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Letter from Joseph Tippets, 2 April 1843

Source Note

, Letter, between and , [Hancock Co., IL], to JS, [, Hancock Co., IL], 2 Apr. 1843; handwriting presumably of ; four pages; Newel K. Whitney, Papers, BYU. Includes address and archival marking.
Bifolium measuring 12½ × 7½ inches (32 × 19 cm) and ruled with thirty-two horizontal gray lines. The letter was trifolded twice in letter style and addressed. The letter was refolded for filing.
In late 1844, following JS’s death, became one of the interim church trustees and was appointed “first bishop” among other bishops. It was presumably during this time that many of the church’s financial and other administrative records passed into his possession. This document, along with many other personal and institutional documents that Newel K. Whitney kept, was inherited by Newel K. and ’s daughter Mary Jane Whitney, who was married to Isaac Groo. The documents were passed down within the Groo family. Between 1969 and 1974, the Groo family donated their collection of Newel K. Whitney’s papers to the J. Reuben Clark Library (renamed Harold B. Lee Library in 1973) at Brigham Young University.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Willard Richards, Journal, 9 Aug. 1844; “Conference Minutes,” Times and Seasons, 1 Nov. 1844, 5:693; see also Minutes, Times and Seasons, Dec. 1839, 1:30.

    Richards, Willard. Journals, 1836–1853. Willard Richards, Papers, 1821–1854. CHL. MS 1490, boxes 1–2.

    Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.

  2. [2]

    Andrus and Fuller, Register of the Newel Kimball Whitney Papers, 24; Wilkinson et al., Brigham Young University, 4:255.

    Andrus, Hyrum L., and Chris Fuller, comp. Register of the Newel Kimball Whitney Papers. Provo, UT: Division of Archives and Manuscripts, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, 1978.

    Wilkinson, Ernest L., Leonard J. Arrington, and Bruce C. Hafen, eds. Brigham Young University: The First One Hundred Years. Vol. 4. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1976.

Historical Introduction

On 2 April 1843, Latter-day Saint wrote a letter to JS seeking counsel in the wake of his misfortunes. Tippets had joined the in the early 1830s in and, along with his extended family, had contributed substantial resources and labor toward building the in , Ohio, and purchasing land for the church in . With other church members, Tippets was expelled from Missouri in 1839 and relocated to . His first wife, Rosalia Elvira Perry, died in 1841, leaving him to raise two children on his own. In June 1842, he married Amanda Melvina Perry, Rosalia’s sister. In 1843 he lost his home in , Illinois, to fire. Emphasizing his faithfulness in paying to the church, in the letter featured here Tippets mentioned a blessing he had received from and asked JS when the prosperity it promised would be realized.
wrote the letter from the home of his father-in-law, , located in , “about fore miles from and about five from .” The letter lacks any postage marks, indicating that Tippets sent it to with a courier or delivered it himself, presumably when he attended the church’s April 1843 . There is no known reply.

Page [3]

in the Citty of I thought the was bilt which was some two or three stories high I thought I went up into the seccond story where I saw and shook hands with him, and told him that I was glad to see him, while I was talking with him I thought president smith came down from an upper story on coming in to the ro[o]m I shook hands with him and thaught I wished to ask him the following question which was this whether it was as well to settle out in the as it was to settle in , which he answered before I asked him in these words said he if we had not bilt this house and put that great bell up in the top of it this would also been thrown down this gave me to understand that all the other stakes would be thrown down, a short time after news came that all the stakes ware discontinued excepting those in and Ioway tiritory, another little dream [illegible] I then went to work, and setteled up my bisness and prepared for moving to this I effected with the loss of co[n]siderable <​propperty​> and what was stil worse my wife was taken sick about this time and died and left me with two little children this loss was more painful than all the other losses I ever met with in my life but she was a good woman and has gone to wrest, about a year a go I moved into where I am now living about fore miles from and about five from here I have ben marr[i]ed a gain and for the past year I have carr[i]ed on a farm with my where I was living when my house took fire and burnt with all I had in it, I have a span of mar[e]s an oldd waggon and harness, I have two cows and perhaps sevnty-five or eighty bushels of corn, and about ten bushels [p. [3]]
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Document Information

Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Letter from Joseph Tippets, 2 April 1843
ID #
1029
Total Pages
4
Print Volume Location
JSP, D12:145–150
Handwriting on This Page
  • Joseph Tippets

Footnotes

  1. [15]

    Apostle David W. Patten was killed in a skirmish between Latter-day Saints and other Missourians near the Crooked River in October 1838. (See “Part 3: 4 November 1838–16 April 1839.”.)

  2. [16]

    JS delivered a discourse in July 1840 in which he reportedly described the proposed Nauvoo temple with a “great observatory” that would include a bell tower. (Discourse, ca. 19 July 1840.)

  3. [17]

    In a May 1841 letter, JS announced that all stakes outside Hancock County, Illinois, and Lee County, Iowa Territory, were discontinued. (Letter to the Saints Abroad, 24 May 1841.)

  4. [18]

    Tippets’s first wife, Rosalia Elvira Perry, died in December 1841. Their two children were Joseph Mahonri Tippets, born in 1838, and Caroline Tippets, born circa 1840. (Tippets and Moncur, Brigham Lewis Tippets, Sr. Family, 20; 1850 U.S. Census, Pottawattamie Co., IA, 114[B].)

    Tippets, Elizabeth Wilcock, and Lucile Tippets Moncur, comps. Brigham Lewis Tippets, Sr. Family: A History of Brigham Lewis Tippets, Sr., His Wife, Abigail Eliza, Their Children, Grandchildren, and Great-Grandchildren. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1988.

    Census (U.S.) / U.S. Bureau of the Census. Population Schedules. Microfilm. FHL.

  5. [19]

    Tippets married Amanda Melvina Perry on 26 June 1842. (Tippets and Moncur, Brigham Lewis Tippets, Sr. Family, 18, 20.)

    Tippets, Elizabeth Wilcock, and Lucile Tippets Moncur, comps. Brigham Lewis Tippets, Sr. Family: A History of Brigham Lewis Tippets, Sr., His Wife, Abigail Eliza, Their Children, Grandchildren, and Great-Grandchildren. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1988.

  6. [20]

    An 1842 Nauvoo tax index confirmed that Tippets was living on the same land as his father-in-law, Gustavus Perry. (Nauvoo, IL, Tax List, district 3, 1842, p. 233, microfilm 7,706, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL.)

    U.S. and Canada Record Collection. FHL.

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