo Tal Astilla,” Annual Publications Historical Society of Southern California 10:3 (1917): 139–42.

[208] “Journal History,” 18–20 September 1845. Mills, “De Tal Palo Tal Astilla,” 140–42. Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, 1:66–69.

280

[209] “Journal History,” 24 September 1845. Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, 1:72. Hosea Stout was one of the defendants.

[210] Henry Asbury (1810–96) was born in Harrison County, Kentucky, came to Illinois in 1834, and began practicing law in Quincy in 1837. He was one of the founders of the Bodley Lodge of Freemasons in Quincy and served several times as an officer. When violence broke out in Nauvoo in the summer of 1846, he played a significant role as a mediator. In 1849 he was appointed register of the Quincy Land Office, and in 1864–65 he served as provost-marshal of the Quincy district. He was one of the founders of the Republican party in Illinois and a close political ally of Abraham Lincoln, O. H. Browning, and Abraham Jonas. In 1882 he published Reminiscences of Quincy, Illinois, in which he wrote about the Quincy committee’s visit to Nauvoo. Newton Bateman and Paul Selby, eds., Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois (Chicago, 1912), 1:25. David F. Wilcox, ed., Quincy and Adams County History and Representative Men (Chicago, 1919), 206–11. The History of Adams County, Illinois (Chicago, 1879), 412, 418, 594. John C. Reynolds, History of the M.W. Grand Lodge of Illinois, Ancient, Free, and Accepted Masons (Springfield, 111., 1869), 104–7, 116, 121–22, 140. Woodland Cemetery Records, Quincy, Illinois.

John Pratt Robbins, a prosperous farmer, was born in New Hampshire in 1793 and came to Adams County in 1829. He was a member of the first board of supervisors of Adams County when it was organized in June 1850 and was still living in Adams in 1879. Wilcox, Quincy and Adams County History, 122. History of Adams County, 783. Atlas Map of Adams County, Illinois (Davenport, Iowa, 1872), 50.

Albert G. (not J.) Pearson (1801–81) was born in Pennsylvania. He was a farmer, merchant, and dairyman in Adams County and later engaged in banking in Warsaw, Illinois. He died in New Jersey. Quincy Whig, 1 October 1845,2. 1850 Illinois census, Adams County, 160. History of Adams County, 118. William H. Collins and Cicero F. Perry, Past and Present of the City of Quincy and Adams County, Illinois (Chicago, 1905), 46.1 am grateful to Kay Ginther of Quincy for bringing this last source to my attention.

Philo A. Goodwin (1807–73), a native of Connecticut, came to Quincy in 1840 and practiced law there until his death. He was elected probate judge in 1847 and the first county judge in Adams in 1849, in which capacity he served for four years. Wilcox, Quincy and Adams County History, 152,160. History of Adams County, 420. 1850 Illinois census, Adams County, 240; 1860 census, Adams County, 160. Collins and Perry, Past and Present, 69, 112, 131. Quincy Whig, 13 June 1873, 1.

Joseph N. Ralston (1801–76) obtained a medical education in his native Kentucky and moved to Quincy in 1832, where he practiced medicine until his death. An active Methodist, he served on the Quincy City Council, helped found Quincy College, was one of the founders of Bodley Masonic Lodge, and participated in establishing the Grand Lodge of Illinois in which he served a term as grand junior warden. History of Adams County, 454, 680. Wilcox, Quincy and Adams County History, 174–75. Reynolds, History of the M.W. Grand Lodge, 104–7, 116, 121–22, 140, 163, 246. Atlas Map of Adams County, 46.

M. Rogers is Michael Rogers. He is not listed in Adams County in either the 1840 or 1850 censuses. See Quincy Whig, 1 October 1845, 2.

Enoch Conyers (1801–49) came to Quincy about 1830 and served as mayor there, 1842–43 and 1849. He was a member and an officer of the Bodley Lodge. He died a few months into his third term as mayor, during the cholera epidemic of 1849. History of Adams County, 455. Wilcox, Quincy and Adams County History, 97, 470. Reynolds, History of the M.W. Grand Lodge, 116, 121–22, 140, 246. Quincy Whig, 24 July 1849, 3. Woodland Cemetery Records, Quincy, Illinois.

