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Charges against Missouri Conference Preferred to Joseph Smith, circa March 1832

Source Note

and others, Charges against Preferred to JS, [ca. Mar. 1832]; handwriting of ; signatures of , , , , , and ; two pages; General Ecclesiastical Court Trials, 1832–1963, CHL. Includes docket.
One leaf, measuring 12⅜ × 7⅝ inches (31 × 19 cm). The right side and bottom of the recto have the square cut of manufactured paper, whereas the left side and the top are unevenly cut. The document was originally folded in half three times. Later, the document was refolded for filing, and mid-nineteenth-century clerk Robert Campbell inscribed a docket on the resulting recto surface: “charge preferred | against high Council | held in Jany. 1832”. There are two lines in red ink underscoring Campbell’s file notation.
The file notation and internal archival records created in 1975 indicate continuous institutional custody and authenticity.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    The document was included in a register in 1975 and was also microfilmed that year. (Case File for General Ecclesiastical Court Trials, 1832–1963, CHL.)

    General Ecclesiastical Court Trials 1832–1963. CHL.

Historical Introduction

On 28 January 1832, wrote a letter to JS, transmitting minutes from two held over three days (23–24, and 27 January) in and , Jackson County, Missouri. The minutes cover a variety of matters, including a report by on the purchase of land in , Missouri, and a discussion relating to the migration of church members to . The undated document featured here objected to several items in the minutes and charged that the conferences had not followed correct procedures in several instances. wrote the document and signed it, followed by , , , , and —all of whom were residing in in early 1832.
Details about the document’s preparation are scant, but it appears that it was created in in March 1832. Because it took approximately three to four weeks for a letter to travel between western and northeastern Ohio, ’s 28 January letter, in which the minutes were transmitted, could not have reached church leaders in Ohio before the middle of February. An 8 March note in Revelation Book 2 states that JS remained in , Ohio, between 16 February—when he and experienced a vision there—and 29 February, when he visited , Ohio. JS probably did not see Cowdery’s letter, which was actually sent to Kirtland, before he arrived there. The 8 March note’s record of a “journey to Kirtland on the 29 Feby” suggests that JS traveled the roughly thirty miles between Hiram and Kirtland over the course of that day, arriving in Kirtland in the evening or night of 29 February. Rigdon, who likely traveled with JS from Hiram to Kirtland, presumably did not read Cowdery’s letter before JS did because it was addressed to JS.
The document itself states that and the other signatories decided to bring charges against the conference only after “having received and examined the minutes . . . and from mature reflection and examination, and by comparing them with the revelations,” indicating that they did not prepare the response in haste. As originally written, the document also referred to “the court of the high Priesthood, to be holden in ,” indicating that the signatories already knew that JS was supposed to travel to Missouri, since he, as , was the only one who could call the court of the high priesthood. The instruction to go to Missouri was given in a 1 March revelation, indicating the document was likely not created before 1 March. The document was, however, likely written by the end of March, because JS, , , and departed for Missouri in the early days of April, leaving signatories , , and in .
It is difficult to ascertain when in March the document was created because there is no evidence of all six signatories being in the same place during that month. Although , , and all attended a conference in on 1 March, there is no mention of the Whitmers (who were apparently residing in ) or being present in Kirtland at that time. Likewise, JS and Rigdon returned to Hiram on 4 March, but records indicate that Hyrum Smith and Cahoon stayed in Kirtland until 3 April, by which time JS and his group had already departed for . To complicate matters, records that traveled east with him on a proselytizing mission during March. Jackman later wrote that the two departed “about the 1st of March” and seemed to indicate that they did not return until after JS and Rigdon were tarred and feathered by a group of men in Hiram on the night of 24–25 March. The attack left Rigdon incapacitated for a few days. Given all these circumstances, it seems most likely that the document was prepared and signed sometime at the beginning of March, before Peter Whitmer Jr. departed on his mission, or at the end of the month after Whitmer returned and after Rigdon regained his capacities and was fit to travel to Missouri.
Although no other records mention this document and no response from JS or from the conference leaders is extant, some action may have been taken on its charges. While copied the minutes of the 23 January session into Minute Book 2 in 1838, he did not include the minutes for the 24 January session or the 27 January conference, and most of the actions to which the complainants objected occurred during the sessions held 24 and 27 January. In the initial draft of the charges, the complainants moved that the minutes be expunged from the record, though this passage was then canceled. Since the minutes for two days of meetings do not appear in the official minutes that are extant from these years, the complainants’ concerns may have been addressed.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Letter from Oliver Cowdery, 28 Jan. 1832.

  2. [2]

    The signatories to this document held various offices in the church: Smith and Cahoon were appointed as counselors to Bishop Newel K. Whitney on 10 February 1832. Rigdon and the two Whitmers were ordained high priests in 1831. Gause and Rigdon were appointed as counselors to JS in the presidency of the high priesthood on 8 March 1832, suggesting that Gause had been ordained a high priest by early March. (Hyrum Smith, Diary and Account Book, 10 Feb. 1832; Minutes, ca. 3–4 June 1831; Minutes, 25–26 Oct. 1831; Note, 8 Mar. 1832.)

