Revelation, 20 July 1831 [D&C 57]

Located 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...

Settled at Fort Osage, 1808. County created, 16 Feb. 1825; organized 1826. Named after U.S. President Andrew Jackson. Featured fertile lands along Missouri River and was Santa Fe Trail departure point, which attracted immigrants to area. Area of county reduced...

An ecclesiastical and priesthood office. JS appointed Edward Partridge as the first bishop in February 1831. Following this appointment, he functioned as the local leader of the church in Missouri. Later revelations described a bishop’s duties as receiving...

27 Aug. 1793–27 May 1840. Hatter. Born at Pittsfield, Berkshire Co., Massachusetts. Son of William Partridge and Jemima Bidwell. Moved to Painesville, Geauga Co., Ohio. Married Lydia Clisbee, 22 Aug. 1819, at Painesville. Initially a Universal Restorationist...

28 Dec. 1789–29 June 1834. Merchant. Born at New Haven, New Haven Co., Connecticut. Son of Eli Gilbert and Lydia Hemingway. Moved to Huntington, Fairfield Co., Connecticut; to Monroe, Monroe Co., Michigan, by Sept. 1818; to Painesville, Geauga Co., Ohio; ...

This heading likely did not appear in the original manuscript; John Whitmer likely added it when he copied the revelation into Revelation Book 1. It is not included in other manuscript copies of the revelation. At some point, Whitmer added “Not to be printed at present” to the copy in Revelation Book 1, and the revelation was not printed until the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants. (Revelation Book 1, p. 93, in JSP, MRB:159; Gilbert, Notebook, [34]; Revelation Book 2, p. 89, in JSP, MRB:595 [D&C 57]; Doctrine and Covenants 27, 1835 ed.)
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An administrative and ecclesiastical office not associated with age. The Book of Mormon explained that elders ordained priests and teachers and administered “the flesh and blood of Christ unto the church.” The articles and covenants of the church directed...

The Book of Mormon related that when Christ set up his church in the Americas, “they which were baptized in the name of Jesus, were called the church of Christ.” The first name used to denote the church JS organized on 6 April 1830 was “the Church of Christ...

Generally, a divine mandate that church members were expected to obey; more specifically, a text dictated by JS in the first-person voice of deity that served to communicate knowledge and instruction to JS and his followers. Occasionally, other inspired texts...

Area 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...

As directed by early revelations, church members “gathered” in communities. A revelation dated September 1830, for instance, instructed elders “to bring to pass the gathering of mine elect” who would “be gathered in unto one place, upon the face of this land...

A September 1830 revelation announced that Jesus Christ would “gether his People even as a hen gethereth her Chickens under her wings.” It also appointed the elders “to bring to pass the gethering of mine Elect.” (Revelation, Sept. 1830–A, in JSP, D1:XXX [D&C 29:1–2, 7].)  

See Hebrews 11:9; see also Book of Mormon, 1830 ed., 9 [1 Nephi 2:20]. A January 1831 revelation stated that God would lead church members to “a land of promise.” Later that month, Sidney Rigdon was reported to have proclaimed that the “land of promise” extended from Ohio to the Pacific Ocean. (Revelation, 2 Jan. 1831, in JSP, D1:XXX [D&C 38:18]; Waterloo, NY, 26 Jan. [1831], Letter to the Editor, Reflector [Palmyra, NY], 1 Feb. 1831, 95; see also Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, 110–111.)
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In JS’s earliest revelations “the cause of Zion” was used to broadly describe the work JS was called to do. However, the term Zion was soon used more specifically to describe a community of believers who live in harmony and equality. The Book of Mormon explained...

Located 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...

JS revelation, dated 20 July 1831, directed temple to be built short distance west of courthouse on hill just outside of Independence, Missouri. JS directed dedication of temple site by Sidney Rigdon, 3 Aug. 1831. On same date, church claimed site for eventual...

Independence became county seat for Jackson Co., 29 Mar. 1827. First courthouse, single-story log structure located on lot 59 at intersection of Lynn and Lexington Streets, completed, Aug. 1828. Second courthouse, two-story brick structure located at center...

