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Letterbook 1, 1832–1835
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blameless to the coming of our lord Jesus Christ Amen— Joseph Smith Jun
PS say to Bro Carle [John Corrill] that his confession gave me great satisfaction and all things are now settled on my part tell Sister Chloer that her Mother is well and living with bro Reynolds Cahoon and is now at my house——
17 Sept. 1794–26 Sept. 1842. Surveyor, politician, author. Born at Worcester Co., Massachusetts. Married Margaret Lyndiff, ca. 1830. Lived at Harpersfield, Ashtabula Co., Ohio, 1830. Baptized into LDS church, 10 Jan. 1831, at Kirtland, Geauga Co., Ohio. Ordained...
View Full Bio30 Apr. 1790–29 Apr. 1861. Farmer, tanner, builder. Born at Cambridge, Washington Co., New York. Son of William Cahoon Jr. and Mehitable Hodges. Married Thirza Stiles, 11 Dec. 1810. Moved to northeastern Ohio, 1811. Located at Harpersfield, Ashtabula Co.,...
View Full BioHyrum Smith, Reynolds Cahoon, and Jared Carter to the Churches of Christ • 1 June 1833
Kirtland June first 1833
Located ten miles south of Lake Erie. Settled by 1811. Organized by 1818. Population in 1830 about 55 Latter-day Saints and 1,000 others; in 1838 about 2,000 Saints and 1,200 others; in 1839 about 100 Saints and 1,500 others. Mormon missionaries visited township...
More InfoTo the Churches of— Christ in——. we feel ourselves under obligation to writ[e] to you as well as to all the churches of the different branches and we do this that you with us may exert yourselves to bring about the fulfilment of the command of the Lord concerning the establishing or preparing a home whereby the Elders who have been commanded of the Lord to so to do, to gather themselves together and prepare all things and call a solemn assembly and treasure up words of wisdom that they might go forth to the Gentiles for the last time. and we now in order to accomplish this we are directed yea we are under the necessity to call on the whole Church as a body that they make evry possable exertion to aid temporally as well as spiritually in this great work that the Lord is bringing about and is about to accomplish and unless we fulfil this command vis establish an house and prepare all things necessary whereby the Elders may gather into a school [p. 36]
JS revelation of Jan. 1831 directed Latter-day Saints to migrate to Ohio, where they would “be endowed with power from on high.” JS Revelation of Dec. 1832 directed Saints to “establish . . . an house of God.” JS Revelation of 1 June 1833 chastened Saints...
More InfoOn 27 November 1832, while residing at Kirtland, Ohio, JS wrote a lengthy letter to William W. Phelps, who earlier that year had settled at Independence, Missouri. JS’s missive included a reminder stressing the importance of record keeping and history writing to the young church. Portions were later added to the Doctrine and Covenants, the church’s official collection of commandments and revelations. JS began by noting that he wished “to communicate some things which . . . are laying great with weight upon my mind.” He then went on to observe, “Firstly, it is the duty of the lord’[s] clerk whom he has appointed to keep a hystory and a general church record of all things that transpire in Zion . . . and also the[ir] manner of life and the[ir] faith and works.” (JS, Kirtland, OH, to William W. Phelps, Independence, MO, 27 Nov. 1832, JS Letterbook 1, pp. 1–4 [D&C 85:1–2].)
Located ten miles south of Lake Erie. Settled by 1811. Organized by 1818. Population in 1830 about 55 Latter-day Saints and 1,000 others; in 1838 about 2,000 Saints and 1,200 others; in 1839 about 100 Saints and 1,500 others. Mormon missionaries visited township...
More Info17 Feb. 1792–7 Mar. 1872. Writer, teacher, printer, newspaper editor, publisher, postmaster, lawyer. Born at Hanover, Morris Co., New Jersey. Son of Enon Phelps and Mehitabel Goldsmith. Moved to Homer, Cortland Co., New York, 1800. Married Sally Waterman,...
View Full BioLocated twelve miles from western Missouri border. Permanently settled, platted, and designated county seat, 1827. Hub for steamboat travel on Missouri River. Point of departure for Santa Fe Trail. Population in 1831 about 300. Mormon population by summer...
More InfoJS’s dispatch to Phelps reminding those in Missouri of the importance of record keeping coincided with a new record-keeping initiative in Ohio. This letter became the first entry, identified as “Letter first” and “Letter 1,” recorded in what was subsequently designated Letter Book A or Letterbook 1. This record of ninety-three manuscript pages, now published in the Administrative Records series on the Joseph Smith Papers website, preserves copies of early church-related communications dated 14 June 1829 through 4 August 1835. The transcribed text is in the handwriting of JS, Frederick G. Williams, Orson Hyde, and Oliver Cowdery.
