The “Historian’s Office, Martyrdom Account, Draft,” and the “Historian’s Office, Martyrdom Account” are the two complete, extant iterations of efforts by later church historians to record the murder of JS and , including the events leading up to their deaths and the immediate aftermath. As stated at the beginning of both accounts, the information was compiled from a number of different sources, including other journals, letters, and various other documents. It was put into a cohesive narrative during the 1850s by Church Historian’s Office clerks , Jonathan Grimshaw, and , presumably under the direction of the church historian, .
was the initial scribe for approximately the first half of “Historian’s Office, Martyrdom Account, Draft,” and Grimshaw was the primary scribe for the remainder. Sometimes slips of paper were attached to pages of the draft with additional or alternative text to be included with a specific page. Page 12 of the draft has a notation by Grimshaw indicating that previously drafted text was to be added to the draft; instead of copying the text, he simply inserted a whole leaf into the draft. This leaf, in ’s handwriting, contains various numbered vignettes. It appears to be part of a larger collection of vignettes, as it is paginated “5” and “6,” and is likely the surviving portion of an earlier iteration of the martyrdom account by Thomas Bullock. The remainder of Bullock’s effort is not extant.
“Historian’s Office, Martyrdom Account,” which is a more final copy written primarily by Grimshaw in the mid-1850s, similarly has slips of papers attached. It also includes several leaves that were physically removed from “Martyrdom Account, Draft”; these leaves were renumbered to match the pagination of the copy: pages 7–10 in the draft became pages 11–14 in the more final copy; pages 13–14 became 19–20; most extensively, pages 19–52 became 27–60; and finally, page 57, the last page of the draft, became page 73 in the new version. Although these leaves are cataloged with the more final copy, this website presents the pages both in the draft, as originally paginated, and in the more final copy, with the new pagination. Two additional items were added at the end of the more final copy. A bifolium paginated as “75” and “2” and written on the back of a printed Utah Territory legal form gives an account of the arrival of the bodies of JS and Hyrum Smith in Nauvoo as well as the funeral and burial. It was written by Grimshaw and edited by from information given by . On the final leaf, which is torn and is paginated “76,” Bullock drafted an introduction to a passage from ’s History of Illinois, with instructions to include the passage from Ford’s history in the martyrdom account.
Both the draft and the more final copy were edited by , Grimshaw, and . It is not clear when the edits were made. The more final copy of the account appears to be what was used in 1856 when the final version was copied into the last volume of the Joseph Smith’s multivolume manuscript history (JS History, vol. F-1, 147, 151–204).
Page 54a
continued parrying their guns until they had got them about half their length into the room when he found resistance was vain, and he attempted to jump out of the window, when a ball fired from within struck him on his left thigh hitting the bone it <and> passed passing through to within half an inch of the other side. He fell on the window sill when a ball fired from outside struck his watch in his vest pocket which threw him back into the room. After he fell into the room he was hit by two more balls, one of them injuring his left wrist considerably and the other entering at the side of the bone just below the left knee. He rolled under the bed which was at the right of the window in the south east corner of the room. While he lay under the bed he was fired at several times from the stairway; one ball struck him in the left hip which tore the flesh in a shocking manner and large quantities of blood were scattered upon the wall and floor.
When fell Joseph exclaimed “Oh dear! brother !” and opening the door a few inches snapped discharged his six s<revolver> <six shooter> in the stairway, three barrels of which missed fire, while kept knocking down the bayonets and muskets. Joseph seeing there was no safety in the room, and probably thinking that it would save the lives of his brethren in the room if he could escape, turned calmly from the door, dropped his pistol on the floor saying “there, defend yourselves as well as you can”. He sprang into the window, when two balls pierced him from the door, and one entered his right breast from without, and he fell outward into the hands of his murderers exclaiming “O Lord, my God!!” He fell partly on his right shoulder and back, his neck and head reaching the ground a little before his feet, and he rolled instantly on his face. From this position he was taken by a young man who was barefoot and bareheaded, having on no coat, his pants [p. 54a]
Leo Hawkins handwriting ends; Jonathan Grimshaw begins. Grimshaw inserted this leaf and added a note on page 54 indicating that the text on this leaf should be inserted on page 54.