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Letter from James Adams, 27 April 1843

Source Note

, Letter, , Sangamon Co., IL, to JS, , Hancock Co., IL, 27 Apr. 1843; handwriting and signature of ; one page; Helen Vilate Bourne Fleming, Collection, CHL. Includes address, postal notation, postal stamps, and docket.
Single leaf measuring 10¾ × 7⅜ inches (27 × 19 cm). The document was trifolded twice in letter style, sealed with a red adhesive wafer, and postmarked. A small hole was torn in the center of the document when the letter was opened. The letter was later refolded for filing. It has undergone conservation.
The letter was docketed by , who served as scribe to JS from 1842 to 1844. The letter was in a collection of papers held by Helen Vilate Bourne Fleming, a descendant of and . The collection was passed down to Fleming’s descendant Helen Marian Fleming Petersen. Shortly after Petersen’s death in February 1988, one of her children found this letter and other items in a box in Petersen’s home. By December 1988, the materials had been donated to the Church Historical Department (now CHL).

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    JS, Journal, 29 June 1842; “Clayton, William,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:718.

    Jenson, Andrew. Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia: A Compilation of Biographical Sketches of Prominent Men and Women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 4 vols. Salt Lake City: Andrew Jenson History Co., 1901–1936.

  2. [2]

    See the full bibliographic entry for Helen Vilate Bourne Fleming, Collection, 1836–1963, in the CHL catalog.

Historical Introduction

On 27 April 1843, , a local judge and leader in , Illinois, wrote to JS in , Illinois, to explain his delay in traveling to Nauvoo. In a letter to JS on 14 March 1843, Adams had stated that he expected to travel to Nauvoo by 6 April. However, severe spring weather throughout central impeded the approximately 130-mile journey from Springfield to Nauvoo. In his 27 April 1843 letter, Adams explained that the weather—along with the poor health of his wife, Harriet Denton Adams—had prevented him from coming to Nauvoo as he expected.
mailed his letter from shortly after he penned it. It is uncertain when it arrived in given the bad roads and weather, though it may have arrived by 3 May 1843, when JS “directed a letter to be written to Gen James Adams.” James and Harriet Adams visited Nauvoo later that month.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    James Adams had been a friend and confidant of JS since 1839. Adams was also the president of the church’s Springfield branch. (See JS History, vol. C-1, 972; Historical Introduction to Letter of Introduction from James Adams, 9 Nov. 1839; and Letter from Abraham C. Hodge and Springfield, IL, Branch, 25 Jan. 1842.)

  2. [2]

    Letter from James Adams, 14 Mar. 1843.

  3. [3]

    News Item, Sangamo Journal (Springfield, IL), 20 Apr. 1843, [1]; JS, Journal, 25 Apr. 1843; News Item, Sangamo Journal, 27 Apr. 1843, [2].

    Sangamo Journal. Springfield, IL. 1831–1847.

  4. [4]

    JS, Journal, 3 May 1843.

  5. [5]

    It is not clear exactly when James and Harriet Adams arrived in Nauvoo, Illinois. According to JS’s journal, Adams arrived in Nauvoo on 21 May 1843. Emily Partridge Young later remembered Adams being in Nauvoo as early as 11 May 1843. Harriet Adams had arrived by 28 May 1843, when she and James were sealed. (JS, Journal, 21 and 28 May 1843; Young, “Incidents of the Life of a Mormon Girl,” 185; Emily Dow Partridge Young, “Autobiography,” Woman’s Exponent, 1 Aug. 1885, 14:37–38; Walgren, “James Adams,” 132.)

    Young, Emily Dow Partridge. “Incidents of the Life of a Mormon Girl,” ca. 1884. CHL. MS 5220.

    Woman’s Exponent. Salt Lake City. 1872–1914.

    Walgren, Kent L. “James Adams: Early Springfield Mormon and Freemason.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 75 (Summer 1982): 121–136.

Page [1]

City of
27th Apl 1843
Brother Joseph
I am anxiously waiting a better state of the roads to enable me to travel to your place but we have yet almost daily falls of rain which makes it difficult to get about the neighbourhood much less to travel a Journey with a sick companion The state of Mrs Adams [Harriet Denton Adams’s], health is very bad I shall however be at as soon as it appears— even half way tolerable traveling The badness of the weather is such that our farmers are not able to prepare for their spring crops—
I have no important news—
I am with esteem Yours &c
[p. [1]]
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Document Information

Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Letter from James Adams, 27 April 1843
ID #
1483
Total Pages
2
Print Volume Location
JSP, D12:242–244
Handwriting on This Page
  • James Adams

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Harriet Adams was born in Goshen, New York, on 31 January 1787 to Harry and Elizabeth Denton. She married James Adams in about 1809 in New York and bore five children, four of whom lived past infancy: Lovenia, Charlotte, Lucien, and Vienna. She appears to have been baptized into the church before 5 October 1841, when she received a patriarchal blessing. (Blessing for Harriet Denton Adams, 5 Oct. 1841, in Patriarchal Blessings, 4:58–59; News Item, Sangamo Journal [Springfield, IL], 16 Feb. 1844, [2]; Black and Black, Annotated Record of Baptisms for the Dead, 20.)

    Patriarchal Blessings, 1833–. CHL. CR 500 2.

    Sangamo Journal. Springfield, IL. 1831–1847.

    Black, Susan Easton, and Harvey Bischoff Black, eds. Annotated Record of Baptisms for the Dead, 1840–1845: Nauvoo, Hancock County, Illinois. 7 vols. Provo, UT: Center for Family History and Genealogy, Brigham Young University, 2002.

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