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.
<May 13.> “And when fifteen thousand free citizens of the high blooded Republic of North America are robbed and driven from one state to another without redress or redemption, it is not only time for a candidate for the presidency to pledge himself to execute judgment and justice in righteousness, law or no law, but it is his bounden duty as a man, for the honor of a disgraced country, and for the salvation of a once virtuous people, to call for a union of all honest men, and appease the wrath of God by acts of wisdom, holiness, and virtue! The fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
“Perhaps you may think I go too far with my strictures and inuendoes, because in your concluding paragraph you say: ‘It is not inconsistent with your declarations to say, that you have viewed with a lively interest the progress of the Latter Day Saints, that you have sympathized in their sufferings under injustice, as it appeared to you, which has been inflicted upon them; and that you think, in common with all other religious communities they ought to enjoy the security and protection of the constitution and the laws.’ If words were not wind, and imagination not a vapor, such ‘views’ ‘with a lively interest’ might coax out a few Mormon-votes; such ‘sympathy’ for their suffering under injustice, might heal some of the sick, yet lingering amongst them, raise some of the dead, and recover some of their property from ; and finally, if thought was not a phantom, we might, in common with other religious communities, ‘you think, enjoy the security and protection of the Constitution and laws!’ But during ten years, while the Latter day Saints have bled, been robbed, driven from their own lands, paid oceans of money into the Treasury to pay your renowned self and others for legislating and dealing out equal rights and privileges to those in common with all other religious communities, they have waited and expected in vain! If you have possessed any patriotism it has been veiled by your popularity for fear the saints would fall in love with its charms. Blind charity and dumb justice never do much towards alleviating the wants of the needy; but straws show which way the wind blows. It is currently rumored that your dernier resort for the Latter day Saints is to emigrate to or . Such cruel humanity, such noble injustice, such honorable cowardice, such foolish wisdom, and such vicious virtue, could only emanate from . After the saints have been plundered of three or four millions of land and property by the people and powers of the sovereign state of ; after they have sought for redress and redemption from the County Court to Congress, and been denied through religious prejudice and sacerdotal dignity; after they have builded a city and two temples at an <immense> expense of labor and treasure; after they have increased from hundreds to hundreds of thousands; and after they have sent Missionaries to the various nations of the earth to gather Israel according to the predictions of all the holy prophets since the world began, that great penipotentiary the renowned Secretary of State, the ignoble duelist, the gambling Senator, and Whig candidate for the presidency, , the wise Kentucky lawyer, advises the Latter Day Saints to go to to obtain justice and set up a government of their own. O ye crowned heads among all nations, is not a wise man and very patriotic? Why Great God! to transport 200,000 people through a vast prarie, over the , to , a distance of nearly two thousand miles, would cost more than four millions! or should they go by Cape Horn in ships to , the cost would be more than twenty millions! and all this to save the from inheriting the disgrace of for murdering and robbing the saints with impunity! and , who make no secret to say, that if they get into power they will carry out ’ exterminating plan to rid the country of the Latter Day Saints, are
‘Little nipperkins of milk,’
compared to ‘’s’ great aqua fortis jars. Why he is a real giant in humanity: ‘send [p. 32]