[211] Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, 1:72–73. The Quincy meeting is reported in Quincy Whig, 24 September and 1 October 1845, and in the broadside Public Meeting. Agreeably to Previous Notice, a Public Meeting Was Held at the Court House on Monday Evening, September 22nd (Flake 6799).

[212] “Journal History,” 24–25 September 1845. Quincy Whig, 1 October 1845, 2. Henry Asbury, Reminiscences of Quincy, Illinois (Quincy, 111., 1882), 160–62.

[213] “Journal History,” 25 September 1845. Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, 1:73.

[214] Ford, History of Illinois, 410–11. J. J. Hardin, Citizens of Hancock [dated in ms. 27 September 1845] (Flake 3852).

[215] “Journal History,” 30 September 1845. Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, 1:76–79. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 183–84.

Hardin, Warren, and McDougal resided in Morgan County. Douglas first settled in Morgan when he came to Illinois in 1833. Hardin was a brigadier general in the Illinois militia, Warren a major and the clerk of the state supreme court. At this point both Douglas and Hardin were members of the U.S. House of Representatives. McDougal would move to California and be elected to the U.S. Senate in 1860, but his career in the senate would not match Douglas’s. For biographical sketches of Hardin and Douglas see Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. “Hardin, John J.” and “Douglas, Stephen Arnold.” For a sketch of McDougal see Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois, s.v. “McDougall, James Alexander,” and Theodore H. Hittell, History of California (San Francisco, 1897), 4:278–79, 338, 366, 376. See also History of Morgan County, Illinois (Chicago, 1878), 337, 352, 413–14; and Ford, History of Illinois, 364. William Barton Warren (1802–65) was born in Georgetown, Kentucky, graduated from Transylvania University, and soon after began practicing law in Georgetown. In 1833 he moved to Jacksonville, Illinois, where he lived until his death. The 1860 census shows that he was one of the wealthiest residents of Morgan County. He was a delegate to the Whig national convention in 1839, county surveyor for a term, and clerk of the state supreme court, 1845–55. Throughout his life he was an active Mason. He served in the war with Mexico as a major and later lieutenant-colonel in the first regiment of Illinois volunteers, which Hardin commanded, and distinguished himself at the battle of Buena Vista, where Hardin lost his life. Erwin J. Urch, “The Public Career of William Barton Warren,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 21 (1928–29): 93–110. 1860 Illinois census, Morgan County, 332. History of Morgan County, Illinois, 264,353. John Moses, Illinois, Historical and Statistical (Chicago, 1889–92), 1:436, 491, 496; 2:1153–54.

[216] Warsaw Signal—Extra. Sept. 30, 12 o’clock P.M. 1845 (Flake 9610). See also the Quincy Whig, 1 October 1845, 2.

[217] The letter from Hardin, et al., which is dated October 6, 1845, in the Neighbor, is dated October 4 in the Signal and in the Signal extra. The manuscript letter in the Chicago Historical Society is dated October 6. The Signal extra is Flake 8962.

282

[218] History of the Church 7:142. Barkman’s name does not appear in the indexes to the 1840 and 1850 Illinois censuses.

[219] Stout records, “Anthony Barkman whose name was to the affadavit upon which the writ was issued was sworn. Upon investigation it appeared that the witness had been suborned had signed & sworn to two affadavits written by George Backman, he did not know any of the defendants named, had sworn to to [sic] both affidavits upon reports & was decieved is sorry for what he had done &c There being no cause of action what ever the Court discharged the defendants.” Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, 1:72.

283

[220] Fort Madison Lee County Democrat, 11, 18, 25 October, 15 November 1845. Warsaw Signal, 22, 29 October, 12 November 1845. Lee County Anti-Mormon Meeting (N.p., 1845) (Flake 3767).

284

[221] Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, 1:80–82. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 184–85. “Journal of Thomas Bullock,” BYU Studies 31 (winter 1991): 23–25. Times and Seasons 6:1008–18.

[222] Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 184–86. “Journal of Thomas Bullock,” 23–26. “Journal History,” 11 October 1845.

[223] Between October 11 and 15, William Clayton, Thomas Bullock and Curtis E. Bolton worked on the minutes of the conference. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 185–86. “Journal of Thomas Bullock,” 25–26.

