Footnotes
Pratt, Autobiography, 327–328. Parley P. Pratt had been in Detroit for two weeks visiting family after spending six days ministering to “several small branches of the Church” located “within part of a day’s journey of Detroit.” Though a group of church missionaries, including Pratt, had first preached in the Buffalo, New York, area in September 1830 and Pratt had preached in that city while en route to Canada in 1836, he did not record the details of any interaction with church members there on this 1839 journey. Pratt arrived in New York City by 24 October 1839. (Woodruff, Journal, 24 Oct. 1839.)
Pratt, Parley P. The Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, One of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Embracing His Life, Ministry and Travels, with Extracts, in Prose and Verse, from His Miscellaneous Writings. Edited by Parley P. Pratt Jr. New York: Russell Brothers, 1874.
Woodruff, Wilford. Journals, 1833–1898. Wilford Woodruff, Journals and Papers, 1828–1898. CHL. MS 1352.
Pratt, Autobiography, 331.
Pratt, Parley P. The Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, One of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Embracing His Life, Ministry and Travels, with Extracts, in Prose and Verse, from His Miscellaneous Writings. Edited by Parley P. Pratt Jr. New York: Russell Brothers, 1874.
See Collection of Sacred Hymns [1835], ii. In 1829 JS took steps to obtain a copyright for the Book of Mormon, but he may not have completed the process. Nevertheless, JS asserted his copyright authority for the Book of Mormon on at least one occasion in 1830 when a newspaper editor printed passages of the book without JS’s permission. (Copyright for Book of Mormon, 11 June 1829.)
Revelation, 12 Nov. 1831 [D&C 70:1–6]. In his reply to this letter, Hyrum Smith stated that the Book of Mormon fell under the stewardship of this group. (Hyrum Smith, Nauvoo, IL, to Parley P. Pratt, New York City, NY, 22 Dec. 1839, in JS Letterbook 2, pp. 80–81; Hyrum Smith, Nauvoo, IL, to Lucian R. Foster, New York City, NY, Jan. 1840, in JS Letterbook 2, pp. 82–84.)
Minutes and Discourses, 5–7 Oct. 1839. When Rogers faced church discipline the following year, his unauthorized hymnbook was the subject of one of three charges a general conference of the church brought against him. A 28 October meeting of the Nauvoo high council took up the matter of funding a new edition of the hymnbook and voted to request financial assistance from Oliver Granger. (Minutes and Discourse, 6–8 Apr. 1840; Nauvoo High Council Minutes, 28 Oct. 1839, 28–29.)
Nauvoo High Council Minutes, 1839–1845. CHL. LR 3102 22.
Letter from Hyrum Smith, 2 Jan. 1840; Hyrum Smith, Nauvoo, IL, to Parley P. Pratt, New York City, NY, 22 Dec. 1839, in JS Letterbook 2, pp. 80–81; Hyrum Smith, Nauvoo, IL, to Lucian R. Foster, New York City, NY, Jan. 1840, in JS Letterbook 2, pp. 82–84.
News Item, Wisconsin Enquirer (Madison), 9 Nov. 1839, [2]. At this time, approximately eight thousand copies of the Book of Mormon had been printed in two editions. However, not all of those copies were in circulation, as an undisclosed number were destroyed in a fire in the Kirtland printing office on 15 January 1838. In December 1839, the Nauvoo high council reported to the Times and Seasons that several missionaries traveling throughout the country requested church publications “of all kinds” and that the high council resolved to reprint thousands of new copies of the Book of Mormon and hymnbook. (Crawley, Descriptive Bibliography, 1:29–32, 66–68; “Sheriff Sale,” Painesville [OH] Telegraph, 5 Jan. 1838, [3]; Prospectus for the Elders’ Journal, 30 Apr. 1838; News Item, Times and Seasons, Dec. 1839, 1:25.)
Wisconsin Enquirer. Madison, Wisconsin Territory. 1838–1840.
Crawley, Peter. A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church. 3 vols. Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1997–2012.
Painesville Telegraph. Painesville, OH. 1822–1986.
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
Hyrum Smith, Nauvoo, IL, to Parley P. Pratt, New York City, NY, 22 Dec. 1839, in JS Letterbook 2, p. 80.