17 Feb. 1792–7 Mar. 1872. Writer, teacher, printer, newspaper editor, publisher, postmaster, lawyer. Born at Hanover, Morris Co., New Jersey. Son of Enon Phelps and Mehitabel Goldsmith. Moved to Homer, Cortland Co., New York, 1800. Married Sally Waterman,...
View Full Bio28 Oct. 1787–10 Oct. 1842. Ship’s pilot, teacher, physician, justice of the peace. Born at Suffield, Hartford Co., Connecticut. Son of William Wheeler Williams and Ruth Granger. Moved to Newburg, Cuyahoga Co., Ohio, 1799. Practiced Thomsonian botanical system...
View Full Bio8 Jan. 1805–28 Nov. 1878. Laborer, clerk, storekeeper, teacher, editor, businessman, lawyer, judge. Born at Oxford, New Haven Co., Connecticut. Son of Nathan Hyde and Sally Thorpe. Moved to Derby, New Haven Co., 1812. Moved to Kirtland, Geauga Co., Ohio, ...
View Full Bio3 Oct. 1806–3 Mar. 1850. Clerk, teacher, justice of the peace, lawyer, newspaper editor. Born at Wells, Rutland Co., Vermont. Son of William Cowdery and Rebecca Fuller. Raised Congregationalist. Moved to western New York and clerked at a store, ca. 1825–1828...
View Full BioCorrespondence captured in Letterbook 1 includes six early letters composed or received by Oliver Cowdery, four from 1829 and two from 1831. Other letters reflect ongoing communications between the two centers of the early church located in Kirtland and Independence. Two entries describe the plat of the proposed “City of Zion” to be built at Independence and the dimensions of the “house of the Lord” to be erected there. The concluding item in the collection is a letter that incorporates a set of minutes from a council held in Kirtland on 4 August 1835 censuring the Twelve Apostles for failing to fully comply with their fund-raising responsibilities as they conducted a mission among the branches of the church in the East. Note that letters from Letterbook 1 written to or from JS will also appear with individual introductions in the Documents series of The Joseph Smith Papers.
3 Oct. 1806–3 Mar. 1850. Clerk, teacher, justice of the peace, lawyer, newspaper editor. Born at Wells, Rutland Co., Vermont. Son of William Cowdery and Rebecca Fuller. Raised Congregationalist. Moved to western New York and clerked at a store, ca. 1825–1828...
View Full BioLocated ten miles south of Lake Erie. Settled by 1811. Organized by 1818. Population in 1830 about 55 Latter-day Saints and 1,000 others; in 1838 about 2,000 Saints and 1,200 others; in 1839 about 100 Saints and 1,500 others. Mormon missionaries visited township...
More InfoLocated twelve miles from western Missouri border. Permanently settled, platted, and designated county seat, 1827. Hub for steamboat travel on Missouri River. Point of departure for Santa Fe Trail. Population in 1831 about 300. Mormon population by summer...
More InfoLetterbook 1 was initiated during a remarkable surge in record keeping, beginning with the calling of Oliver Cowdery and later John Whitmer as church historians in 1830 and 1831. Revelations and commandments recorded in Revelation Book 1 were sent to Missouri in late 1831 to be published on the church’s first press, and Revelation Book 2 was in use in Kirtland by February 1832. Sometime in 1832, probably between July and September, JS and Frederick G. Williams worked together on a brief history of JS’s early visionary experiences. JS purchased the small volume that contains his first journal in November 1832 and began penning entries that same month. That fall another record, containing the minutes of early church conference and council meetings and now designated Minute Book 1, was commenced. In January of the following year, in another epistle recorded in Letterbook 1, JS again wrote to Phelps encouraging him as editor of the church’s first periodical, The Evening and the Morning Star, then printed in Independence, to set “forth the rise and progress and faith of the church,” that is, to begin publishing items on the history of the church.
3 Oct. 1806–3 Mar. 1850. Clerk, teacher, justice of the peace, lawyer, newspaper editor. Born at Wells, Rutland Co., Vermont. Son of William Cowdery and Rebecca Fuller. Raised Congregationalist. Moved to western New York and clerked at a store, ca. 1825–1828...