    Smith, Hyrum. Diary and Account Book, Nov. 1831–Feb. 1835. Hyrum Smith, Papers, ca. 1832–1844. BYU.

  3. [3]

    Hartley, “Letters and Mail between Kirtland and Independence,” 176, 183–184.

    Hartley, William G. “Letters and Mail between Kirtland and Independence: A Mormon Postal History, 1831–33.” Journal of Mormon History 35, no. 3 (Summer 2009): 163–189.

  4. [4]

    See Note, 8 Mar. 1832.

  5. [5]

    Before this 29 February trip, there is no evidence of Rigdon going to Kirtland from Hiram, where he was helping JS with the revision of the Bible.

  6. [6]

    See Revelation, 11 Nov. 1831–B [D&C 107:78–79].

  7. [7]

    Revelation, 1 Mar. 1832 [D&C 78:9]. JS probably received Cowdery’s letter upon his arrival in Kirtland the night before the 1 March revelation was dictated.

  8. [8]

    Sidney Rigdon, Account, 25 Mar. 1832, Sidney Rigdon, Collection, CHL; JS History, vol. A-1, 209; Hyrum Smith, Diary and Account Book, 3 Apr. 1832. Both the JS and Rigdon accounts mismatch days of the week with dates, which introduces some uncertainty as to the exact days of their departures.

    Rigdon, Sidney. Collection, 1831–1858. CHL. MS 713.

    Smith, Hyrum. Diary and Account Book, Nov. 1831–Feb. 1835. Hyrum Smith, Papers, ca. 1832–1844. BYU.

  9. [9]

    Hyrum Smith, Diary and Account Book, 1 Mar. 1832; see also Shipps and Welch, Journals of William McLellin, 68; Minute Book 2, 11 and 25–26 Oct. 1831; 1–2 and 12 Nov. 1831; Cahoon, Diary, 9 Nov. 1831; and Luke Johnson, “History of Luke Johnson,” LDS Millennial Star, 31 Dec. 1864, 26:835. It is not clear where Gause was living, though in the fall 1831 he was located in North Union, Ohio, fifteen miles from Kirtland. For at least part of March, Gause was apparently helping JS with his Bible revisions in Hiram. (Jennings, “Consequential Counselor,” 183.)

    Smith, Hyrum. Diary and Account Book, Nov. 1831–Feb. 1835. Hyrum Smith, Papers, ca. 1832–1844. BYU.

    Shipps, Jan, and John W. Welch, eds. The Journals of William E. McLellin, 1831–1836. Provo, UT: BYU Studies; Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994.

    Cahoon, Reynolds. Diaries, 1831–1832. CHL. MS 1115.

    Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star. Manchester, England, 1840–1842; Liverpool, 1842–1932; London, 1932–1970.

    Jennings, Erin B. “The Consequential Counselor: Restoring the Root(s) of Jesse Gause.” Journal of Mormon History 34 (Spring 2008): 182–227.

  10. [10]

    Note, 8 Mar. 1832; Hyrum Smith, Diary and Account Book, 1 Mar.–3 Apr. 1832.

    Smith, Hyrum. Diary and Account Book, Nov. 1831–Feb. 1835. Hyrum Smith, Papers, ca. 1832–1844. BYU.

  11. [11]

    Jackman, “Sketch of Life,” [5]; Jackman, “A Short Sketch of the Life of Levi Jackman,” 2. Jackman stated that he traveled with “Peter Whitmer,” likely twenty-three-year-old Peter Whitmer Jr. rather than fifty-eight-year-old Peter Whitmer Sr. (“Records of Early Church Families,” Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine July 1935, 26:106; Dear, Two Hundred Thirty-Eight Years of the Whitmer Family, 10.)

    Jackman, Levi. “Sketch of Life,” 1851. Typescript. CHL. MS 15648.

    Jackman, Levi. “A Short Sketch of the Life of Levi Jackman,” ca. 1851. Typescript. CHL. M270.1 J123ja 18--?.

    “Records of Early Church Families.” Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine 26 (July 1935): 101–110.

    Dear, Mary Cleora. Two Hundred Thirty-Eight Years of the Whitmer Family, 1737–1976. Richmond, MO: Beck Printing, 1976.

  12. [12]

    According to a later JS history, JS visited Rigdon the morning after the attack “and found him crazy, and his head highly inflamed.” Rigdon “continued delirious some days.” (JS History, vol. A-1, 208.)

  13. [13]

    By the middle of the week following the attack, Rigdon was well enough to move his family from Hiram to Kirtland, even with the rest of his family sick with measles. After arriving in Kirtland, Rigdon could conceivably have presented the document to Cahoon and Hyrum Smith for their signatures. (JS History, vol. A-1, 209; Sidney Rigdon, Account, 25 Mar. 1832, Sidney Rigdon, Collection, CHL.)

