, “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.
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in made preparations to join them when they should get there, and they generally thought that the , on a petition <to that effect,> would reinstate them those that had been driven out from their lands (for they had not sold them,) and then their brethren that came up in the camp would enable them to keep possession of their lands. But after arriving in , a council was held, in which it was concluded to give up the expedition at that time. The Cholera broke out among them, and they immediately dispersed, the most of them returning home again, in a short time. With the exception of some little threatning, the church lived in peace untill the summer of 1836; and notwithstanding all these difficulties, the church <it> continued to gather in and in the adjacent counties, <the members> inhopes <hopeing> that they would get back to . The church also kept gathering at . They laid out a town, appointed certain lots for various purposes, one of which was to build the upon, for the building of which, they had received a revelation. This building they commenced, if I recollect rightly, in 1833, in poverty and without means to do it. In AD 1834, they completed the walls, and in 1835 & ’6, they nearly finished it. The cost was nearly forty thousand dollars. A committe was [p. 33]