JS viewed himself as divinely commissioned to gather God’s people in the last days and prepare them for Jesus Christ’s second coming and millennial reign. By 1835, the House of the Lord, a temple in Kirtland, Ohio, became the centerpiece of this commission and hence of this journal. The Latter-day Saints were commanded in revelations dated as early as December 1832 to establish “a house of God” and were chastised in June 1833 for not having begun the endeavor.3 Construction began 6 June 1833 after JS and colleagues saw in vision the completed structure.4 As writing in this journal began, construction was nearing completion. The newly established Quorum of the Twelve and Quorum of the Seventy were returning from preaching assignments and joining with church officers from Ohio and Missouri as well as with traveling elders. All converged on Kirtland to prepare with increasing intensity for the “solemn assembly” to be held in the House of the Lord, where they were to be “endowed with power from on high.”5 Thus empowered, they could better fulfill key elements of their mission: preaching God’s message for the last time throughout the world prior to the imminent Second Coming; gathering converts to Missouri, where they would find safety in Zion from the destruction that was to overtake the wicked; and ministering to the Saints. After a hiatus of more than nine months, JS renewed his journal keeping during this period of organization, purification, and preparation.

The longest of any of JS’s journals published herein, this volume records his activities in and around Kirtland during the half year from late September 1835 to early April 1836. It is the last journal that contains JS’s own handwriting: seven entries—four manuscript pages. Entries were sometimes made one or more days after the fact, but an entry was made for every day from the journal’s beginning to its end, providing a continuity lacking in JS’s previous journal and reflecting a time of relative stability for the church in Kirtland. JS is not embattled, defending his people and projects against enemies; rather, he is gathering and preparing his people for what they expect to be a pivotal experience. Blessings, rebukes, and counsel recorded here manifest the hopes and expectations of JS and others in church leadership.

While JS, Oliver Cowdery, and Frederick G. Williams penned entries for the first two weeks of the journal, most of the remainder of the journal was kept by Warren Parrish, often mentioned in the journal as “my scribe.” Parrish was hired as scribe for JS on 29 October 1835. His duties included keeping JS’s journal and minutes of church meetings and copying certain materials into JS’s 1834–1836 history, which Oliver Cowdery had begun the prior year. Parrish’s first recorded journal entry is for 8 October 1835, suggesting that journal keeping was three weeks behind when he started. Parrish inscribed entries covering the next six weeks. The journal was in Parrish’s possession during at least part of the time he was inscribing it, and the practice may have been for the assigned scribe to retain possession during his tenure. JS recorded four reflective entries for December 19–22 and indicated in the last of those entries that Parrish was ill. JS then passed the journal to Williams, whose entries covered four days ending 26 December 1835. Parrish resumed scribal duties for four weeks’ entries, but then his ill health forced him to relinquish journal keeping to Sylvester Smith, who recorded the next two weeks’ entries. On 7 February 1836, Parrish then resumed his work, recording entries for the next eight weeks, with occasional help from an unidentified scribe who copied or kept minutes of church meetings. In early April, Parrish was preparing to leave Kirtland to proselytize, like many others who had sought empowerment in Kirtland for that purpose.6 Apparently Parrish’s scribal responsibilities for the journal and for JS’s 1834–1836 history were delegated at this time to Warren Cowdery, older brother of Oliver Cowdery. Cowdery used the first two months of material from the journal, 22 September to 18 November 1835, as the basis for a new section of the 1834–1836 history and also wrote the final two entries in the journal. Parrish’s mission departure was delayed until May.7 It was apparently during this delay that Parrish retrieved the history and the journal from Cowdery and added a final two months of material from the journal, 18 November 1835 through 18 January 1836, to the history—probably before leaving for his missionary assignment. Parrish made no additional entries to the journal before returning it to JS. Thus the journal ended with Cowdery’s entries.

Much of the material in the journal seems to have been dictated by JS to the scribe or recorded as JS spoke to various gatherings. For example, the entry for 21 January 1836 is apparently a dictation because it reports a vision seen only by JS. JS may have had the scribe read back his dictations to him in order to make corrections, as he had sometimes done six years earlier in dictating his translation of the Book of Mormon. In the 21 January entry, the scribe writes, “I am mistaken,” and a paragraph in the entry corrects a statement made earlier in the entry. A few days later, Parrish wrote to JS that he could not continue to keep the journal for a time. He explained, “Writing has a particular tendency to injure my lungs while I am under the influence of such a cough”—a possible indication that his scribal duties required reading aloud.8

The journal reveals aspects not only of the inner spiritual life and the religious fellowship that JS shared with church members and leaders but also of his relations with adherents of other religious persuasions. Various entries describe his interactions with Presbyterians, Methodists, a Baptist, a Universalist, and a Unitarian. The journal records a visit JS received from two followers of the British religious reformer Edward Irving as well as a visit from JS’s contemporary Robert Matthews—better known as the Prophet Matthias. During his visit with Matthews, JS shared the foundational religious experiences of his youth, including rare accounts of his visit from the angel Moroni and of his first vision of Deity.

