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Letter from Alanson Ripley, 10 April 1839

Source Note

, Letter, , Adams Co., IL, to JS, , , , and , [, Clay Co., MO], 10 Apr. 1839. Featured version copied [between 29 May and 30 Oct. 1839] in JS Letterbook 2, pp. 16–17; handwriting of ; JS Collection, CHL. For more complete source information, see the source note for JS Letterbook 2.

Historical Introduction

On 10 April 1839, wrote from , Illinois, to JS and his fellow prisoners in the in , Missouri. In late 1838, Ripley was appointed by church leaders in , Missouri, to attend to the prisoners’ needs and “to importune at the feet of the judges” for the prisoners’ release. During the next few months, Ripley worked to fulfill this assignment. In early February 1839, he and four other church members apparently assisted the prisoners in an unsuccessful attempt to escape. In mid-March, Ripley assisted with and signed JS’s petition to the Supreme Court for . At the end of the month, he traveled to Liberty again to report that “all was well & the [prisoners’ families] were well also.” Upon his return to , Missouri, in early April, Ripley was told by the committee helping church members move out of Missouri that he needed to leave immediately for since anti-Mormons were threatening violence. Because of this need to seek “safty by leaving the State,” Ripley was “compelled to abandon the idea of importuning at the feet of the judges” and to “leave the prisoners in the hands of God.”
On 10 April 1839, soon after his arrival in , wrote this letter to the prisoners. After summarizing ’s developing plans to pursue justice for wrongs that Latter-day Saints had suffered in , Ripley explained his hurried departure from the state and offered to return to Missouri and continue supporting the prisoners. Ripley indicated that he was aware that the prisoners might obtain a change of venue after being indicted by a grand jury in and suggested that, if desired, he would intercept them and their guards en route to the next destination. After Ripley completed the main body of his letter, he added two postscripts relaying brief words of greeting from other Latter-day Saints in Quincy. It is unknown whether Ripley’s 10 April missive was sent to Missouri, because Saints in Quincy were aware that the prisoners had been moved from the in . Although the original letter is apparently not extant, copied it or a retained copy into JS Letterbook 2 sometime between 29 May and 30 October 1839.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Alanson Ripley, Statements, ca. Jan. 1845, Historian’s Office, JS History Documents, 1839–1860, CHL.

    Historian’s Office. Joseph Smith History Documents, 1839–1860. CHL. CR 100 396.

  2. [2]

    Ripley, Jonathan Barlow, David Holeman, William D. Huntington, and Erastus Snow were later arrested and charged as accomplices to the escape attempt. (Samuel Tillery, Testimony, Liberty, MO, 11 Feb. 1839; Alanson Ripley, Testimony, Liberty, MO, 12 Feb. 1839, State of Missouri v. Ripley et al. [J.P. Ct. 1839], Clay County Archives and Historical Library, Liberty, MO.)

    State of Missouri v. Ripley et al. / State of Missouri v. Alanson Ripley, Jonathan Barlow, William D. Huntington, David Holman, and Erastus Snow (J.P. Ct. 1839). Clay County Archives and Historical Library, Liberty, MO.

  3. [3]

    Petition to George Tompkins, between 9 and 15 Mar. 1839; Hyrum Smith, Diary, 15 Mar. 1839.

    Smith, Hyrum. Diary, Mar.–Apr. 1839, Oct. 1840. CHL. MS 2945.

  4. [4]

    Hyrum Smith, Diary, 31 Mar. 1839.

    Smith, Hyrum. Diary, Mar.–Apr. 1839, Oct. 1840. CHL. MS 2945.

  5. [5]

    Alanson Ripley, Statements, ca. Jan. 1845, Historian’s Office, JS History Documents, 1839–1860, CHL.

    Historian’s Office. Joseph Smith History Documents, 1839–1860. CHL. CR 100 396.

  6. [6]

    See Historical Introduction to Letter from Sidney Rigdon, 10 Apr. 1839.

  7. [7]

    Mulholland copied his own 29 May 1839 letter to Edward Partridge on page 15 of JS Letterbook 2, making that the earliest likely copying date for documents he subsequently copied but that had dates preceding 29 May.

