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.
<June 22> or resolution declaring said press and paper to be a public nuisance, and ordered the same to be abated as such; that a writ was issued by the Mayor to the of the for that purpose; that a military order was issued at the same time by the Mayor, who is also Lieutenant General of the Nauvoo Legion, to the in Command of that Legion, for a force sufficient to ensure the execution of the writ aforesaid.
“It appears also the press was destroyed in obedience to the foregoing ordinance and writ according to a return on the same by the in the following words: ‘The within press and type is destroyed and pied according to order on this 10th day of June 1844 at about 6 o’clock P. M. , C. M.’
“It appears also that the owners of the press obtained from a justice of the peace at a warrant against the authors of this destruction for a riot; that the charged with the execution of this process arrested some of the persons accused, who immediately obtained writs of Habeas Corpus from the Municipal Court of your , by virtue of which they were tried in , and discharged from arrest; and that they have ever since refused to be arrested, or to submit to a trial at any other place, or before any other court except in the , and before the Municipal court aforesaid.
“It has also been reported to me that Martial law has been declared in ; that persons and property have been and are now forcibly imprisoned and detained there and that the Legion has been ordered under arms to resist any attempt to arrest the persons accused. I have not particularly enquired into the truth of these latter reports; for although they may become matters of great importance in the sequel, they are not necessary to be ascertained and acted upon at present.
“I now express to you my opinion that your conduct in the destruction of the press was a very gross outrage upon the laws and the liberties of the people. It may have been full of libels, but this did not authorize you to destroy it. There are many Newspapers in this which have been wrongfully abusing me for more than a year, and yet such is my regard for the liberty of the press and the rights of a free people in a republican government that I would shed the last drop of my blood to protect those presses from any illegal violence. You have violated the constitution in at least four particulars; you have violated that part of it which [HC 6:534] declares that the printing presses shall be free, being responsible for the abuse thereof, and that the truth may be given in evidence. This article of the constitution contemplates that the proprietors of a libelous press may be sued for private damage, or may be indicted criminally, and that upon trial they should have a right to give the truth in evidence. In this case the proprietors had no notice of the proceeding. The Constitution also provides that the people shall be protected against unreasonable searches and seizures of their property, and ‘that no man shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, except by the judgment of his peers’ (which means a jury trial) ‘and the law of the land’ which means due process of law and notice to the accused. You have also violated the constitution and your own charter in this. Your Council, which has no judicial powers, and can only pass ordinances of a general nature, have undertaken to pass judgment as a Court, and convict without jury a press of being libelous, and a nuisance to the . The Council at most could only define a nuisance by general ordinance, and leave it to the Courts to determine whether individuals or particulars accused come within such definition. The Constitution abhors and will not tolerate the union of Legislative and Judicial power in the same body of Magistracy; because, as in this case, they will first make a tyrannical law, and then execute it in a tyrannical manner.
“You have also assumed to yourselves more power than you are entitled to [p. 141]