Footnotes
Lyman Wight, Mountain Valley, TX, to Wilford Woodruff, [Salt Lake City, Utah Territory], 24 Aug. 1857, pp. 11–12, Historian’s Office, Histories of the Twelve, 1856–1858, 1861, CHL; “Conference Minutes,” Times and Seasons, 15 Nov. 1842, 4:15.
Historian’s Office. Histories of the Twelve, 1856–1858, 1861. CHL. CR 100 93.
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
“Conference Minutes,” Times and Seasons, 15 Nov. 1842, 4:13–15; “Conference Minutes,” Times and Seasons, 15 Dec. 1842, 4:36–38.
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
“Conference Minutes,” Times and Seasons, 15 Dec. 1842, 4:36–38. The exact dating of this conference is unclear. The missionaries’ report states that the conference met daily beginning 28 October and ending on 1 November, but the minutes account for only four of these five days.
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
“Conference Minutes,” Times and Seasons, 15 Dec. 1842, 4:38–39. In his report, Wight said 203 people had been baptized, while a Cleveland newspaper said 206. (“Mormanism Revived,” Plain Dealer [Cleveland], 9 Nov. 1842, [2].)
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
Plain Dealer. Cleveland. Jan.–Dec. 1842.
“Conference Minutes,” Times and Seasons, 15 Dec. 1842, 4:39.
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
Brooks became Almon Babbitt’s counselor at the reorganization of the Kirtland stake in 1841. After Babbitt was disfellowshipped later that year, Brooks assumed the role of acting president of the Saints in Kirtland. Sometime thereafter Brooks became the presiding elder of the Kirtland branch. The fall 1842 conference reiterated Brooks’s position as president of the branch, with John Youngs and Hiram Kellogg serving as his counselors. (“Minutes of a Conference,” Times and Seasons, 1 July 1841, 2:458; Letter from Lester Brooks and Others, 16 Nov. 1841; Phineas Young, Tiffin, OH, to Willard Richards and Brigham Young, Nauvoo, IL, 14 Dec. 1842, Brigham Young Office Files, CHL; “Conference Minutes,” Times and Seasons, 15 Dec. 1842, 4:39.)
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
Brigham Young Office Files, 1832–1878. CHL. CR 1234 1.
In extant records, elements of the “Lester” in Brooks’s signature bear some resemblance to “Justin.” Both are six-letter words with “st” as the middle characters of the word. Moreover, the slant of the L could easily be misread as a J and the terminal “er” could be misread as “in.” (See Letter from Lester Brooks and Others, 16 Nov. 1841.)
According to the summaries of Wight’s remarks in Ohio, much of his preaching was directed toward bridging divides with potentially disaffected Latter-day Saints who had remained in the region. At Olive Green, Ohio, for example, Wight taught that “brotherly love and kindness should exist among” the Saints and that when one Saint suffered, others should be willing to put “forth the helping hand” and share in sufferings and prosperity alike. At Kirtland, Wight preached that the Saints should not “set in judgment upon each other; but rather cast the mantle of charity over, and extend the hand of friendship to all.” (“Conference Minutes,” Times and Seasons, 15 Dec. 1842, 4:36–39.)
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
Harris was one of JS’s earliest supporters and one of the Three Witnesses of the gold plates of the Book of Mormon. During the widespread disaffection of church members at Kirtland in 1837, Harris was excommunicated. He had since had a mercurial relationship with the church. He was rebaptized by 1840, but the next year, though still active in the church in Kirtland, he reportedly claimed that JS had been “forsaken of the Lord.” Through his preaching in Ohio, Wight sought to convince men such as Harris to reaffirm JS’s leadership, and Wight solicited votes of confidence for JS among church members in Dayton, Olive Green, and Kirtland. (Marquardt, “Martin Harris,” 10–17; “Conference Minutes,” Times and Seasons, 15 Nov. 1842, 4:14; “Conference Minutes,” Times and Seasons, 15 Dec. 1842, 4:36–39.)
Marquardt, H. Michael. “Martin Harris: The Kirtland Years, 1831–1870.” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 35, no. 3 (Fall 2002): 1–41.
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
Following the conference in Kirtland, the missionaries reported that “people are preparing to come from Painesville, Cleveland, Chardon, and all the regions of country round about” to participate in their nightly meetings. Wight presumably had arranged to baptize some of the visitors from Painesville during some of these meetings. (“Conference Minutes,” Times and Seasons, 15 Dec. 1842, 4:39.)
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
Cowles, the treasurer of the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, was a member of JS’s household in Nauvoo, probably as a hired servant. (Platt, Nauvoo, 86; “Died,” Deseret News [Salt Lake City], 5 Apr. 1871, 98; Relief Society Minute Book, 17 Mar. 1842, 13, in Derr et al., First Fifty Years of Relief Society, 36.)
Platt, Lyman De. Nauvoo: Early Mormon Records Series, 1839–1846. Vol. 1. Highland, UT, 1980.
Deseret News. Salt Lake City. 1850–.
Derr, Jill Mulvay, Carol Cornwall Madsen, Kate Holbrook, and Matthew J. Grow, eds. The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women’s History. Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2016.