The journal also records several other revelations and visions. Of particular theological significance is the aforementioned 21 January 1836 vision of the “celestial kingdom” of heaven, with its revelation that “all who have died with[out] a knowledge of this gospel, who would have received it, if they had been permitted to tarry, shall be heirs of the celestial kingdom of God.”9 This foreshadows the Latter-day Saint doctrine of redeeming the dead through vicarious ordinances.

A number of entries in this journal relate to JS’s revelatory translation of Egyptian writings. In July 1835, JS and associates had purchased from a Michael Chandler four Egyptian mummies and some papyri unearthed at Thebes. Chandler had exhibited the artifacts in Cleveland and other locations and had heard of JS’s claims as a translator. This journal provides glimpses of JS’s early efforts in transcribing and translating material from the papyri and recounts that JS exhibited the papyri to associates and visitors. Journal entries refer to them as the “records of antiquity,” the “Egyptian manuscripts,” the “Egyptian records,” the “sacred record,” the “ancient records,” the “records of Abraham,” or simply “the records.” JS’s efforts led to publication in 1842 of a work that he introduced as “purporting to be the writings of Abraham.”10

The events of this journal, as in JS’s 1832–1834 journal, unfold in the shadow of the dual priorities of redeeming Zion and preparing the House of the Lord. A revelation that JS announced in June 1834, prior to the close of the Mormons’ armed expedition to Missouri, laid out the course of action the Latter-day Saints were to pursue regarding their future in that state. The “redemption of Zion” in Missouri would not take place until church officers had been further instructed in their duties and empowered in the House of the Lord in Kirtland.11

In the third entry in this journal, JS himself recorded further plans and preparations for Missouri. As the time for the promised endowment neared, so did the anticipated return to Jackson County. The dispossessed Missouri Saints were again to petition Governor Daniel Dunklin for support in reoccupying their Jackson County lands. JS and other church officers expressed determination to reenter Jackson County in spring 1836, at the risk of their lives if necessary. JS reported the beginning of efforts that same day to enlist a large volunteer army for this purpose12—optimistic plans, fed perhaps by growth in church membership in the two years since their small “Camp of Israel” expedition had failed to accomplish the same goal. Less than two weeks later, he advised members of the Quorum of the Twelve to anticipate moving their families to Missouri.13

Latter-day Saints corresponded with Dunklin, asking for his assistance and even suggesting that United States president Andrew Jackson be asked to rectify the Saints’ 1833 eviction from their Jackson County property by vigilantes. In January 1836, Dunklin effectively foreclosed the possibility of aid from either the state or the federal government in the near future. He ruled out any request for federal intervention on constitutional grounds and again advised the Saints to pursue restoration of their property through the established legal system.14

Soon after receiving Dunklin’s letter, the Latter-day Saints modified their short-term plans for Missouri. By March 1836, they had apparently dropped the idea of assembling a large army, at least for the present. Church leaders moved their focus for the near future away from Jackson County and instead commissioned agents to find a new location in Missouri and to purchase lands there on which to settle.15 The church’s presidency intended to move to Missouri to direct the relocation.16

During the time covered in the journal, the immediate attention of Latter-day Saints was focused on northeastern Ohio. Prerequisite to their major relocation in Missouri, church leaders from Missouri and elsewhere gathered to Kirtland, the site of the temple that bore the name “the House of the Lord,” wherein the much-anticipated endowment and solemn assembly were to empower church officers in their ministry. Building the temple in Kirtland—which JS often referred to as the “chapel” or simply “the house”—had been a focal point since summer 1833, when a letter from JS, Sidney Rigdon, and Frederick G. Williams reported that there were only one hundred fifty Saints in Kirtland.17 In autumn 1834, JS himself helped quarry stone for the building.18 By late 1835, the nine hundred Mormons in Kirtland, plus the two hundred living nearby, included skilled individuals recruited specifically for the building project, freeing JS to pursue spiritual, educational, and administrative matters. A temple committee composed of JS’s brother Hyrum, Reynolds Cahoon, and Jared Carter oversaw construction of the House of the Lord. The construction workers were compensated in part through goods available at the “committee store.”