    Rigdon, Sidney. Collection, 1831–1858. CHL. MS 713.

  14. [14]

    Minute Book 2, 23 Jan. 1832. Robinson was apparently copying from a compilation of minutes made by John Whitmer. Because Whitmer’s compilation is no longer extant, it is not known whether Whitmer included the minutes from 24 and 27 January in his compilation. (Ebenezer Robinson, “Items of Personal History of the Editor,” Return [Davis City, IA], Sept. 1889, 133.)

    The Return. Davis City, IA, 1889–1891; Richmond, MO, 1892–1893; Davis City, 1895–1896; Denver, 1898; Independence, MO, 1899–1900.

  15. [15]

    Minutes from Missouri conferences after March 1832 do not designate a moderator when Edward Partridge is present, perhaps because of the complaints made in this document. (See, for example, Minute Book 2, 26 May 1832; 3 July 1832; and 2 Oct. 1832.)

Page [1]

We the undersigned having received and examined the minutes of the last general held in the land of on the January 28–9–30th— 1832 and from mature reflection and examination, and by comparing them with the revelations which we have received from our heavenly <​father​> to regulate his in these last days, do find that they are illegal, and the proceedings of said confrence not according to the laws and regulations which we have received by revelation from our common redeemer and as such we do not consider them as binding on his church, neither do we feel ourselves authorized to acknowledge them as being <​of​> God nor yet according [to] the mind of the holy spirit. We therefore prefer the following charges against that conference to the our beloved brother Joseph who has been unto this office by a conference held in Lorain county ohio on the 25 of January 1832
First we charge this conference with insulting the in our beloved , by saying [2 words illegible] in their minutes “appointed brother moderator” when he has been previously appointed moderator of the conferences in by commandment, and also modrator by virtue of his office as Bishop of the church in so doing assuming an authority as a conference to which they had no right for when God appoints authorities in his church let no conference take it upon them to reappoint these authorities for in so doing the[y] claim a right which is not granted to them
First we charge deem if [it] of primary importance that every order & regulation in the church of Christ, established in wisdom, for its government should be preserved inviolate, & as the proceeding[s] of this conference reported in its minutes relative to the appointment of a moderator are illegal at as that office, by revelation was confered upon an individual, namely our beloved , of the Church. We therefore charge the conference <​in this act of appointment​> with assuming a power with which it has not been invested.
Secondly), In said minutes we find find the name <​of​> associated with breatheren and in writing a letter to the agent in in on business [p. [1]]
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Document Information

Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Charges against Missouri Conference Preferred to Joseph Smith, circa March 1832
ID #
6771
Total Pages
2
Print Volume Location
JSP, D2:222–229
Handwriting on This Page
  • Sidney Rigdon

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Extant minutes of conferences held in Missouri after March 1832 suggest that no other general conference was held there until 1838, although holding a general conference of elders was proposed later in 1832. (See Minute Book 2, 15 Sept. 1832 and 6–7 July 1838.)

  2. [2]

    This dating is apparently in error. The letter from Oliver Cowdery gives 23–24 January and 27 January 1832 as the dates of the conferences, and the minutes in Minute Book 2 date the first session as 23 January. Since Cowdery’s letter is dated 28 January, the complainants may have mistakenly assumed 28 January was the first day of the conferences and that they continued on 29 and 30 January. (Letter from Oliver Cowdery, 28 Jan. 1832; Minute Book 2, 23 Jan. 1832.)

  3. [3]

    Minutes, 26–27 Apr. 1832. According to a November 1831 revelation, the president of the high priesthood had the responsibility of handling “the most important business of the church & the most difficult cases of the church.” (Revelation, 11 Nov. 1831–B [D&C 107:78].)

  4. [4]

    TEXT: Possibly “We of”.

  5. [5]

    TEXT: “not” changed to “no” then canceled with the rest of the passage.

  6. [6]

    TEXT: Likely “proceedings”, with the “s” written beyond the edge of the page.

  7. [7]

    It is unclear to which revelation the complainants are referring. A revelation dated 1 August 1831 instructed the elders of the church to hold a conference to be directed by Partridge, but this does not appear to be a standing appointment. Another revelation addressed to Partridge, dated 20 July 1831, does not specifically mention a role for the bishop as moderator of conferences. The minutes themselves do not elaborate on how or why Partridge was appointed moderator. Extant minutes from other conferences prior to November 1831 generally do not refer to the selection of a moderator. The minutes of the special conferences held the first two weeks of November 1831, however, all indicate that the conferences “appointed” a moderator at the beginning of each meeting, although the minutes do not provide details on the selection process. (Revelation, 1 Aug. 1831 [D&C 58:62]; Revelation, 20 July 1831 [D&C 57]; Letter from Oliver Cowdery, 28 Jan. 1832; see also Minutes, 1–2 Nov. 1831; Minutes, 8 Nov. 1831; Minutes, 9 Nov. 1831; and Minutes, 12 Nov. 1831.)

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