Footnotes
This serialized history drew on the journals herein beginning with the 4 July 1855 issue of the Deseret News and with the 3 January 1857 issue of the LDS Millennial Star.
The labels on the spines of the four volumes read respectively as follows: “Joseph Smith’s Journal—1842–3 by Willard Richards” (book 1); “Joseph Smith’s Journal by W. Richards 1843” (book 2); “Joseph Smith’s Journal by W. Richards 1843–4” (book 3); and “W. Richards’ Journal 1844 Vol. 4” (book 4). Richards kept JS’s journal in the front of book 4, and after JS’s death Richards kept his own journal in the back of the volume.
“Schedule of Church Records, Nauvoo 1846,” [1], Historian’s Office, Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904, CHL.
Historian’s Office. Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904. CHL. CR 100 130.
“Inventory. Historian’s Office. 4th April 1855,” [1]; “Contents of the Historian and Recorder’s Office G. S. L. City July 1858,” 2; “Index of Records and Journals in the Historian’s Office 1878,” [11]–[12], Historian’s Office, Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904, CHL; Johnson, Register of the Joseph Smith Collection, 7.
Historian’s Office. Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904. CHL. CR 100 130.
Johnson, Jeffery O. Register of the Joseph Smith Collection in the Church Archives, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City: Historical Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1973.
Footnotes
Historical Introduction to JS, Journal, Dec. 1841–Dec. 1842.
Source Note to JS, Journal, 1835–1836; Source Note to JS, Journal, Mar.–Sept. 1838.
See Appendix 3.
Governor Thomas Ford’s 13 September 1843 letter to JS (which JS received on 18 September) responded to a letter JS had written Ford, evidently about the possibility of an armed force from Missouri crossing into Illinois to arrest JS. Ford told JS that he would consider it his “duty to prevent the invasion of this State, . . . by any persons else where for any hostile purposes Whatever” but that he saw “but little danger of any such invasion.” Ford added, “It is altogether more likely that some other mode of annoyance will be adopted My enemies here I think are endeavoring to put Something of the kind on foot.” (Thomas Ford, Springfield, IL, to JS, [Nauvoo, IL], 13 Sept. 1843, JS Collection, CHL; Clayton, Journal, 18 Sept. 1843.)
Clayton, William. Journals, 1842–1845. CHL.
In his letter to Ford, JS thanked the governor for the “courtesy, and honorable intended expression” of his letter and explained that he was sending him the resolutions of the Carthage meeting—which had arrived in Nauvoo four days earlier—“to show your excellency to what an unjustifiable pitch, disappointed ambition, malignance, and ungoverned persecution, may be carried.” JS told Ford that “the false statements in those ‘Resolves’ could never have resulted, from any but the abandoned, the desperate, the wicked even ‘unto the death’” and assured him that both he and the members of the church were law-abiding people. “As [a] friend of law liberty and life, your excellency may depend upon me,” the letter concluded. “Your enemies are my enemies: and in all honorable requirements, you have only to command, to elicit my co-operation.” (JS, Nauvoo, IL, to Thomas Ford, [Springfield, IL], 20 Sept. 1843, JS Collection, CHL, underlining in original; JS, Journal, 15 Sept. 1843.)
The letter to Backenstos and his wife, Sarah Lavina Lee, has not been located. The wedding took place on 3 October 1843 rather than 3 September, with JS performing the ceremony. (JS, Journal, 3 Oct. 1843.)