Footnotes
These apostles arrived in Liverpool on 6 April 1840 along with Reuben Hedlock, a member of the Seventy. (George A. Smith, Autobiography, 9 Mar. and 6 Apr. 1840, 92.)
Smith, George A. Autobiography, ca. 1860–1882. George Albert Smith, Papers, 1834–1877. CHL. MS 1322, box 1, fd. 2.
“Death of Col. Robert B. Thompson,” Times and Seasons, 1 Sept. 1841, 2:519–520. The letter is followed by items dated June and July 1840. (See Minutes, 2 July 1840, in JS Letterbook 2, p. 154; and Letter from William W. Phelps, with Appended Letter from Orson Hyde and John E. Page, 29 June 1840.)
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
Note, in JS Letterbook 2, p. 153. Snow arrived in England, carrying JS’s letter, on either 21 or 22 October 1840. (JS History, vol. C-1, 1119; Lorenzo Snow, London, England, to “E. McConougley,” [1841], in Snow, Letterbook, [15].)
Snow, Lorenzo. Letterbook, ca. 1839–1846. CHL.
Compilers of JS’s history later wrote that when Young departed his home in Montrose, Iowa Territory, on 14 September 1839 to begin his journey to England, “his health was very poor, he was unable to go thirty rods to the River without assistance.” In a 17 July 1870 discourse given in Salt Lake City, Young recollected, “I was determined to go to England or to die trying.” (JS History, vol. C-1, 967; Brigham Young, in Journal of Discourses, 17 July 1870, 13:211; see also Allen et al., Men with a Mission, 70–71.)
Journal of Discourses. 26 vols. Liverpool: F. D. Richards, 1855–1886.
Allen, James B., Ronald K. Esplin, and David J. Whittaker. Men with a Mission, 1837–1841: The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the British Isles. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992.
Young similarly expressed a desire to see his friends in his letter eight days earlier. (See Letter from Brigham Young, 29 Apr. 1840.)
When she began compiling a history of her family in fall 1844, Lucy Mack Smith chronicled the Smiths’ trials, describing at length the challenges occasioned by the death of her oldest son, Alvin, less than two months after an angel visited JS and informed him of the gold plates from which he was to translate the Book of Mormon. (Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1844–1845, bk. 3, [10]–[12]; bk. 4, [1]–[5].)
Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Parley P. Pratt, Orson Pratt, George A. Smith, and Reuben Hedlock arrived in England on 6 April 1840. Willard Richards, John Taylor, Joseph Fielding, Wilford Woodruff, Theodore Turley, Hiram Clark, and others had already been serving in England—some since 1837. (George A. Smith, Autobiography, 6 Apr. 1840, 92; see also Allen et al., Men with a Mission, 4–10, 23–29, 106, 108.)
Smith, George A. Autobiography, ca. 1860–1882. George Albert Smith, Papers, 1834–1877. CHL. MS 1322, box 1, fd. 2.
Allen, James B., Ronald K. Esplin, and David J. Whittaker. Men with a Mission, 1837–1841: The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the British Isles. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992.
When the Quorum of the Twelve met on 16 April 1840 for their second meeting in connection with the general conference of the church in Preston, they appointed Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Parley P. Pratt as a committee to secure British copyrights for the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants as quickly as possible. The conference report Young sent on 29 April notified the First Presidency of this decision. Young also requested that the Twelve be advised of any decisions they or the conference had made that did not meet with First Presidency approval. (“From England,” Times and Seasons, June 1840, 1:121; Letter from Brigham Young, 29 Apr. 1840.)
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
Before the Twelve departed for their first mission to the eastern United States in 1835, JS instructed them, “When the twelve are all together or a quorum of them in any church, they have authority to act independently of the church and form decisions and those decisions will be valid; but where there is not a quorum of them together, they must transact business by the common consent of the church.” (Minutes and Discourse, 2 May 1835.)