Footnotes
Willard Richards, who became JS’s secretary in 1842, inscribed two dockets on the letter. On 4 February 1846, he finished boxing up papers and books belonging to JS and the church before migrating to the Salt Lake Valley, making it likely that Foster’s letter was filed sometime in that four-year period. (JS, Journal, 21 Dec. 1842; Richards, Journal, 4 Apr. 1846; JS History, vol. D-1, 1485.)
Richards, Willard. Journals, 1836–1853. Willard Richards, Papers, 1821–1854. CHL. MS 1490, boxes 1–2.
Johnson, Register of the Joseph Smith Collection, 8.
Johnson, Jeffery O. Register of the Joseph Smith Collection in the Church Archives, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City: Historical Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1973.
Footnotes
See Historical Introduction to Letter of Introduction from Sidney Rigdon, 9 Nov. 1839.
The group left Quincy on 1 November 1839. According to Foster’s reminiscence written more than three decades later, Foster met JS, Rigdon, and Higbee when the group stopped near Quincy at Benjamin Wilber’s house in Kingston, Illinois, where Foster had been boarding and practicing medicine. (Historical Introduction to Recommendation from Quincy, IL, Branch, between 20 Oct. and 1 Nov. 1839; Robert D. Foster, “A Testimony of the Past,” True Latter Day Saints’ Herald, 15 Apr. 1875, 225.)
Saints’ Herald. Independence, MO. 1860–.
Letter of Introduction from Sidney Rigdon, 9 Nov. 1839. Recalling JS’s invitation more than three decades later, Foster wrote: “I was told by Joseph Smith, the Prophet, that if I was willing to obey the will of God and be obedient to his commandments, I must quit my practice and start the next day with them to the city of Washington, to aid them in their mission and minister to Elder Sydney Rigdon, who was very sick at that time. So, in obedience to this mandate, I suddenly closed my practice, and started the next morning, in company with these gentlemen, to visit the chief magistrate of the Union at the federal city.” (Robert D. Foster, “A Testimony of the Past,” True Latter Day Saints’ Herald, 15 Apr. 1875, 225.)
Saints’ Herald. Independence, MO. 1860–.
When JS and Foster left Washington DC, Higbee remained to oversee the church’s petitioning efforts to Congress. Rigdon had joined JS, Higbee, and Foster in Philadelphia around 14 January 1840. His poor health, however, prevented him from returning to Washington with JS and Higbee. (Letter from Elias Higbee, 20 Feb. 1840–A; Letter from Sidney Rigdon, 3 Apr. 1840; Historian’s Office, JS History, Draft Notes, 14 Jan. 1840, 2.)
A few days earlier, Phebe Carter Woodruff wrote to her husband, Wilford Woodruff, that “Commerce is growing verry fast—the lots of land are about all taken up there now.” The Ohio and Dover Advertiser reported in May 1840 that church members had built three hundred homes in the Commerce area. (Phebe Carter Woodruff, Montrose, Iowa Territory, to Wilford Woodruff, Ledbury, England, 8 Mar. 1840, digital scan, Wilford Woodruff, Collection, CHL; “The Mormons,” Ohio Democrat and Dover Advertiser [Canal Dover, OH], 15 May 1840, [2].)
Woodruff, Wilford. Collection, 1831–1905. CHL. MS 19509.
Ohio Democrat. Tuscawaras Co., OH. 1839–1925.
At an October 1839 general conference of the church, JS stated that the Commerce area was “a good place and suited for the saints.” The conference subsequently appointed it “a stake and a place of gathering for the saints.” (Minutes and Discourses, 5–7 Oct. 1839.)
On 12 February 1840, the Senate voted to send the church’s memorial to its Committee on the Judiciary. (Journal of the Senate of the United States, 26th Cong., 1st Sess., 12 Feb. 1840, 173.)
Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, Being the First Session of the Twenty-Sixth Congress, Begun and Held at the City of Washington, December 2, 1839, and in the Sixty-Fourth Year of the Independence of the Said United States. Washington DC: Blair and Rives, 1839.
Likely the family of Benjamin Wilber, with whom Foster had boarded in Kingston, Illinois, or possibly the family of Melvin Wilbur, who was a member of the Seventy living in the Quincy branch. (Robert D. Foster, “A Testimony of the Past,” True Latter Day Saints’ Herald, 15 Apr. 1875, 225; Quincy, IL, Branch, Record Book, 8.)
Saints’ Herald. Independence, MO. 1860–.
Quincy, IL, Branch, Record Book / “Record of the Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints in Quincy, (Ill),” 1840–1846. CHL. LR 5361 21, fd. 1.