View Full Bio27 Aug. 1802–11 July 1878. Farmer, stock raiser, newspaper editor. Born in Pennsylvania. Son of Peter Whitmer Sr. and Mary Musselman. Member of German Reformed Church, Fayette, Seneca Co., New York. Baptized by Oliver Cowdery, June 1829, most likely in Seneca...
View Full BioArea acquired by U.S. in Louisiana Purchase, 1803, and established as territory, 1812. Missouri Compromise, 1820, admitted Missouri as slave state, 1821. Population in 1830 about 140,000; in 1836 about 240,000; and in 1840 about 380,000. Mormon missionaries...
More InfoLocated ten miles south of Lake Erie. Settled by 1811. Organized by 1818. Population in 1830 about 55 Latter-day Saints and 1,000 others; in 1838 about 2,000 Saints and 1,200 others; in 1839 about 100 Saints and 1,500 others. Mormon missionaries visited township...
More Info28 Oct. 1787–10 Oct. 1842. Ship’s pilot, teacher, physician, justice of the peace. Born at Suffield, Hartford Co., Connecticut. Son of William Wheeler Williams and Ruth Granger. Moved to Newburg, Cuyahoga Co., Ohio, 1799. Practiced Thomsonian botanical system...
View Full Bio17 Feb. 1792–7 Mar. 1872. Writer, teacher, printer, newspaper editor, publisher, postmaster, lawyer. Born at Hanover, Morris Co., New Jersey. Son of Enon Phelps and Mehitabel Goldsmith. Moved to Homer, Cortland Co., New York, 1800. Married Sally Waterman,...
View Full BioLocated twelve miles from western Missouri border. Permanently settled, platted, and designated county seat, 1827. Hub for steamboat travel on Missouri River. Point of departure for Santa Fe Trail. Population in 1831 about 300. Mormon population by summer...
More InfoThis upwelling in record keeping was unusual for the time. As scholar Dean C. Jessee has observed, “So primitive were some aspects of record keeping in nineteenth-century America that much of the early Latter-day Saint experience was a pioneering effort. . . . Although Mormon record keeping was inaugurated by [an] 1830 revelation, details for carrying out that commandment were largely hammered out on the anvil of experience in the years that followed.” (Dean C. Jessee, “The Reliability of Joseph Smith’s History,” Journal of Mormon History 3 [1976]: 27.) Thus, during a brief span in the early 1830s, JS, along with those working under his direction, commenced the systematic collection and recording of critical documents pertaining to church governance and administration. Throughout the remainder of JS’s lifetime, correspondence-copying, revelation-recording, minute-taking, journal-keeping, and history-writing activities would remain imperative commitments.
“Letter Book A,” Letterbook 1, [ca. August 1832–August 1835]; handwriting of Frederick G. Williams, JS, Orson Hyde, and Oliver Cowdery; 108 leaves, 93 pages of letters, plus six pages of history; JS Collection, CHL.
28 Oct. 1787–10 Oct. 1842. Ship’s pilot, teacher, physician, justice of the peace. Born at Suffield, Hartford Co., Connecticut. Son of William Wheeler Williams and Ruth Granger. Moved to Newburg, Cuyahoga Co., Ohio, 1799. Practiced Thomsonian botanical system...
View Full Bio8 Jan. 1805–28 Nov. 1878. Laborer, clerk, storekeeper, teacher, editor, businessman, lawyer, judge. Born at Oxford, New Haven Co., Connecticut. Son of Nathan Hyde and Sally Thorpe. Moved to Derby, New Haven Co., 1812. Moved to Kirtland, Geauga Co., Ohio, ...
View Full Bio3 Oct. 1806–3 Mar. 1850. Clerk, teacher, justice of the peace, lawyer, newspaper editor. Born at Wells, Rutland Co., Vermont. Son of William Cowdery and Rebecca Fuller. Raised Congregationalist. Moved to western New York and clerked at a store, ca. 1825–1828...
View Full BioJS’s circa
summer 1832 history was inscribed in the front of a
medium-size, commercially produced blank book. The book’s ledger paper is
horizontally ruled with thirty-six (now faint) blue lines
and vertically ruled with four red lines. The original book
apparently contained nine gatherings of twelve leaves each,
but eight leaves have been cut from the final gathering.
