, “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.
In conversing with my friends, I have been frequently asked, “how did you come to join the Mormons?”— “how could you yield to their delusions?” These inquiries and others of the same nature, I have always answered frankly and fully, as it is my intention to do in the present little work, which, indeed, I have [un]dertaken not less for the satisfaction of my friends who have [adv]ised me to it, than to explain the motives which have [gov]erned my conduct. I know of no better way of doing this, than [to] give a brief history of the circumstances that have come to [m]y knowledge had from personal observation as well as from [ot]her sources. It is not pretended, however, that these pages will contain a complete account of all the doctrinal particulars connected with the Mormons. Such an account would not, perhaps, be of interest to the general reader. I shall confine myself to so much of their history as will enable men him to judge correctly of the true character of the “Church of Christ of Latter day Saints,” as well as to understand the reasons of my own own conduct.