Asterisk (*) denotes a "featured" version, which includes an introduction and annotation. *Letter from Alanson Ripley, 10 April 1839 Letterbook 2 History, 1838–1856, volume C-1 [2 November 1838–31 July 1842] “History of Joseph Smith”

Page 17

that there is a god in Israel, that can blast the hellish desires and base designs of that infernal banditti whose hands have been embrued in the blood of martyrs and Saints: who wish to destroy the of God. But their Chain is short, there is but just enough left to bind their own hands with.
Dear Brethren I am at your service and I wait your Council at and shall be happy to grant you the desires of your hearts; I am ready to act. Please to give me all the intelligence that is in your power. If you take a change of venue please to let me know what county you will come to and when as near as possible and what road you will come, for I shall be an Adder in the path. Yes My Dear Brethren God Almighty will deliver you, fear not, for your redemption draweth near, the day of your deliverance is at hand. Dear Brethren I have it in my heart to lay my body in the sand or deliver you from your bonds, and my mind is intensely fixed on the latter. Dear Brethren, you will be able to judge of the Spirit that actuates my breast, for when I realise your sufferings my heart is like wax before the fire, but when I reflect upon the cause of your afflictions it is like fire in my bones, and burns against your enemies to the bare hilt, and I never can be satisfied while there is one of them to piss against a wall, or draw a sword or spring a trigger; for my sword never has been sheathed in peace; for the blood of and those who were butchered at crieth for vengeance from the ground therefore hear it, Oh ye Heavens, and record it, Oh! ye recording angels, bear the tidings ye flaming seraphs, that I from this day declare myself the avenger of the blood of those innocent men, and of the innocent cause of and of her prisoners, and I will not rest untill they are as free who are in prison as I am.
Your families are all well and in good spirits. May the Lord bless you all, Amen. Brs & W Barlow join in saying our hearts are as thy heart. Br Joseph if my Spirit is wrong, for God’s Sake Correct it.
Brethren be of good cheer, for we are determined as God liveth to rescue you from that hellish crowd or die in the attempt furrow. We shall come face foremost.
.
N. B.
S. B. Crockett,
(I have been once driven but not whipped)
Br ’s sends his best compliments respects to you all.
J— S— Jr
[p. 17]
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Source Note

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Document Information

Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Letter from Alanson Ripley, 10 April 1839
ID #
435
Total Pages
2
Print Volume Location
JSP, D6:409–414
Handwriting on This Page
  • James Mulholland

Footnotes

  1. [13]

    See 1 Samuel 17:46.

  2. [14]

    See Genesis 49:17. In quoting part of Jacob’s blessing for his son Dan, Ripley was perhaps invoking the ethos of the Danite society, which was informally named after the Israelite tribe of Dan. (See Introduction to Part 2: 8 July–29 Oct. 1838; and Nauvoo City Council Draft Minutes, 3 Jan. 1844, 36; see also Historical Introduction to Constitution of the Society of the Daughter of Zion, ca. Late June 1838.)

  3. [15]

    See Luke 21:28; and Revelation, 7 Dec. 1830 [D&C 35:26].

  4. [16]

    See Revelation, 5 Jan. 1831 [D&C 39:10].

  5. [17]

    See Psalm 22:14.

  6. [18]

    See Jeremiah 20:9; and Lamentations 1:13.

  7. [19]

    See 1 Kings 14:10; and 1 Samuel 25:22, 34.

  8. [20]

    See Genesis 4:10; and Revelation 6:10.

  9. [21]

    See Deuteronomy 19:12; and Joshua 20:3, 5, 9.

  10. [22]

    See Letter from Edward Partridge, 5 Mar. 1839; and Letter from Don Carlos Smith and William Smith, 6 Mar. 1839.

  11. [23]

    See 1 Kings 18:10; 2 Samuel 2:27; and Job 27:2.

  12. [24]

    Young departed Far West for Illinois in mid-February 1839. After experiencing some delays, he and his family arrived in Quincy in mid-March. (Historian’s Office, Brigham Young History Drafts, 20; Knight, History, 1085–1086; Emmeline B. Wells, “Biography of Mary Ann Angell Young,” Juvenile Instructor, 1 Jan. 1891, 19.)

    Historian’s Office. Brigham Young History Drafts, 1856–1858. CHL. CR 100 475, box 1, fd. 5.

    Knight, Newel. History. Private possession. Copy in CHL. MS 19156.

    Noble, Joseph B. “Early Scenes in Church History.” Juvenile Instructor, 15 May 1880, 112.

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