Preparation for the promised endowment required much more than completion of the temple. JS’s vision for a church prepared for its expansive mission included an extensive and well-organized priesthood hierarchy. After adding three assistants to the church’s presidency in December 1834,19 JS further expanded his cadre of leaders. Drawn almost exclusively from the ranks of the 1834 expedition to Missouri, the Quorum of the Twelve and the Quorum of the Seventy, organized in February 1835, were assigned primarily to minister outside Ohio and Missouri, the two centers of the church. JS gave the new officers short-term assignments to preach in the East and seek financial support for Zion in Missouri and the temple in Ohio.20 Beginning in January 1836, JS worked to have every office and organization mentioned in the revelations fully staffed—to “set the different quorems in order.”21 With the entire array of priesthood leadership from both Ohio and Missouri in Kirtland to prepare for empowerment, many of the regular Kirtland council meetings included the Missouri leadership, especially Missouri president David Whitmer and his counselors William W. Phelps and John Whitmer. These three also often joined with the church’s presidency in Kirtland—JS, Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, Frederick G. Williams, Hyrum Smith, and Joseph Smith Sr.—in a council of presidents that conducted much of the church business.

Preparation of church officials for carrying out their responsibilities required ministerial training. This was accomplished in the Elders School, which was a revival of the earlier School of the Prophets. In early January 1836, an additional school was opened offering two months’ intensive study of biblical Hebrew under the tutelage of scholar Joshua Seixas. This instruction ran concurrently with the Elders School and involved many of the same students. JS himself participated as an enthusiastic student of Hebrew.

JS insisted that in addition to being fully staffed and properly organized and trained, the church leadership must have unity and harmony.22 A prerequisite to the endowment was a sanctification process that in turn required collegiality and love. JS faced significant challenges from within the hierarchy and his own family as he sought to establish this unity. During the apostles’ 1835 mission, JS and other leaders in Kirtland chastised the Quorum of the Twelve by letter for offensive statements two of them had made about Sidney Rigdon. The Twelve also had reportedly failed to emphasize donations for temple construction while seeking funds for Missouri lands and other church needs. JS concluded later that the latter concern, based on a complaint by an observer in New York, was unwarranted. After the Twelve returned to Kirtland there were feelings to reconcile, apologies to make, and clarifications required concerning the role of the Twelve. The flurry of accusations and confessions in council meetings recorded in this journal were meant to heal breaches and promote harmony by airing and then resolving all disagreements.

To JS’s great dismay, his confrontations with his volatile younger brother William, an apostle in the church, contrasted starkly with JS’s ideals. The two strong-willed Smiths clashed in fall 1835. Harmony was not restored until Joseph Smith Sr. convened a family New Year’s gathering to bring about reconciliation. Passages in this diary about their interaction offer revealing insights into the personalities and temperaments of JS and William.

After resolving differences among church leaders, the officers were ready to receive the rituals associated with the temple and the anticipated endowment. This was a new development. The previous fall JS had told members of the Quorum of the Twelve that they were soon to attend the organization of a school of the prophets that would involve a solemn assembly and the ordinance of foot washing—patterned after Jesus’s ministration to his disciples after the Last Supper and mandated in the same revelation that first called for a temple to be built.23 This would have repeated the procedures followed at the organization of the initial School of the Prophets in 1833. Instead, JS organized the Elders School on 3 November 1835 without a solemn assembly, and the foot-washing ordinance was performed during a solemn assembly in the House of the Lord at the conclusion of a set of newly instituted ordinances. Before the Lord could “endow his servants,” recorded John Whitmer, “we must perform all the ordinances that are instituted in his house.”24 To this end, washing, anointing, and blessing the presidents of quorums began 21 and 22 January 1836. In the coming weeks, these rituals were administered in hierarchal order to each church officer in the House of the Lord. The ordinances were accompanied by exclamations of “hosanna” in unison. Visions and other spiritual manifestations were noted by numerous participants.

On 27 March 1836, before a general audience of church members, JS dedicated the newly completed House of the Lord. His dedicatory prayer and the accompanying hymns and sermons expressed the vision he and his associates shared for the unfolding of God’s plan for the earth and the role they were to play as God’s authorized representatives. Not only their worldview and proximate goals but also their perceived challenges and obstacles were delineated in the journal’s report.

Two days after the dedication of the House of the Lord, JS and the presidency sought revelation about the proposed move to Missouri. They emerged from an all-night session in the House of the Lord to announce that the key to redeeming Zion lay in proselytizing and gathering converts to Missouri.25 As for the presidency, their immediate concern was raising funds to purchase Missouri land.26 Apparently their planned move was postponed until after such purchases could be made.

