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.
Three days earlier, at a meeting of church leaders and the temple committee, JS proposed ending work on the Nauvoo House until the temple was completed. (JS, Journal, 4 Mar. 1844.)
The bulk of the letter, which the journal refers to here, berated JS and his “uneducated and vicious” followers and lamented that the Mormon presence dampened the prosperity of western Illinois. In the last paragraph of the letter, the author asserted that building the Nauvoo temple would require twenty years and “a sum of money not far short of half a million of dollars” and concluded by claiming “good grounds for the opinion” that large sums of money donated for building the temple “never have been, or will be, expended on that splendid monument of folly and wickedness.” (“The Mormons and their Prophet—Legislation at Nauvoo—The Temple,” New York Weekly Tribune, 3 Feb. 1844, [3].)
New York Weekly Tribune. New York City. 1841–1866.
Later in the meeting, it became clear that JS was referring to Charles Foster, brother of Robert D. Foster, as the writer of the letter.