JS, History, 1838–1856, vol. B-1, created 1 Oct. 1843–24 Feb. 1845; handwriting of and ; 297 pages, plus 10 pages of addenda; CHL. This is the second volume of a six-volume manuscript history of the church. This second volume covers the period from 1 Sept. 1834 to 2 Nov. 1838; the subsequent four volumes, labeled C-1 through F-1, continue through 8 Aug. 1844.
Historical Introduction
This document, volume B-1, is the second of the six volumes of the “Manuscript History of the Church.” The collection was compiled over the span of seventeen years, 1838 to 1856. The narrative in volume B-1 begins with the entry for 1 September 1834, just after the conclusion of the Camp of Israel (later called Zion’s Camp), and continues to 2 November 1838, when JS was interned as a prisoner of war at , Missouri. For a fuller discussion of the entire six-volume work, see the general introduction to the history.
, serving as JS’s “private secretary and historian,” completed the account of JS’s history contained in volume A-1 in August 1843. It covered the period from JS’s birth in 1805 through the aftermath of the Camp of Israel in August 1834. When work resumed on the history on 1 October 1843, Richards started a new volume, eventually designated B-1.
At the time of JS’s death in June 1844, the account had been advanced to 5 August 1838, on page 812 of volume B-1. ’s poor health led to the curtailment of work on B-1 for several months, until 11 December 1844. On that date, Richards and , assisted by , resumed gathering the records and reports needed to draft the history. Richards then composed and drafted roughed-out notes while Thomas Bullock compiled the text of the history and inscribed it in B-1. They completed their work on the volume on or about 24 February 1845. Richards, , and Jonathan Grimshaw later added ten pages of “Addenda,” which provided notes, extensive revisions, or additional text to be inserted in the original manuscript where indicated.
Though JS did not dictate or revise any of the text recorded in B-1, and chose to maintain the first-person, chronological narrative format established in A-1 as if JS were the author. They drew from a variety of primary and secondary sources including JS’s diaries and letters, minutes of meetings, the first edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, church and other periodicals, reports of JS’s discourses, and the reminiscences and recollections of church members. As was the case with A-1, after JS’s death, , , , and others modified and corrected the manuscript as they reviewed material before its eventual publication.
Beginning in March 1842 the church’s Nauvoo periodical, the Times and Seasons, began publishing the narrative as the “History of Joseph Smith.” It was also published in England in the church periodical the Millennial Star beginning in June 1842. Once a press was established in Utah and the Deseret News began publication, the “History of Joseph Smith” once more appeared in print in serialized form. Beginning with the November 1851 issue, the narrative picked up where the Times and Seasons had left off over five years earlier.
The narrative recorded in B-1 continued the story of JS’s life as the prophet and president of the church he labored to establish. The account encompasses significant developments in the church’s two centers at that time—, Ohio, and northwest —during a four-year-span. Critical events included the organization of the Quorums of the Twelve Apostles and the Seventy, the dedication of the House of the Lord in Kirtland, Ohio, the establishment of the Kirtland Safety Society, dissension and apostasy in Kirtland and Missouri, the first mission to England, JS’s flight from Kirtland to Missouri in the winter of 1838, the Saints’ exodus from Kirtland later that year, the disciplining of the Missouri presidency, and the outbreak of the Missouri War and arrest of JS. Thus, B-1 provides substantial detail regarding a significant period of church expansion and transition as well as travail.
<December 31 Mummies.> of last July. It has been said that the purchasers of these antiquities pretend they have the body of Abraham, Abimelech, The king of the Philistines. Joseph who was sold into Egypt, &c, &c, for the purpose of attracting the attention of the multitude, and gulling the unwarry; which is utterly false. Who these ancient inhabitants of Egypts were I do not, at present, say. Abraham was buried on his own possession “in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron, the Son of Zohar the Hittite, which is before Mamre,” which he purchased of the sons of Heth; Abimelech lived in the same country and for ought we know died there; and the children of Israel carried Joseph’s bones from Egypt, when they went out under Moses. Consequently could not have been found in Egypt in the <Egyptian Records.> nineteenth century. The record of Abraham and Joseph, found with the Mummies, is beautifully written on papyrus with black, and a small part, red ink or paint, in perfect preservation. The characters are such as you find upon the coffins of Mummies; hieroglyphics, &c. with many characters or letters like the present (though probably not quite so square,) form of the Hebrew without points. “These records were obtained from one of the Catacombs, or in Egypt, near the place where once stood the renowned city of Thebes, by the celebrated French traveller Antonio Lebolo. in the year 1831. He procured license from Mehemet Ali, then Viceroy of Egypt, under the protection of Chevalier Drovetti, the French consul, in the 1828; employed 433 men, four months and two days, (if I understood correctly,) Egyptian or Turkish soldiers, at from four to 6 cents per Diem, each man: entered the catacomb June 7th 1831. and obtained eleven mummies. There were several hun[HC 2:348]dred mummies in the same catacomb; about one hundred embalmed after the first order, and deposited and placed in niches; and two or three hundred after the second and third order; and laid upon the floor or bottom of the grand cavity; The two last orders of Embalmed were so decayed that they could not be removed, and only eleven of the first found in the niches. On his way from Alexandria to Paris he put in at Trieste, and after ten days illness expired. This was in the year 1832. Previous to his decease, he made a will of the whole to Mr , (then in . Pa, <Pennsylvania.>) his nephew, whom he supposed to have been in Ireland. Accordingly the whole were sent to Dublin, and ’s friends ordered them to , where they were received at the Custom house in the winter or Spring of 1833. In April of the same year, paid the duties, and took possession of his mummies. Up to this time, they had not been taken out of the coffins nor the coffins opened. On opening the coffins he discovered that in connection with two of the bodies, were something rolled up with the same kind of linen, saturated with the same bitumen, which when examined, proved to be two rolls of papyrus [p. 675]