Now that the temple was dedicated to the Lord, the long-awaited solemn assembly was finally held. On 30 March 1836, three days after the dedication, about three hundred priesthood officers met in the House of the Lord and received a ritual washing of feet, an ordinance of purification before receiving the endowment of power. JS announced the celebration of a jubilee for the church. While preparing the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper to initiate a Passover feast, he instructed the officers that “the time that we were required to tarry in Kirtland to be endued would be fulfilled in a few days.” Soon afterward, according to several accounts, many who were gathered in the solemn assembly experienced a powerful spiritual outpouring. They remained in the House of the Lord through the night, prophesying, speaking in tongues, and seeing visions. Many felt that the promise of an endowment of spiritual power had been fulfilled, and elders began leaving Kirtland the following day to perform missions.

For those officers who remained, the jubilee and the Passover were a week of visiting, feasting, prophesying, and pronouncing blessings on one another. During the Sunday worship service held 3 April 1836, the day for which the final entry in the journal was made, JS and Oliver Cowdery secluded themselves behind drawn curtains at the podium of the House of the Lord. There, the journal indicates, they experienced a vision of the resurrected Jesus Christ, who stated that he accepted the edifice as his house. Afterward, according to this account, Moses, Elias, and Elijah also appeared and conferred priesthood keys and authority for essential ministries over which they each had responsibility. The jubilee ended 6 April 1836, the first day of the church’s seventh year.

JS, “Sketch Book for the use of Joseph Smith, jr.,” Journal, Sept. 1835–Apr. 1836; handwriting of Warren Parrish, an unidentified scribe, Sylvester Smith, Frederick G. Williams, Warren Cowdery, JS, and Oliver Cowdery; 195 pages; JS Collection, CHL. Includes redactions and archival marking.

The text block consists of 114 leaves—including single flyleaves and pastedowns in the front and back—measuring 12¼ x 8 inches (31 x 20 cm). The 110 interior leaves are ledger paper with thirty-four lines in faint—and now faded—black ink that has turned brown. There are nine gatherings of various sizes—each about a dozen leaves per gathering. The text block is sewn all along over cloth tapes. The front and back covers of the journal are pasteboard. The ledger has a tight-back case binding with a brown calfskin quarter-leather binding. The outside covers are adorned in shell marbled paper, with dark green body and veins of light green. The bound volume measures 12⅜ x 8¼ inches (31 x 21 cm) and is ¹³/₁₆ inches (2 cm) thick. One cover of the book is labeled “Repentence.” in black ink. The first page of ledger paper under that cover contains eight lines of references to the book of Genesis under the heading “Scriptures relating to Repentince”. The spine has “No 8” inscribed upside up when the book is standing upright for this side. When the volume is turned upside down and flipped front to back, the other cover is titled “Sabbath Day” with “No 9” written beneath in black ink. The first page of ledger paper under that cover contains two lines of references to the book of Genesis under the heading “Scriptures relating to the Sabbath day”. Thus the book was used to simultaneously house two volumes of topical notes on biblical passages. This book was apparently part of a larger series that included at least two other extant volumes—one bearing “Faith” and “10” on the cover, and the other bearing “Second Comeing of Christ” and “No 3” on one cover and “Gift of the Holy Ghost” on the other cover.1 In late 1835, JS and scribes began using the book to record his journal for 1835–1836, which begins on the recto of the second leaf of ledger paper. Warren Parrish added the title “Sketch Book” to the cover, beneath “Repentence.”.

The entire journal is inscribed in black ink that later turned brown. Pages 25, 51, 77, 103, 129, and 154 bear the marks of adhesive wafers that were probably used to attach manuscripts until they were copied into the journal. The journal was used in Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1843 as a major source in composing JS’s multivolume manuscript history of the church. At this time, redactions were made in ink and in graphite pencil, and use marks were made in graphite. Also, apparently in Nauvoo, the cover of the journal side of the book was marked with a “D” and then with a larger, stylized “D”. At some point a white paper spine label was added with “1835–6 Kirtland JOURNAL” hand printed or stenciled in black ink that later turned brown. The insertion “Kirtland” is written in graphite. Also, in the “Repentence” side of the volume, the rectos of the third through eighth leaves of ledger paper are numbered on the upper right-hand corners as 195, 197, 199, 201, 203, and 205—all written in graphite and apparently redactions. Except with regard to the title “Sketch Book”, none of the authors of the inscriptions mentioned previously have been identified. This volume is listed in Nauvoo and early Utah inventories of church records, indicating continuous custody.2