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Letter to Orson Hyde, 7 April 1834

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Letter to Orson Hyde, 7 April 1834

Source Note

JS, , and , Letter, , Geauga Co., OH, to , , 7 Apr. 1834. Retained copy, [ca. 7 Apr. 1834], in JS Letterbook 1, pp. 82–84; handwriting of ; CHL. Includes redactions. For more complete source information, see the source note for JS Letterbook 1.

Historical Introduction

On 7 April 1834, JS composed this letter to , who was on a mission for the church in the eastern . Hyde was assigned to recruit members to travel to to help the Saints who had been driven from . He was also assigned to raise money from church members for land purchases in Missouri and for a payment on the in , Ohio. The French farm had been designated by revelation as the place where the Lord’s “” would be built. In March 1833, a council of and appointed and to supervise the purchase of the farm, and on 10 April 1833, Coe concluded an agreement with French. Under the terms of the agreement, Coe apparently provided $2,000 of the $5,000 price up front, with two additional payments of $1,500 required, one of which was due on 10 April 1834. In June 1833, , in Kirtland and a member of the , purchased the farm from Coe, and the responsibility for the two $1,500 payments presumably fell to him. Facing the 10 April deadline on the first payment, church leaders needed funds “to redeem the farm.”
On 17 March 1834, JS held a in , New York, at which was directed to remain in that area and preach while four local church members—, , , and —attempted to raise $2,000 by the first of April “for the relief of the brethren in .” Hyde was then to bring the money “immediately to Kirtland.” However, on 31 March, Hyde sent a letter explaining that the fund-raising efforts had not yet succeeded.
JS received the discouraging news by 7 April. With the 10 April deadline looming, JS, , , , and went into the translating room in Whitney’s on 7 April and “bowed down befor[e] the Lord and prayed that he would furnish the means” to retire their debts. JS then replied to ’s letter, expressing disappointment in the lack of success with fund raising, chastising church members for not contributing their means more liberally, and wondering whether the gathering of Saints to from eastern branches should continue, given church members’ apparent lack of generosity. JS was especially concerned that he would not be able to go to Missouri to help those Saints who had been driven out of if monetary help was not forthcoming. He also expressed concern that if he could not go, the entire expedition would fail to materialize.
Although the letter is written in JS’s voice, it also contains the signatures of , one of JS’s counselors in the and a member of the United Firm, and , another firm member. The original letter is not extant. Williams copied it into JS’s letterbook, probably soon after its composition. It is unclear if received the letter; no response from him has been located.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Revelation, 24 Feb. 1834 [D&C 103:30–34, 40]; Minutes, 20 Feb. 1834; Revelation, 4 June 1833 [D&C 96:2].

  2. [2]

    Minutes, 23 Mar. 1833–A.

  3. [3]

    Geauga Co., OH, Deed Records, 1795–1921, vol. 17, pp. 38–39, 359–360, 10 Apr. 1833, microfilm 20,237, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL.

    U.S. and Canada Record Collection. FHL.

  4. [4]

    Minutes, 26–27 Apr. 1832; Revelation, 26 Apr. 1832 [D&C 82:11–12]; Geauga Co., OH, Deed Records, 1795–1921, vol. 17, pp. 360–361, 17 June 1833, microfilm 20,237, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL.

    U.S. and Canada Record Collection. FHL.

  5. [5]

    Minutes, 20 Feb. 1834.

  6. [6]

    Minutes, 17 Mar. 1834. According to the 1830 census, Roger Orton lived in Geneseo, and Edmund Bosley lived in Livonia, both in Livingston County, New York. Freeman Nickerson lived in Perrysburg, Cattaraugus County, New York, and Isaac McWithy resided in Bennington, Genesee County, New York. (1830 U.S. Census, Geneseo, Livingston Co., NY, 14; 1830 U.S. Census, Livonia, Livingston Co., NY, 65[A]; 1830 U.S. Census, Perrysburg, Cattaraugus Co., NY, 224; 1830 U.S. Census, Bennington, Genesee Co., NY, 136.)

    Census (U.S.) / U.S. Bureau of the Census. Population Schedules. Microfilm. FHL.

  7. [7]

    The letter from Hyde is not extant.

  8. [8]

    The store was so named to distinguish it from Whitney’s red store. (Staker, Hearken, O Ye People, 214n32.)

    Staker, Mark L. Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith’s Ohio Revelations. Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2009.

  9. [9]

    JS, Journal, 7–9 Apr. 1834. The “translating room,” located in the southeast corner on the second floor of Whitney’s store in Kirtland, was where JS had worked on his translation of the Bible and was also used for administrative purposes. (Staker, Hearken, O Ye People, 251.)

    Staker, Mark L. Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith’s Ohio Revelations. Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2009.

  10. [10]

    It is unclear what debts or other monetary obligations JS had that would have prevented him from going to Missouri. The indebtedness that concerned him was likely connected with the debts of other members of the United Firm. Since firm members apparently bonded themselves in accordance with instructions in an April 1832 revelation, they may have each held responsibility for the firm’s collective debts. (Revelation, 26 Apr. 1832 [D&C 82:15]; see also Minutes, 26–27 Apr. 1832; and Parkin, “Joseph Smith and the United Firm,” 37–39.)

