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.
<July 24> anticipated to occur. Upon the first institution of our governments, it was a season of internal peace and union among our people. The population was homogeneous, and all agreed together as brothers. It was supposed that the great body of the people would be always willingly submissive to the laws which they themselves had made. It was not foreseen that great and hostile parties would so soon spring up and combine in large numbers to set the law at defiance. A voluntary submission and obedience was supposed as the basis of government; for this reason no adequate provision was made in our State constitutions for coercing this submission, when the laws were to be trampled upon by the concerted action of large numbers.
“The States are prohibited from maintaining standing armies; the only military force at their command, without and from the General Government, is the militia; and, as I have already shown you, this force can only be relied on to do effectual service where that service is popular and jumps with their inclinations.
“For this same reason, I must beg leave to say that a party, as in your case, which is the object of popular odium, cannot be too cir[HC 7:205]cumspect in their behavior so as to give no color to the hatred of your enemies. ‘Truth is great and will prevail.’ From this you may be assured that if the conduct of your people shall be uniformly peaceably, honest and submissive to the laws, even if they have to bear persecution for a season: such conduct must result in dissipating the unhappy prejudices which exist against you. Truth and candor however <compel> me to say that the Mormons have not always acted in such a manner as if they intended to avoid the creation of all prejudices. The pretensions of your Municipal Court, the unheard of description of ordinances passed by your City Council, the assault on , the attempt to kidnap persons from , the formal destruction of a printing office, and the general tone of arrogance and defiance of some of your leaders were well calculated to inflame the public mind against you.
“I think that I have considered this difficult subject in every possible point of view. I am afraid to rely on the Militia in the present temper of the public mind. To call on the Nauvoo Legion would be suicidal to any effort as pacification of existing troubles, and for that reason would fail to bring about an enforcement of the laws. If the laws are to be enforced at all in your , out of the ordinary way by counts courts alone, it must be done by a force which is indifferent as to both parties. To call in one party to put down and subdue the other, would lead to the most disastrous consequences; all the pride of conquest and victory; all the shame of defeat by, and submission to, an adversary; all the fury of unconquerable hate and exasperated feeling, would necessarily be mingled with the contest, and render it bloody and bitter, beyond anything we know of in this country.
“For these reasons I have called upon the officers now in command, in the absence of General Gaines, of the 3rd Military department of the , for five hundred men of the regular army to be stationed [p. 281]