The Papers
Reference
About
Agreement with Ovid Pinney and Stephen Phillips, 14 March 1837
Source Note
Source Note
, agent, on behalf of JS and , Agreement, with Ovid Pinney and Stephen Phillips, possibly Beaver Co., PA, 14 Mar. 1837; handwriting of A. B. Hull; signatures of , Ovid Pinney, and Stephen Phillips; witnessed by A. B. Hull and James McConnel; two pages; JS Office Papers, CHL. Includes docket.
Single bifolium, measuring 12¼ × 7½ inches (31 × 19 cm) when folded. The bifolium is ruled with thirty-eight horizontal, blue lines, nearly faded. After inscription, the agreement was ordered so the docket and second page were the exterior folio leaves. The document was then folded in a parallel fold twice and was docketed. Marked soiling is present on the page containing the docket.
The provenance of this document is unknown; however, given the pattern of extant Kirtland-era documents in possession of the Church History Library, this document was probably bundled and stored with other loose Kirtland financial material and was likely in continuous institutional custody.
Historical Introduction
Historical Introduction
On 14 March 1837, , acting as an agent for officers JS and , signed the agreement featured here with businessmen Ovid Pinney and Stephen Phillips and their agents A. B. Hull and James McConnel. The agreement outlined Pinney and Phillips’s commitment to circulate the notes of the society in Beaver County, Pennsylvania.
This agreement was one of several contracts the officers and managers of the Kirtland Safety Society made with their appointed agents between January and March 1837 to expand the reach of the institution and find financial support outside of the , Ohio, area. On 8 March, a week earlier, J. W. Briggs, a merchant from , Ohio, signed an agreement to act as an agent for the society in Painesville. Unlike the January agreement with David Cartter and the agreement featured here, both of which involved tens of thousands of dollars in Kirtland Safety Society notes, Briggs was given only one thousand dollars.
Compared to the earlier agreements, the arrangement with Pinney, Phillips, and their agents gave them significant autonomy, more time to circulate the society’s notes, and a larger amount of capital from which to base their loans. The Kirtland Safety Society committed to provide $40,000 in the society’s notes to Pinney and Phillips over the next four years. The independence given to Pinney and Phillips suggests a different role than agents had previously played in the circulation of the society’s notes. Additionally, they were required to mark the Kirtland Safety Society notes given to them with their names and to deposit money with the society to redeem those notes.
The arrangement appears to have been at least partially successful: several extant notes bear the names of Pinney and his agent Hull, suggesting that the notes held by the businessmen were put into circulation for a time, thereby extending the society’s access to western Pennsylvania and eastern . No further records of transactions between Pinney and Phillips and the Kirtland Safety Society exist. The closure of the society by August 1837 ended this arrangement long before the four-year period outlined in the contract was over.
Footnotes
- [1]
Both Ovid Pinney and Stephen Phillips are described as capitalists in a history of Beaver County. After moving to Pennsylvania, Pinney had purchased land and tried to create a new town in Beaver County. He was also involved in efforts to establish the Conneaut Railroad, intended to connect Pennsylvania and Ohio, beginning in 1835. Phillips, a carpenter who was a partner in a steamboat-building firm, helped found the town of Freedom, Pennsylvania, in 1832. (Patterson, “Beaver County,” 359–360.)
Patterson, James. “Beaver County.” In An Illustrated History of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Civil Political, and Military, from Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, including Historical Descriptions of Each County in the State, Their Towns, and Industrial Resources, by William H. Egle, 340–360. Harrisburg, PA: De Witt C. Goodrich, 1876.
- [2]
See Introduction to Part 5: 5 Oct. 1836–10 Apr. 1837; Agreement with David Cartter, 14 Jan. 1837; and J. W. Briggs, Bond, Kirtland, OH, 8 Mar. 1837, JS Office Papers, CHL.
- [3]
J. W. Briggs, Bond, Kirtland, OH, 8 Mar. 1837, JS Office Papers, CHL. This bond was witnessed by Warren Parrish alone, and neither of the society’s officers were recorded as being involved with the agent agreement.
- [4]
Painesville was a large market town in Geauga County and could have generated some economic support, but significant opposition against JS and the church existed there. Additionally, the Bank of Geauga was located in Painesville, and the banks’ officers likely had no desire to compete with another banking institution in Geauga County and may have worked against the Safety Society politically and economically. Grandison Newell, a determined opponent to JS and the church, was on the Bank of Geauga’s board of directors. (“Bank of Geauga,” Geauga [OH] Gazette, 28 Feb. 1832, [3]; Adams, “Grandison Newell’s Obsession,” 159–188; Agreement with David Cartter, 14 Jan. 1837; Historical Introduction to Letter from Newel K. Whitney, 20 Apr. 1837.)
Geauga Gazette. Painesville, OH. 1828–1833.
Adams, Dale W. “Grandison Newell’s Obsession.” Journal of Mormon History 30 (Spring 2004): 159–188.
- [5]
Kirtland Safety Society Notes, 4 Jan.–9 Mar. 1837; No. 735, No. 948, No. 1005, No. 913, No. 551, No. 1090, Kirtland Safety Society Notes, Jan. 1837–Mar. 1837, Coin and Currency Collection, CHL.
Coin and Currency Collection, no date. CHL.
part the Sum of Forty Thousand Dollars if we receive the Same either in paper we receive or Their own Bills or Current Money of the State of or , and we do further agree if the Bills are got in Circulation and the same or any of them are returned and redeemed by the first party on being notified by the Cashier of the Bank by Letter directed to Beaver Post Office Penn if we have not the Same amt. of their Bills in our possessi[o]n and not our Signature we will immediately Send to him a check on the Branch Bank of the United States at New Brighton to redeem the Same or one on the Branch Bank of Pittsburgh at Beaver
we do further agree that we will on receiving the Bills write one of our names across the face of the Bills or cause Some other person his— whose Signature we will acknowledge as one of ours by which our Bills may at all times be designated.
We do further agree on receiving the next Ten Thousand Dollars if this Can be put into circulation we will make a deposite of Three Thousand Dollars in the Bank of the first party to redeem our Bills when they Come in—
The fir[s]t Ten Thousand Dollars is received and acknowledged on this agreement with the following Signatures one half is Signed by Stephen Phillips or James McConnel and the other half is Signd by Ovid Pinney or AB Hull whose names one of them is on each bill and each mans names & Signature is on this Article.
The interlining on the opposite Side was done before the Signing of this agreement
In Witness whereof we have hereunto Set our hands and Seals the day & year first above written
agent Seal
Ovid Pinney Seal
S Phillips Seal
In Pressce of}
AB Hull
JM Cannel [James McConnel] [p. [2]]
Source Note
Source Note
Document Transcript
Document Information
Document Information
Footnotes
Footnotes
- [1]
Several extant Kirtland Safety Society notes bear the names of Ovid Pinney and A. B. Hull, demonstrating that they wrote their names on the notes that were given to them as they agreed to do. (See Kirtland Safety Society Notes, 4 Jan.–9 Mar. 1837; No. 735, No. 948, No. 1005, No. 913, No. 551, No. 1090, Kirtland Safety Society Notes, Jan. 1837–Mar. 1837, Coin and Currency Collection, CHL.)
Coin and Currency Collection, no date. CHL.
Signatures of Sampson Avard, Ovid Pinney, and Stephen Phillips.
- [2]
TEXT: Each instance of “Seal” is enclosed in a hand-drawn seal. Handwriting of A. B. Hull.
Signatures of A. B. Hull and James McConnel.