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.
Personally appeared before me, , an acting Justice of the Peace in and for said , James Guymon, of Green Plains Precinct in said , and being first duly sworn, deposeth and saith, that on Saturday morning the 15th inst, he was at Rocky Run pre[HC 6:511]cinct when one Captain Wyers, captain of an ‘Independent Anti Mormon Minute Men Company’, came to a house where your deponent was staying; he enquired for a drum— he wanted either to borrow it or buy it until this affray with the Mormons was over. I asked him how he was going to proceed to take Smith; he then said had offered to send over two thousand men to come over to assist and take him. I asked whether it was legal for them to come over here; he replied when they came over the constables were going to summons them, and also to summons every man who were <was> in, or would come into the . I asked if it was according to law to proceed that way, and he replied it was, and he went in for the law and democracy. He said they had sent two men to the to order the militia out in their favor to help to take those criminals, and if he would not do just right they would execute him by taking his head from his shoulders. I replied, ‘you said you was a democracy man and went for the law’; I said, ‘do you call that democracy or mobocracy?’ He said if they went that far, and if the ordered the Militia against them instead of in favor of them, he would turn mob, and the militia would join him, and they would take the ’s head from his shoulders; he repeated it two or three times. I enquired if it was law to go and drive those innocent Mormons who were living in the neighborhood, or tyrannically compel them to do things not agreeable to their will; he allowed that in this case it was. I asked what he was going to do with those old settlers who would neither take up arms and fight against Smith, nor in favor of him; when he replied they must fight either for one side or the other, or they must share the same fate as the Mormons. Your deponent further saith that he is not a Mormon, and does not belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints; and further saith not.
James Guymon
“Subscribed and sworn to this 20th day of June, 1844, before me,
L. S.
, J. P.”
Also the affidavit of Obadiah Bowen:—
“State of Illinois,)
Hancock County,)
City of .)
“June 20th, 1844.
Personally appeared before me, , an acting Justice [HC 6:512] of the Peace in and for said , Obadiah Bowen of in said , and being first duly sworn, deposeth and saith, that on Saturday the 15th instant, John Clark rode up to where I was at work in , and said he was afraid the Mormons would come and destroy their property, and, said he, ‘if I have any destroyed by any person, I shall make my resort upon the nearest Mormons, and take their property in place of that which shall be taken away, wherever he could find it, so long as it was a Mormon’s’; and that on Tuesday the 18th inst, as I was coming from my house to the road leading to , a mob was at the Forks of the road standing still, and consulting together; I came on the road about twenty rods a head of them; in a few moments Colonel , John Clark, and five others rode along the same road after me. I heard them talking about shooting the Mormons, when Clark said, ‘it is no disgrace to shoot a Mormon any how’, when they all laughed; they overlook me, and asked me where I lived; I replied in ; he asked me if I was a Mormon, when Clark said it was no odds, he is on their part. threatened me, and said [p. 126]