The text block was sewn all along over recessed cords. The
leaves measure 12⅝ x 7¾ inches (32 x 20 cm). The pastedowns
and flyleaves were blank white paper. The volume was
constructed with front and back covers of pasteboard and a
tight-back case binding with a brown calfskin
quarter-leather binding. The bound book measures 12⅞ x 8 x ⅞
inches (33 x 20 x 2 cm). The outside covers are adorned in
shell marbled paper, with brown body and veins of blue and
red. The front pastedown bears the inscriptions “c=c/i” and
“/i=”, possibly original merchandising notes. The original front flyleaf, and any
inscriptions it may have borne, is no longer extant.
The
history was inscribed by Frederick G.
Williams and JS with quill
pen in black ink (now oxidized to brown) on the first three
leaves of ledger paper. The first five pages of the 1832
history were numbered by Williams. Later, the book was
turned over so the back cover became the front and the last
page became the first. One or more texts were inscribed in
this side (the back) of the book, as is evident from inscriptions
visible on the remaining stubs of the eight now-excised
leaves. The volume was also repurposed as a letterbook.
Beginning on the recto of the fourth leaf in the front of
the book (immediately following the history) are
ninety-three pages of copied outgoing letters, dated 14 June 1829 through 4 August 1835, in the
handwriting of Williams, JS, Orson Hyde, and Oliver Cowdery. The book’s
pagination also began anew with the copied letters. The
first page of letters bore the inscription “1a”, which is
only partially legible on the now-trimmed page but is
complete in photocopy and microfilm copies at the Church History Library. The front flyleaf is missing—perhaps it bore a title related to the history and
was removed when the volume was converted to a letterbook.
The back flyleaf is also missing. At some point,
Williams
began an index for the letters. This incomplete index is
inscribed on paper that does not match the original ledger
paper. It was apparently a loose leaf inserted in the
volume—as is Williams’s index to the contents of the Ohio
revelation book—although it
is currently bound in the front of the volume as a result of
late twentieth-century conservation. This index does not
list the history.
28 Oct. 1787–10 Oct. 1842. Ship’s pilot, teacher, physician, justice of the peace. Born at Suffield, Hartford Co., Connecticut. Son of William Wheeler Williams and Ruth Granger. Moved to Newburg, Cuyahoga Co., Ohio, 1799. Practiced Thomsonian botanical system...
View Full Bio8 Jan. 1805–28 Nov. 1878. Laborer, clerk, storekeeper, teacher, editor, businessman, lawyer, judge. Born at Oxford, New Haven Co., Connecticut. Son of Nathan Hyde and Sally Thorpe. Moved to Derby, New Haven Co., 1812. Moved to Kirtland, Geauga Co., Ohio, ...
View Full Bio3 Oct. 1806–3 Mar. 1850. Clerk, teacher, justice of the peace, lawyer, newspaper editor. Born at Wells, Rutland Co., Vermont. Son of William Cowdery and Rebecca Fuller. Raised Congregationalist. Moved to western New York and clerked at a store, ca. 1825–1828...
View Full BioA reconstruction of the physical history of the
artifact helps explain the current material
context of the document. Photocopy and microfilm images of
the book, as well as an inspection of the conservation work
now present in the volume, indicate that the text block
separated from the binding at some point. Also, the initial
three leaves containing the history were excised from
the volume. The eight inscribed leaves in the back of the
volume may have been excised at the same time. Manuscript evidence suggests that
these excisions took place in the mid-twentieth century. A
tear on the third leaf, which evidently occurred during its
excision, was probably mended at the time. This tear was
mended with clear cellophane tape, which was invented in
1930. The three leaves of the
history
certainly were
excised by 1965, when they were
described as “cut out,” although they were archived together
with the letterbook. The size and paper stock of the three
excised leaves match those of the other leaves in the book.
Also, the cut and tear marks, as well as the inscriptions in
the gutters of the three excised leaves, match those of the
remaining leaf stubs, confirming their original location in
the book. The three leaves
were
later restored
to the volume, apparently in the 1990s. This
restoration was probably part of a larger
conservation effort that took place, in which the entire volume was rebound,
including binding the formerly loose index of letters. The
first gathering, which contains the history, was slightly
trimmed in connection with this conservation work. The
volume shows marked browning, brittleness, and wear. It is
listed in Nauvoo,
Illinois, and early Salt Lake City, Utah, inventories made by the
Church Historian’s Office, as well as in the 1973 register of
the JS Collection, indicating continuous institutional
custody.
Principal gathering place for Saints following expulsion from Missouri. Beginning in 1839, LDS church purchased lands in earlier settlement of Commerce and planned settlement of Commerce City, as well as surrounding areas. Served as church headquarters, 1839...
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