For the text of this statement written by Hyde and additional context, see Orson Hyde, Statement about the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, ca. 25 Mar. 1845. The certificate discussed authority JS said he had given to members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the subsequent charge to them that likely occurred in a Council of Fifty meeting on 26 March 1844. Hyde indicated that the meeting occurred “in the latter part” of March 1844 at a council held in Nauvoo at JS’s store and that was attended by most of the apostles as well as members of the high priests quorum. Hyde felt a need to publish this statement to confirm that JS “did declare that he had conferred upon the Twelve every key and ever[y] power that he ever held himself before God.” Because Young did not endorse publication, the document was never completed, signed, or included in JS’s multivolume history. (See Council of Fifty, “Record,” 26 Mar. 1844.)

The concluding sentence of Hyde’s document states, “This our testimony we expect to meet in a coming day when all parties will know that we have told the truth and have not lied, so help us God.” (Orson Hyde, Statement about the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, ca. 25 Mar. 1845, Brigham Young Office Files, CHL.)

Hyde’s document lists himself and seven other members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles who he apparently believed had been in attendance—Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Parley P. Pratt, Orson Pratt, John Taylor, Willard Richards, and Wilford Woodruff—as well as Amasa Lyman, who in March 1844 was a counselor in the First Presidency and an apostle but not a current member of the Quorum of the Twelve. With the exception of Orson Pratt, who had left Nauvoo for Washington, all of these men likely attended the Council of Fifty meeting on 26 March 1844 that is a probable setting for the events described in Hyde’s document. All of these apostles, except for Parley P. Pratt and Woodruff, were present at this 25 March 1845 council meeting. However, Hyde had not prepared a certificate for the apostles to sign but one for other witnesses to sign attesting to what JS had said of the Twelve. (Orson Hyde, Statement about the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, ca. 25 Mar. 1845, Brigham Young Office Files, CHL; Council of Fifty, “Record,” 26 Mar. 1844; Historian’s Office, General Church Minutes, 30 Sept. 1855.)

Historian’s Office. General Church Minutes, 1839–1877. CHL

Members of the Twelve and other church members later referred to multiple occasions when JS said that he had empowered the Twelve and rolled the burden onto their shoulders. As he was not present at the late March 1844 council meeting that Hyde’s account describes, Pratt is presumably referring to one of these other occasions. (For references to these other occasions, see, for example, Heber C. Kimball, in Journal of Discourses, 8 Oct. 1852, 1:206; Brigham Young, Discourse, 6 Oct. 1866, in George D. Watt, Discourse Shorthand Notes, 6 Oct. 1866, George D. Watt, Papers, CHL, as transcribed by LaJean Purcell Carruth; and Bathsheba W. Bigler Smith, Autobiography, 10–11.)

Journal of Discourses. 26 vols. Liverpool: F. D. Richards, 1855–1886.

Watt, George D. Papers, ca. 1846–1865. CHL.

Smith, Bathsheba W. Bigler. Autobiography, ca. 1875–1906. Microfilm. CHL.

Though he here acknowledged having heard JS make statements similar to the ones reported in Hyde’s draft, Pratt was concerned that publishing such a document without more detail might be misleading. The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was created and its initial members, including Pratt, ordained in the spring of 1835, and Pratt may have considered that time as the “proper date of the authority and appointment” of the Twelve. (Record of the Twelve, 14 Feb. and 26 Apr. 1835.)