JS, History, 1838–1856, vol. F-1, created 9 Apr.–7 June 1856 and 20 Aug. 1856–6 Nov. 1856; handwriting of and Jonathan Grimshaw; 304 pages, plus 10 pages of addenda; CHL. This is the final volume of a six-volume manuscript history of the church. This sixth volume covers the period from 1 May to 8 Aug. 1844; the remaining five volumes, labeled A-1 through E-1, go through 30 Apr. 1844.
Historical Introduction
History, 1838-1856, volume F-1, constitutes the last of six volumes documenting the life of Joseph Smith and the early years of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The series is also known as the Manuscript History of the Church and was originally published serially from 1842 to 1846 and 1851 to 1858 as the “History of Joseph Smith” in the Times and Seasons and Deseret News. This volume contains JS’s history from 1 May 1844 to the events following his 27 June 1844 death, and it was compiled in Utah Territory in 1856.
The material recorded in volume F-1 was initially compiled under the direction of church historian , who was JS’s cousin, and also assistant church historian . Smith collaborated with in collecting material for the volume and creating a set of draft notes, which Smith dictated to Bullock and other clerks. Woodruff gathered additional material concerning the death of Joseph Smith as a supplement to George A. Smith’s work recording that event. Jonathan Grimshaw and , members of the Historian’s Office staff, transcribed the draft notes into the volume along with the text of designated documents.
According to the Historian’s Office journal, Jonathan Grimshaw initiated work on the text of volume F-1 on 9 April 1856, soon after Robert L. Campbell had completed work on volume E-1. (Historian’s Office, Journal, 5 and 9 Apr. 1856.) Grimshaw’s scribal work begins with an entry for 1 May 1844. Unlike previous volumes in which the numbering had run consecutively to page 2028, Grimshaw began anew with page 1. He transcribed 150 pages by June 1856, and his last entry was for 23 June 1844. Though more of his writing does not appear in the volume, he continued to work in the office until 2 August, before leaving for the East that same month. (Historian’s Office, Journal, 2 and 10 Aug. 1856.)
assumed the role of scribe on 20 August 1856. (Historian’s Office, Journal, 20 Aug. 1856.) He incorporated ’s draft notes for the period 24–29 June 1844 on pages 151–189, providing an account of JS’s death and its immediate aftermath. He next transcribed a related extract from ’s 1854 History of Illinois on pages 190–204. Pages 205–227 were left blank.
provided the notes for the final portion of the text. This account begins with an entry for 22 June 1844 and continues the record through 8 August 1844, ending on page 304. (The volume also included ten pages of addenda.) The last specific entry in the Historian’s Office journal that captures at work on the history is for 6 November 1856. A 2 February 1857 Wilford Woodruff letter to indicates that on 30 January 1857, the “presidency sat and heard the history read up to the organization of the church in , 8th. day of August 1844.” (Historian’s Office, Journal, 6 Nov. 1856; Wilford Woodruff, Great Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, to George A. Smith, 2 Feb. 1857, Historian’s Office, Letterpress Copybooks, vol. 1, p. 410; see also Wilford Woodruff, Great Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, to Amasa Lyman and Charles C. Rich, 28 Feb. 1857, Historian’s Office, Letterpress Copybooks, vol. 1, pp. 430–431.)
The pages of volume F-1 contain a record of the final weeks of JS’s life and the events of the ensuing days. The narrative commences with and arriving at , Illinois, on 1 May 1844 from their lumber-harvesting mission in the “” of Wisconsin Territory. As the late spring and summer of 1844 unfold, events intensify, especially those surrounding the suppression of the Nauvoo Expositor in mid-June. Legal action over the Expositor leads to a charge of riot, and subsequently JS is charged with treason and is incarcerated at the jail in , Illinois. The narrative of volume F-1 concludes with an account of the special church conference convened on 8 August 1844 to consider who should assume the leadership of the church.
“They found fault with Jesus Christ because he said he was the Son of God, and made himself equal with God. They say of me like they did of the Apostles of old, that I must be put down. What did Jesus say? ‘Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are Gods? If he called them Gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?’ It was through him that they drank of the spiritual rock; of course he would take the honor to himself. Jesus, if they were called Gods unto whom the word of God came, why should it be thought blasphemy that I should say I am the son of God? Oh poor blind apostates, did you never think of this before? These are the quotations that the apostates take from the scriptures. They swear that they believe the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine and Covenants; and then you will get from them filth, slander, and bogus makers plenty. One of the apostate church official members prophesied that Joseph shoiuld never preach any more, and yet I am now preaching.
“Go and read the vision in the Book of Covenants; there is clearly illustrated glory upon glory, one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and a glory of the stars; and as one star differeth from another star in glory, even so do they of the telestial world differ in glory; and every man who reigns in Celestial glory is a God to his dominions. By the apostates admitting the testimony of the Doctrine and Covnants they damn themselves. Paul, what do you say? They impeached Paul, [HC 6:477] and all went and left him. Paul had seven churches, and they drove him off from among them; and yet they cannot do it by me. I rejoice in that; my testimony is good. Paul says ‘there is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead’. They who obtain a glorious resurrection from the dead are exalted far above principalities, powers, thrones, dominions, and angels; and are expressly declared to be heirs of God, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ, all having eternal power.
“The scriptures are a mixture of very strange doctrines to the Christian world, who are blindly led by the blind. I will refer to another scripture: ‘Now’, says God when He visited Moses in the Bush— (Moses was a stammering sort of a boy like me—) God said, ‘thou shalt be a God unto the Children of Israel’. God said ‘thou shalt be a God unto Aaron, and he shall be thy spokesman’. I believe those Gods that God reveals as Gods to be sons of God, and all can cry ‘Abba, Father.’ Sons of God who exalt themselves to be Gods even from before the foundation of the world, and are the only Gods I have a reverence for. John said he was a King. ‘And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful Witness, and the First begotten of the dead, and the prince of the Kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us Kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.’ Oh thou God who art King of Kings and Lord of Lords <the Sectarian world by their actions declare> ‘we cannot believe thee’. The old Catholic Church traditions are worth more than all you have said; here is a principle of logic that most men have no more sense than to adopt— I will illustrate it by an old apple tree, here jumps off a branch and says I am the true tree, and you are corrupt. If the whole tree is corrupt are not its branches corrupt? If the Catholic religion is a false religion how can any true religion come out of it? If the Catholic church is bad how can any good thing come out of it? The characters of the old churches have always been slandered by all apostates since the world began. I testify again, as the Lord lives God never will acknowledge any traitors or apostates; any man who will betray the Catholics will betray you, and if he will betray me he will betray you. All men are liars who say they are of the true church without the revelations of Jesus Christ and the Priesthood of Melchisedeck [p. 104]