Curtis Edwin Bolton was born in Philadelphia, July 16, 1812, converted to Mormonism in 1842, and moved to Nauvoo three years later. He crossed the plains to Utah in 1848, and in October 1849 he was called to accompany John Taylor to France. He presided over the French mission from 1851 to 1853, helped translate the Book of Mormon into French, and edited Etoile de Deseret. He died in Marysville, Utah, December 6, 1890. Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 4:334–35. Cleo H. Evans, comp., Curtis Edwin Bolton: Pioneer Missionary (Fairfax, Va., 1968).

285–86

[224] Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 2:607–9.

[225] Millennial Star 7:43, 173.

[226] Ronald D. Dennis, Welsh Mormon Writings from 1844 to 1862: A Historical Bibliography (Provo, 1988), 16–19. Rhydybont is about fifty miles northwest of Merthyr Tydfil.

[227] I am grateful to Ronald Dennis for comparing the various editions and supplying me with a translation of Jones’s “To the Welsh Reader.”

287

[228] History of the Church 7:486, 491, 493–94. Oaks and Hill, Carthage Conspiracy, 200.

[229] Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 189–90. “Journal History,” 24–28 October 1845. Quincy Whig, 5 November 1845. Oaks and Hill, Carthage Conspiracy, 202–3.

[230] History of the Church 7:488.

[231] Neighbor—Extra, 19 November 1845. Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, 1:92.

[232] Quincy Whig, 26 November 1845. Warsaw Signal, 19, 26 November 1845.

[233] History of the Church 7:523–24. “Early Church Information File.” The Twelve Apostles (Kirtland? 1836?). Jessee, “The John Taylor Nauvoo Journal,” 89–90.

[234] History of the Church 7:532.

288

[235] History of the Church 7:439, 454–55.

[236] This letter in the Sun is discussed in Linda K. Newell and Valeen T. Avery, Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith (Garden City, N. Y., 1984), 221–26, which argues that James Arlington Bennet actually was the author.

289

[237] “Early Church Information File.” History of the Church 6:335. George A. Morison, History of Peterborough, New Hampshire (Rindge, N.H., 1954), 1:188. Massachusetts Marriage Register, 87:189, microfilm 1,433,013, LDS Family History Library, Salt Lake City. Temple Index Bureau, microfilm, UPB. The Temple Index Bureau gives a death date of December 19, 1860, but no place of death.

291–93

[238] Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt (New York, 1874), 367.

[239] History of the Church 7:558–59.

[240] “European Mission Financial Records,” vol. 6 (1846–49), 72, 76, US1C.

[241] “Journal History,” 14 October 1846, 19 January 1847.

294

[242] Susan Easton Black, Membership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 1830–1848 (Provo, Utah, 1989), 40:774–75. “Journal History,” 29 November 1841 (p. 2), 19 October 1842 (p. 2), 30 July 1843, 15 April 1844, 29 July 1853, 8 October 1854 (p. 11), 12 December 1857 (p. 2). Times and Seasons 4:174–75; 6:820. The Prophet, 22 June 1844. John Brown, Jr., and James Boyd, History of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties (Chicago, 1922), 1:121–22, 171. Kate B. Carter, Heart Throbs of the West (Salt Lake City, 1947), 8:296. Hazel Miller Croy, “A History of Education in San Bernardino During the Mormon Period” (Ed.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1955), 79, 99. Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, 2:468–72, 598. 1860 California census, San Bernardino, San Bernardino County, 623. Ancestral File, UPB.

[243] In October 1992, Patricia A. Rigsbee, a bibliographer in the Reference and Bibliography Section, Copyright Office, Library of Congress, searched the Copyright Office indexes and the district court records for Connecticut from January 1842 through June 1859 and found no entries for Sparks or Priestcraft Exposed.

295

[244] Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 163. See also Sacred Hymns and Spiritual Songs for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Liverpool, England, 1869), 408. Erastus Snow sang the song at a celebration in the temple the evening of December 30, 1845. “Journal History,” 30 December 1845.

[245] Michael Hicks, Mormonism and Music: A History (Urbana and Chicago, 1989), 67. Helen Hanks Macare, “The Singing Saints: A Study of the Mormon Hymnal, 1835–1950” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1961), 306–8.

[246] Journal of Discourses 5:191.

