JS, History, 1838–1856, vol. F-1, created 9 Apr.–7 June 1856 and 20 Aug. 1856–6 Nov. 1856; handwriting of and Jonathan Grimshaw; 304 pages, plus 10 pages of addenda; CHL. This is the final volume of a six-volume manuscript history of the church. This sixth volume covers the period from 1 May to 8 Aug. 1844; the remaining five volumes, labeled A-1 through E-1, go through 30 Apr. 1844.
Historical Introduction
History, 1838-1856, volume F-1, constitutes the last of six volumes documenting the life of Joseph Smith and the early years of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The series is also known as the Manuscript History of the Church and was originally published serially from 1842 to 1846 and 1851 to 1858 as the “History of Joseph Smith” in the Times and Seasons and Deseret News. This volume contains JS’s history from 1 May 1844 to the events following his 27 June 1844 death, and it was compiled in Utah Territory in 1856.
The material recorded in volume F-1 was initially compiled under the direction of church historian , who was JS’s cousin, and also assistant church historian . Smith collaborated with in collecting material for the volume and creating a set of draft notes, which Smith dictated to Bullock and other clerks. Woodruff gathered additional material concerning the death of Joseph Smith as a supplement to George A. Smith’s work recording that event. Jonathan Grimshaw and , members of the Historian’s Office staff, transcribed the draft notes into the volume along with the text of designated documents.
According to the Historian’s Office journal, Jonathan Grimshaw initiated work on the text of volume F-1 on 9 April 1856, soon after Robert L. Campbell had completed work on volume E-1. (Historian’s Office, Journal, 5 and 9 Apr. 1856.) Grimshaw’s scribal work begins with an entry for 1 May 1844. Unlike previous volumes in which the numbering had run consecutively to page 2028, Grimshaw began anew with page 1. He transcribed 150 pages by June 1856, and his last entry was for 23 June 1844. Though more of his writing does not appear in the volume, he continued to work in the office until 2 August, before leaving for the East that same month. (Historian’s Office, Journal, 2 and 10 Aug. 1856.)
assumed the role of scribe on 20 August 1856. (Historian’s Office, Journal, 20 Aug. 1856.) He incorporated ’s draft notes for the period 24–29 June 1844 on pages 151–189, providing an account of JS’s death and its immediate aftermath. He next transcribed a related extract from ’s 1854 History of Illinois on pages 190–204. Pages 205–227 were left blank.
provided the notes for the final portion of the text. This account begins with an entry for 22 June 1844 and continues the record through 8 August 1844, ending on page 304. (The volume also included ten pages of addenda.) The last specific entry in the Historian’s Office journal that captures at work on the history is for 6 November 1856. A 2 February 1857 Wilford Woodruff letter to indicates that on 30 January 1857, the “presidency sat and heard the history read up to the organization of the church in , 8th. day of August 1844.” (Historian’s Office, Journal, 6 Nov. 1856; Wilford Woodruff, Great Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, to George A. Smith, 2 Feb. 1857, Historian’s Office, Letterpress Copybooks, vol. 1, p. 410; see also Wilford Woodruff, Great Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, to Amasa Lyman and Charles C. Rich, 28 Feb. 1857, Historian’s Office, Letterpress Copybooks, vol. 1, pp. 430–431.)
The pages of volume F-1 contain a record of the final weeks of JS’s life and the events of the ensuing days. The narrative commences with and arriving at , Illinois, on 1 May 1844 from their lumber-harvesting mission in the “” of Wisconsin Territory. As the late spring and summer of 1844 unfold, events intensify, especially those surrounding the suppression of the Nauvoo Expositor in mid-June. Legal action over the Expositor leads to a charge of riot, and subsequently JS is charged with treason and is incarcerated at the jail in , Illinois. The narrative of volume F-1 concludes with an account of the special church conference convened on 8 August 1844 to consider who should assume the leadership of the church.
<June 16> go away satisfied, well and good. [HC 6:475] In the very beginning <the bible shews> there is a plurality of Gods beyond the power of refutation. It is a great subject I am dwelling on; the word Eloheim ought to be the plural all the way through— Gods; the heads of the Gods appointed one God for us; and when you take a view of the subject, it sets one free to see all the beauty, holiness, and perfection of the Gods. All I want is to get the simple naked truth, and the whole truth. Many men say there is one God— the Father, the Son, and the Holy ghost, are only one God! I say, that is a strange God any how— three in one, and one in three! it is a curious organization. ‘Father, I pray not for the world, but I pray for them which thou hast given me.’ ‘Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, aswe are.’ All are to be crammed into one God according to sectarianism; it would make the biggest God in all the world; he would be a wonderful big God; he would be a giant or a monster. I want to read the text to you myself. ‘I am agreed with the Father, and the Father is agreed with me, and we are agreed as one’. The Greek shews that it should be agreed. ‘Father, I pray for them which thou hast given me out of the world, and not for these alone; but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be agreed; as thou, Father, art agreed with me, and I with thee, that they also may be agreed with us’, and all come to dwell in unity, and in all the glory and everlasting burnings of the Gods; and then we shall see as we are seen, and be as our God, and he as his Father. I want to reason a little on this subject; I learned it by translating the papyrus which is now in my house. I learned a testimony concerning Abraham, and he reasoned concerning the God of Heaven; in order to do that said he,— ‘suppose we have two facts, that supposes another fact may exist; two men on the earth, one wiser than the other, would logically shew that another who is wiser than the wisest may exist. Intelligencies exist one above another, so that there is no end to them.’ If Abraham reasoned thus— if Jesus Christ was the son of God, and John discovered that God the Father of Jesus Christ had a Father, you may suppose that he had a Father also. Where was there ever a son without a father? and where was there ever a father without first being a son? Whenever did a tree or anything spring into existence without a progenitor? And every thing comes in this way. Paul says that which is earthly is in the likeness of that which is Heavenly; hence if Jesus had a father, can we not believe that he had a father also? I despise the idea of being scared to death at such doctrine, for the bible is full of it. I want you all to pay particular attention to what I am saying. Jesus [HC 6:476] said that the Father wrought precisely in the same way as his Father had done before <him>— as the Father had done before, he laid down his life and took it up same as his Father had done before; he did as he was sent, to lay down his life and take it up again, and then was committed unto him the Keys &c. I know it is good reasoning.
“I have reason to think that the church is being purged; I saw Satan fall from Heaven, and the way they ran was a caution. All these are wonders, and marvelous in our eyes in these last days. So long as men are under the law of God they have no fears— they do not scare themselves.
“I want to stick to my text to shew that when men open their lips against these truths they do not injure me, but injure themselves. To the law and to the testimony; for these principles are poured out all over the scriptures. When things that are of the greatest importance are passed over by weak minded men without even a thought, I want to see truth in all its bearings, and hug it to my bosom. I believe all that God ever revealed, and I never hear of a man being damned for believing too much, but they [p. 103]