Hyrum Smith appointed Thompson as a clerk after James Mulholland died in November 1839. In April 1840, Howard Coray took up the task of recording letters in JS Letterbook 2. Thompson, therefore, must have copied this letter into the letterbook sometime between late November 1839 and April 1840. (Letter from Emma Smith, 6 Dec. 1839; Coray, Autobiographical Sketch, 17–19.)
Coray, Howard. Autobiographical Sketch, after 1883. Howard Coray, Papers, ca. 1840–1941. Photocopy. CHL. MS 2043, fd. 1.
Pratt alluded to the apostle Paul’s typical greeting. (See, for example, 1 Corinthians 1:3.)
The Times and Seasons provided a similar description of the general growth of the church in the eastern United States. (Editorial, Times and Seasons, Apr. 1840, 1:90.)
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
This New York conference took place on 19–20 November 1839. (Woodruff, Journal, 19–20 Nov. 1839.)
Woodruff, Wilford. Journals, 1833–1898. Wilford Woodruff, Journals and Papers, 1828–1898. CHL. MS 1352.
Pratt traveled through Michigan on his way to New York City. He traveled to Maine as a missionary in 1835. (Pratt, Autobiography, 139, 327.)
Pratt, Parley P. The Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, One of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Embracing His Life, Ministry and Travels, with Extracts, in Prose and Verse, from His Miscellaneous Writings. Edited by Parley P. Pratt Jr. New York: Russell Brothers, 1874.
Pratt served a mission in Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey in 1837 and may have maintained correspondence with various church members. (Pratt, Autobiography, 184, 188, 328.)
Pratt, Parley P. The Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, One of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Embracing His Life, Ministry and Travels, with Extracts, in Prose and Verse, from His Miscellaneous Writings. Edited by Parley P. Pratt Jr. New York: Russell Brothers, 1874.
Columbian Hall was located at 263 Grand Street in New York City and was frequently used for temperance society meetings at this time. (See, for example, Hassert, Journal of the Proceedings of the Grand Division of the Sons of Temperance of the State of New-York, 268.)
Hassert, Luke. Journal of Proceedings of the Grand Division of the Sons of Temperance of the State of New-York, and Jurisdiction Thereunto Belonging: From the Formation of the Order, September 29, 1842, to the Close of the Annual Session of October 1844. Together with Statistical Tables, Showing the Progress of the Order. New York City: Piercy and Reed, 1845.
The Bowery is a street in Lower Manhattan. (Kenneth T. Jackson, “Bowery,” in Encyclopedia of New York City, 131–132.)
Jackson, Kenneth T., ed. Encyclopedia of New York City. 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010.
Benjamin Winchester identified this Philadelphia meeting hall as “one of the commissioner’s Hall[s].” In 1918 a historian described the hall as “a three-story brick building standing on the east of Third Street, about midway between Tammany (Buttonwood) and Green streets. It was the officers’ quarters of the military barracks, erected by the Provincial Government, in 1757.” (Benjamin Winchester, Philadelphia, PA, 10 Feb. 1840, Letter to the Editor, Times and Seasons, May 1840, 1:104; Smith, “History of the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Branch,” 361.)
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
Smith, Walter W. “History of Philadelphia Branch.” Journal of History 12 (Jan. 1919): 111–118.
Parley P. Pratt, A Voice of Warning, and Instruction to All People; or, An Introduction to the Faith and Doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints, 2nd ed. (New York: J. W. Harrison, 1839). The reprinting Pratt mentioned here was the tract’s second edition. This work provided a succinct explanation of the faith and doctrine of the church, offered an account based largely on biblical prophecies of the church’s founding and growth, and warned of the apocalyptic destruction that would befall unprepared and impenitent men and women in the near future. Voice of Warning was one of the most widely circulated tracts used by the church in the nineteenth century. Pratt made several substantive changes in the second edition, apparently in response to criticism from JS on a few topics. (Givens and Grow, Parley P. Pratt, 103–120, 167–168.)
Pratt, Parley P. A Voice of Warning and Instruction to All People, Containing a Declaration of the Faith and Doctrine of the Church of the Latter Day Saints, Commonly Called Mormons. New York: W. Sanford, 1837.
Givens, Terryl L., and Matthew J. Grow. Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.