296

[247] Lewis Clark Christian, “A Study of Mormon Knowledge of the American Far West Prior to the Exodus” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1972). Throughout 1845, for example, the Nauvoo Neighbor printed articles on California, Oregon, and Texas, as well as excerpts from Hastings’s The Emigrants’ Guide, to Oregon and California and from the reports of Fremont’s first and second expeditions.

[248] Times and Seasons 6:1019, 1031, 1046–50.

[249] Brigham Young to Samuel Brannan, 26 December 1845, as quoted in Christian, “A Study of Mormon Knowledge,” 131.

[250] On December 11, 1845, Brigham Young received a letter from Brannan claiming that the Secretary of War and other Cabinet members had discussed the possibility of preventing the Mormons from going west because of the Oregon issue. History of the Church 7:544. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 208. Thomas Ford repeated this in a letter to J. B. Backenstos, December 29, 1845. Ford acknowledged that he helped perpetuate this rumor in order to hasten the Saints’ departure. “Journal History,” 4 January 1846. Ford, History of Illinois, 413.

[251] History of the Church 7:549–51, 562–64. Ford, History of Illinois, 412–13. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 229–30. Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, 1:99.

[252] History of the Church 7:557. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 243.

[253] History of the Church 7:567, 569.

[254] History of the Church 7:573.

[255] History of the Church 1:511. Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, 1:110. On January 27 Jacob Backenstos reported that Governor Ford had turned against the Saints and that Major Warren was making calculations to prevent them from going west. Brannan’s letter, dated at New York, January 12, 1846, is reprinted in History of the Church 7:587–88; the original is in the Brigham Young papers, US1C.

[256] History of the Church 7:578–79. Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, 1:111.

[257] History of the Church 7:580–81, 585. “Journal History,” 27 March 1846, 2. Kenneth W. Godfrey, Charles Shumway, A Pioneer’s Life (Provo, Utah, 1974), 32. Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, 1:111–17, 122–23.

[258] History of the Church 4:12, 285, 341; 6:229; 7:296. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 129, 158.

Biographical sketches of Bent, Huntington, Knight, Allred, Sherwood, Fullmer, Grover, and Johnson are in Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:367–68; 1:368–70; 2:773–75 (see items 9–10); 3:583; 4:717–18; 1:289–91; 4:137–42; 4:504. “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register,” 5, 7, gives Allred’s place of birth as Randolf County, North Carolina, and Sherwood’s date and place of birth as April 20, 1785, Kingsbury, New York.

Lewis Dunbar Wilson was born in Milton, Chittenden County, Vermont, June 2, 1805, converted to Mormonism in 1836, and immigrated to Caldwell County the following year. He crossed the plains to Utah in 1852 and settled in Ogden, where he also served on the high council. He died in Ogden, March 11, 1856. “Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register,” 12. “The Account of Lewis Dunbar Wilson Sr. Written by Himself 1846–1865 [sic],” typescript, US1C. F. Esshom, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah (Salt Lake City, 1913), 1253. Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, 2:594.

[259] The official biography of Cutler published by the Cutlerite Church is Rupert J. Fletcher and Daisy Whiting Fletcher, Alpheus Cutler and the Church of Jesus Christ (Independence, Mo., 1974). In April 1993 the Cutlerite Church, led by Julian Whiting, numbered twenty-nine members and met at their chapel on South Cottage in Independence, Missouri. For a biographical sketch of George W. Harris, see items 55–56 (n. 5).

297

[260] Times and Seasons 6:1126–28.

[261] History of the Church 7:444–45.

[262] New- York Messenger Extra, 13 December 1845. New- York Messenger, 15 December 1845. Times and Seasons 6:1126–27. “Journal History,” 15 January 1846. Actually the Brooklyn was “well worn from eleven years of hard service.” Lorin K. Hansen, “Voyage of the Brooklyn,’“ Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 21 (autumn 1988): 50.

[263] Times and Seasons 6:1126–27.

[264] The Western Galaxy (March 1888), 78–84. Fred B. Rogers, ed., A Kemble Reader: Stories of California, 1846–1848 by Edward Cleveland Kemble (San Francisco, 1963), 7–25.

298

[265] “Biography and Journal of William I. Appleby,” 158–62, US1C.

299

[266] Millennial Star 7:80; 8:150. The announcement in the Star actually refers to an “Abstract of the Deed of the Joint Stock Company,” but a reference in the Star 8:194–95 makes it clear that this is the Deed of Settlement.