This courthouse was an almost-completed brick structure built in the center of Independence’s public square. The public square, on which the town of Independence was centered, was situated on the highest point of the gentle-sloped bluffs on the southern side of the Missouri River between the Blue and Little Blue rivers. (Parkin, “Courthouse Mentioned in the Revelation on Zion,” 451–456; U.S. Department of the Interior, Geological Survey Topographic Map: Missouri, Independence, Quadrangle, 7.5 Minute Series, 1996.)
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The spot for the temple was on a western promontory of the same bluff as the courthouse but outside the town’s boundaries. Ezra Booth, who arrived in Missouri shortly after JS, wrote that the temple spot was “one half of a mile out of the Town” on “a rise of ground, a short distance south of the road.” The spot was marked at this time during JS’s stay in Missouri, and by the end of the year Bishop Edward Partridge purchased a parcel of land including the spot. (Ezra Booth, “Mormonism—No. VI,” Ohio Star [Ravenna], 17 Nov. 1831, [3]; see also Richard P. Howard, “The Spot for the Temple,” Saints’ Herald, June 1987, 9–10; and Romig, Early Independence, Missouri, 15–18.)
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Those who were not members of the House of Israel. More specifically, members of the church identified gentiles as those whose lineage was not of the Jews or Lamanites (understood to be the American Indians in JS’s day). Certain prophecies indicated that ...

This apparently refers to the border between Missouri and land to the west occupied by American Indians. An earlier revelation referred to this boundary as “the borders of the Lamanites.”a Both the Book of Mormon and JS’s revelations sometimes identified the “Lamanites” (the name by which JS and his followers referred to American Indians) as Jews.b The Book of Mormon also refers to those Europeans who would colonize the Americas as “gentiles,” as do some of JS’s revelations.c Prophecies in the Book of Mormon stated that, in the last days, those Gentiles who accepted the “fulness of the gospel” would be “numbered” with the “remnant of Jacob”—believed by the Saints at that time to be the American Indians—and would help them build the New Jerusalem. The Book of Mormon also taught that the New Jerusalem “should be built up upon this land, unto the remnant of the seed of Joseph.”d
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Likely a reference to the land west of Missouri. Early church member Elizabeth Godkin Marsh reported that those who went with JS to Missouri said that “a little beyond Jackson Co[unty] . . . there is one continued prairies to the rocky and shining Mountain.” Likewise, gazetteers portrayed the Indian lands—especially those bordering Missouri—as “fertile prairie land.” The commandment to purchase additional tracts “bordering by the Prairies” apparently meant to purchase not only a strip of land between the temple lot and the border between Jackson County and the Indian lands but additional land along the border. (Elizabeth Godkin Marsh, Kirtland Mills, OH, to Lewis Abbott and Ann Abbott, East Sudbury, MA, Sept. [1831], Abbott Family Collection, CHL; Baldwin and Thomas, New and Complete Gazetteer of the United States, 522; Goodrich, World as It Is, 125.)
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Generally referred to land promised by or received from God for the church and its members. A January 1831 revelation promised church members a land of inheritance. In March and May 1831, JS dictated revelations commanding members “to purchase lands for an...

28 Dec. 1789–29 June 1834. Merchant. Born at New Haven, New Haven Co., Connecticut. Son of Eli Gilbert and Lydia Hemingway. Moved to Huntington, Fairfield Co., Connecticut; to Monroe, Monroe Co., Michigan, by Sept. 1818; to Painesville, Geauga Co., Ohio; ...

A June 1831 revelation appointed Gilbert as an agent to the church. (Revelation, 8 June 1831, in JSP, D1:XXX [D&C 53:4].)  

27 Aug. 1793–27 May 1840. Hatter. Born at Pittsfield, Berkshire Co., Massachusetts. Son of William Partridge and Jemima Bidwell. Moved to Painesville, Geauga Co., Ohio. Married Lydia Clisbee, 22 Aug. 1819, at Painesville. Initially a Universal Restorationist...

Missing text supplied from versions of this revelation in Gilbert, Notebook, [35]; and Revelation Book 2, p. 90, in JSP, MRB:597. Whitmer also later added “divide” to the manuscript in Revelation Book 1. (Revelation Book 1, p. 93, in JSP, MRB:159.)
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Revelation, 20 May 1831, in JSP, D1:XXX [D&C 51:3]; see also Numbers 33:54. Those previously “appointed to assist” Partridge were Isaac Morley and John Corrill, who were “ordained assistants to the Bishop” in a June 1831 conference. (Minutes, ca. 3–4 June 1831, in JSP, D1:XXX.)  

28 Dec. 1789–29 June 1834. Merchant. Born at New Haven, New Haven Co., Connecticut. Son of Eli Gilbert and Lydia Hemingway. Moved to Huntington, Fairfield Co., Connecticut; to Monroe, Monroe Co., Michigan, by Sept. 1818; to Painesville, Geauga Co., Ohio; ...

JS revelation, dated 20 July 1831, directed A. Sidney Gilbert, Newel K. Whitney’s Ohio business partner, to establish store in Independence. Gilbert first purchased vacated log courthouse, located on lot 59 at intersection of Lynn and Lexington Streets, to...