    Parkin, Max H. “Joseph Smith and the United Firm: The Growth and Decline of the Church’s First Master Plan of Business and Finance, Ohio and Missouri, 1832–1834.” BYU Studies 46, no. 3 (2007): 5–66.

  11. [11]

    Minutes, 18 Mar. 1833; Note, 15 Mar. 1833; Revelation, 26 Apr. 1832 [D&C 82:11]. It is unclear why Sidney Rigdon, also a counselor in the presidency of the high priesthood and a member of the firm, did not sign.

Asterisk (*) denotes a "featured" version, which includes an introduction and annotation.
*Letter to Orson Hyde, 7 April 1834
Letterbook 1 History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834] “History of Joseph Smith”

Page 82

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April 7th 1834
Dear
We received yours of the 31st ult in due course of Mail and were much grieved on learning that you were not like to succeed according to our expectations, Myself and retired to the Translating room when prayer was wont to be made and unbosomed our feelings before God and cannot but exercise faith yet that you in the meraculus providence of God will succeed in obtaining help the fact is that unless we can obtain help I myself cannot go to Zion and if I do not go it will be impossable to get my brethren in any of them to go and if we do not go it is in vain for our eastern brethren to think of going up to better themselves by obtaining so goodly a land which now can be obtained for one dollar and a quarter pr acre and stand against that wicked Mob for unless they do the will of God, God will not help them and if God does not help them all is vain. Now the fact is this is the head is of the and the life of the body and threu able men as members of the body God has appointd to be hands to administer to the necessities of the body, Now if a mans hands refuse to administer to the necessity of his body it must perish of hunger and if the body perish all the members perish with it and if the head fails the whole body is sickened, the heart faints and the body dies the spirit takes its exit and the carcass remains to be devoured of worms
Now if this Church which is [p. 82]
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Document Information

Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Letter to Orson Hyde, 7 April 1834
ID #
1605
Total Pages
3
Print Volume Location
JSP, D4:5–9
Handwriting on This Page
  • Frederick G. Williams

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    TEXT: Possibly “where”.

  2. [2]

    Similarly, on 11 January 1834, JS, Frederick G. Williams, Newel K. Whitney, John Johnson, Oliver Cowdery, and Orson Hyde prayed together “that the Lord would provide, in the order of his Providence, the bishop of this Church with means sufficient to discharge every debt that the Firm owes.” (JS, Journal, 11 Jan. 1834.)

  3. [3]

    In February 1834, Parley P. Pratt and Lyman Wight presented the plight of church members who had been expelled from Jackson County to the Kirtland high council. After this, JS declared “that he was going to Zion to assist in redeeming it” and “called for volunteers to go with him.” He and several others had spent much of the preceding month trying to recruit individuals to accompany him to Missouri. (Minutes, 24 Feb. 1834; see also JS, Journal, 26–28 Feb. and 4–6 Mar. 1834.)

  4. [4]

    A December 1833 revelation instructed the branches of the church to “buy Lands” in Missouri and “gather together upon them.” (Revelation, 16–17 Dec. 1833 [D&C 101:72–74].)

  5. [5]

    Under the Land Act of 1820, settlers could purchase a minimum of eighty acres of public land for as little as $1.25 per acre. In 1834, a considerable amount of public land still existed in Missouri. According to one history, by the end of 1830 the total acreage of public land sold “had reached nearly 1,700,000 acres; sales in the decade of the 1830’s put the total to just short of 7,000,000.” (An Act Making Further Provision for the Sale of Public Lands [24 Apr. 1820], Public Statutes at Large, 16th Cong., 1st Sess., chap. 51, p. 566, sec. 3; McCandless, History of Missouri, 43–44.)

    The Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America, from the Organization of the Government in 1789, to March 3, 1845. . . . Edited by Richard Peters. 8 vols. Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1846–1867.

    McCandless, Perry. A History of Missouri: Volume II, 1820 to 1860. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1972.

  6. [6]

    In late October and early November 1833, non-Mormon settlers organized and attacked the homes of church members, driving most of them from Jackson County. In February 1834, some church leaders in Missouri, guarded by a state militia, returned to Jackson County to testify against their assailants before a court of inquiry. However, state attorney general Robert W. Wells and circuit attorney Amos Rees told the Saints “that such was the excitement prevailing there; that it was doubtful whether any thing could be done to bring the mobbers to justice.” The expedition to Missouri was thus meant to provide security for church members to reoccupy their Jackson County lands in the face of this strong and pervasive opposition. (Parley P. Pratt et al., “‘The Mormons’ So Called,” The Evening and the Morning Star, Extra, Feb. 1834, [1]–[2]; “A History, of the Persecution,” Times and Seasons, Feb. 1840, 1:49; Letter from William W. Phelps, 27 Feb. 1834; Revelation, 24 Feb. 1834 [D&C 103:15–16, 22–25].)

    The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, MO, June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland, OH, Dec. 1833–Sept. 1834.

    Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.

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