, “Brief History,” Manuscript, ca. 6 April 1838– ca. 26 January 1839; handwriting of and an unidentified scribe; seventy pages numbered 20–90, plus three unnumbered pages; John Fletcher Darby Papers, Missouri History Museum Archives, St. Louis.
, a careful observer, had enjoyed a close association with Mormon leaders, and consequently his account provides valuable insights into the development and structure of the early church. He summarized many of the doctrines taught by JS and provided a detailed description of the conflict between the Latter-day Saints and other settlers. But his chronicle also related the story of a personal spiritual journey into and then out of the church as came to disapprove of the church’s course in 1838 in Missouri. Yet despite his estrangement from the church and his excommunication in 1839, he retained a degree of sympathy for the Saints and maintained some contact.
apparently began compiling portions of his account while serving as an officially appointed church historian in . He probably completed his narrative by 11 February 1839, when he secured a copyright with the district federal copyright office. He arranged for Thomas Watson & Son of to print A Brief History. The entire print run may have included up to twelve hundred copies.
The document presented here, ’s circa 1838–1839 rough draft of his history, is incomplete. It includes the title page, copyright notice, and preface but is missing twenty-one pages, including the nineteen pages that constitute chapters 1 through 6. The manuscript is almost entirely in Corrill’s handwriting, though some of the chapter summaries (added after he drafted the narrative) were written in a different hand, possibly that of the printer.
’s published version of A Brief History receives comprehensive treatment in volume 2 of the Histories series of The Joseph Smith Papers and is available on this website as part of the history series.
Page 69
<as they termed it> would arise against them which they would have to subdue one after another even till they should reach where said he meant to winter. Many had the weakness to believe that God would enable them to do it. as yet As yet they had found no mob <citizens> collected in , save those few in . Though when we started from , it was currently reported and believed by all, that there were five hundred in Millport, and that the next day there would be eight hundred to commence operations. On Friday morning I returned to with who had come out the day before with some provisions. When <they> found no citizens gathered together against them they ought to have been peacable and merely stood on the defensive, but they had become to[o] desparate in feeling for that, and resolved to clear from every thing in the shape of what they called mobs, which they did effectually in the course of that and the next week. It appeared to me also that the love of pillage grew upon them very fast; for they plundered every king of property they could get hold of, and burnt many buildings <cabbins> in , some say eighty and some a hundred and fifty. They also went with a company to and took a piece of cannon <ordinance> which had been brought there by the company that came from Carol county. After this most of those who belonged to returned home. [p. 69]