Knight was a Latter-day Saint physician living in Indiana. (Heber C. Kimball, Pleasant Garden, IN, to Vilate Murray Kimball, 24 Oct. 1839, photocopy, Heber C. and Vilate Murray Kimball, Letters, CHL; Cady, Indiana Annual Register, 136.)

Kimball, Heber C., and Vilate Murray Kimball. Letters, 1837–1847. Heber C. Kimball, Correspondence and Memorandum Book, 1837–1864. Photocopy. CHL.

Cady, C. W. The Indiana Annual Register and Pocket Manual, Revised and Corrected for the Year 1846. . . . Indianapolis: Samuel Turner, 1846.

Hyde and Page arrived in Dayton, Ohio, toward the end of June 1840. The next month, Hyde reported that while there they had “preached in the court house to crowded congregations; and also in the grove” but had baptized only five people. (Letter from William W. Phelps, with Appended Letter from Orson Hyde and John E. Page, 29 June 1840; Orson Hyde, Franklin, OH, 7 July 1840, Letter to the Editor, Times and Seasons, Aug. 1840, 1:156.)

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

The place “16 miles off” was likely Milton, Ohio. According to a July 1840 letter from Page (as summarized in the Times and Seasons), “he was then in Milton, preaching and baptizing, he had baptized six in that place” and had scheduled six more baptisms for 15 July 1840. (Ebenezer Robinson, Cincinnati, OH, 16 July 1840, in Times and Seasons, Aug. 1840, 1:156.)

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

Sidney Rigdon, An Appeal to the American People: Being an Account of the Persecutions of the Church of Latter Day Saints; and of the Barbarities Inflicted on Them by the Inhabitants of the State of Missouri, 2nd ed. (Cincinnati: Shepard and Stearns, 1840); see also Crawley, Descriptive Bibliography, 1:124–125.

Crawley, Peter. A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church. 3 vols. Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1997–2012.

On 1 September 1841 Page estimated that Hyde left him fourteen or fifteen hundred copies. (Letter from John E. Page, 1 Sept. 1841.)

On 1 September 1841 Page recalled that he remained in Cincinnati until the “last of Oct” but came to believe “that Elder Hyde had gon ahead and suplyed the market with the sale of the ‘Appeal’ so I thought best in order to sell my Books I would go back to Dayton Milton &c.” (Letter from John E. Page, 1 Sept. 1841.)

Page might have intended to travel from Dayton to Pittsburgh on the Great Miami River, a tributary of the Ohio River. He likely expected the river to close sometime in December. According to an early American steamboat directory, the Ohio River froze for “six or eight weeks,” and then the ice broke up in February, rendering the river “open for navigation.” In March 1838 the chief engineer of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad reported that “the navigation of the Ohio River opens always by the 1st of March, and generally by the middle of February.” (Lloyd, Lloyd’s Steamboat Directory, 50–51; Documents Submitted by the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company, 12; see also Roberts, Practical Views on the Proposed Improvement of the Ohio River, 48–49.)

Lloyd, James T. Lloyd’s Steamboat Directory, and Disasters on the Western Waters, Containing the History of the First Application of Steam, as a Motive Power. . . . Cincinnati: James T. Lloyd, 1856.

Documents Submitted by the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company, in Behalf of Their Application to the Legislature of Virginia. Richmond, VA: Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, 1838.

Roberts, W. Milnor. Practical Views on the Proposed Improvement of the Ohio River. Philadelphia: Journal of the Franklin Institute, 1857.

Notice, Times and Seasons, 15 Jan. 1841, 2:287.

Page was in Philadelphia in September 1841, but his arrival date is unknown. He may have traveled there in early spring 1841, as originally planned. (Letter from John E. Page, 1 Sept. 1841.)

JS and Brigham Young, Notice, Times and Seasons, 15 Oct. 1841, 2:582.

In an 18 September 1841 letter to JS, Benjamin Winchester accused Page of being in no hurry to cross the Atlantic and join Hyde. (Letter from Benjamin Winchester, 18 Sept. 1841.)

According to JS’s journal, Page explained that “the cause of his Seperation from Elder Hyde. in his mission to Jerusalem. [was] first a covenant to communicate to each other all secrets.” (JS, Journal, 7 Apr. 1842.)

The term grannyism has not been located in any contemporary dictionaries. A nineteenth-century Presbyterian source used the term to describe youth who “yield to a tame helplessness and inertness of character . . . [and] seem to think it a great hardship to be thrown on their own resources, and often evince great reluctance to make any effort to help themselves along in their education.” (Smith, Old Redstone, 126.)

Smith, Joseph (1796–1858). Old Redstone; or, Historical Sketches of Western Presbyterianism, Its Early Ministers, Its Perilous Times, and Its First Records. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo, 1854.

See 2 Kings 2:1–11.

JS’s reference to Page as a scapegoat seems to refer to the fact that while Page was never able to make the journey, Hyde obtained sufficient funds partly based on the promise of Page’s oratory skills. (Letter from John E. Page, 1 Sept. 1841.)

Page proselytized in Pittsburgh from late December 1841 to sometime in March 1842 on his return journey to Nauvoo. Nearly thirty Pittsburgh residents, only a handful of whom were members of the church, wrote to church leaders in Nauvoo requesting that Page be allowed to remain there or to return after reporting to Nauvoo. (Letter from George Gee, 30 Dec. 1841; Letter from Levick Sturges et al., 30 Jan. 1842; Petition from Richard Savary et al., ca. 2 Feb. 1842.)