Footnotes
He authorized Willard Richards to publish a notice, dated 22 September, announcing the conference, but before it was published, JS announced the conference from the stand during his Sunday discourse on 24 September. (“Special Conference,” Nauvoo Neighbor, 27 Sept. 1843, [3]; Note from Willard Richards, 22 Sept. 1843; JS, Journal, 24 Sept. 1843.)
Rigdon told the April 1844 conference of the church that he had frequently suffered from “the violence of sickness” and noted that “want of health, and other circumstances have kept me in silence for nearly the last five years.” (“Conference Minutes,” Times and Seasons, 1 May 1844, 5:522.)
Historical Introduction to Discourse, 13 Aug. 1843–B.
JS had previously called Lyman to the First Presidency in February 1843, apparently to replace Rigdon. At the time, JS was preparing ecclesiastical charges against Rigdon for his alleged connections to John C. Bennett. However, JS and Rigdon reconciled before Lyman’s calling could be announced and possibly before it could be implemented. In 1844, after JS’s death, Heber C. Kimball publicly stated that sometime around the October 1843 conference, Lyman was privately “ordained & put in the place of Sidney Rigdon as counsillor” to JS. Jedediah Grant made a similar statement in an 1844 pamphlet. This ordination may have occurred during a 1 October 1843 prayer meeting at which William Law and at least one unidentified individual were “anointed. counselors” to JS. (JS, Journal, 4 and 11 Feb. 1843; Woodruff, Journal, [20] Jan. 1843; Historical Department, Journal History of the Church, 10 Jan. 1842 [1843]; Historian’s Office, General Church Minutes, 8 Sept. 1844, 12; “Continuation of Elder Rigdon’s Trial,” Times and Seasons, 1 Oct. 1844, 5:663–664; Grant, Collection of Facts, 15–16; JS, Journal, 1 Oct. 1843.)
Woodruff, Wilford. Journals, 1833–1898. Wilford Woodruff, Journals and Papers, 1828–1898. CHL. MS 1352.
Historical Department. Journal History of the Church, 1896–. CHL. CR 100 137.
Historian’s Office. General Church Minutes, 1839–1877. CHL
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
Grant, Jedediah M. A Collection of Facts, Relative to the Course Taken by Elder Sidney Rigdon, in the States of Ohio, Missouri, Illinois and Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Brown, Bicking and Guilbert, 1844.
Workers had completed the basement stonework in 1842. (JS, Journal, 6 Apr. 1843; David Nye White, “The Prairies, Nauvoo, Joe Smith, the Temple, the Mormons, &c.,” Pittsburgh Daily Gazette, 14 Sept. 1843, [3].)
Pittsburgh Daily Gazette. Pittsburgh, PA. 1841–1844.
Historical Introduction to Letter of Introduction from James Adams, 9 Nov. 1839.
JS previously touched on this subject during a funeral sermon for Elias Higbee in mid-August 1843. (Discourse, 13 Aug. 1843–A.)
Clayton, Journal, 9 Oct. 1843.
Clayton, William. Journals, 1842–1845. CHL.
Minutes and Discourse, 1–5 Oct. 1841; Historical Introduction to Minutes, 22 July 1842.
The 15 September issue of the Times and Seasons included an authorization for George J. Adams dated 14 October, indicating that the issue was published at least a month behind the printed date. In the previous issue, dated 1 September, John Taylor, the editor of the Times and Seasons, apologized for the lengthy delay, which he attributed to the absence of his business partner Wilford Woodruff—who was then serving a mission in the east—and his employees’ poor health. (Authorization for George J. Adams, 14 Oct. 1843; “To Our Patrons,” Times and Seasons, 1 Sept. 1843, 4:312.)
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
In the 7 October 1843 entry in JS’s journal, Richards directed the reader to “see minutes” of an account of Sidney Rigdon’s trial. Richards wrote “see minutes” in JS’s journal nine other times, each time referring to minutes he personally kept. (JS, Journal, 7 Oct. 1843; JS, Journal, 12, 24, and 30 Apr. 1843; JS, Journal, 11, 23, 27, and 29 May 1843; 29 Dec. 1843; 13 May 1844.)
See, for example, JS, Journal, 6–8 Apr. 1843; and JS, Journal, 6–9 Apr. 1844.
Burgess, who moved to Nauvoo in April 1843, noted in his journal the “joy and gladness” he felt after arriving at the city, where he had “the priviledge of hearing the doctrine of the blessed redeemer developed by his servant the Prophet.” He also seems to have sought out accounts of JS’s sermons, and there is at least one sermon recorded in his notebook that he did not attend. (Burgess, Journal, [62]–[63]; see also, for example, Discourse, 6 Apr. 1843–B, as Reported by James Burgess.)
Burgess, James. Journal, 1841–1848. CHL. MS 1858.
Burgess, Journal and Notebook, Oct. 1841–Dec. 1848, [14]–[15]; JS, Journal, 9 Oct. 1843.
Burgess, James. Journal and Notebook, Oct. 1841–Dec. 1848. James Burgess, Journals, 1841–1848. CHL.
This routine semiannual conference of the church was termed a “special” instead of a “general” conference because JS announced in October 1841 that there would not be another general conference of the church until the completion of the Nauvoo temple. (See Minutes and Discourse, 1–5 Oct. 1841; see also “Conference Minutes,” and “First Meeting in the Temple,” Times and Seasons, 1 Nov. 1845, 6:1008–1016, 1017–1018.)
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
Rigdon was imprisoned alongside JS and others in Liberty, Missouri, in late 1838. In early 1839, the prisoners petitioned the Clay County court for a writ of habeas corpus, a common law remedy that permitted an authorized judge to review the legality of a prisoner’s detention. However, the judge released only Rigdon on bail and remanded the other petitioners to prison. Rather than remain in the state for his court appearance, Rigdon left Missouri and in February 1839 arrived in Quincy, Illinois, where he joined the Saints who were forced out of Missouri by mobs. (Sidney Rigdon, Testimony, Nauvoo, IL, 1 July 1843, pp. [22]–[24], Nauvoo, IL, Records, CHL; Editorial, Quincy [IL] Whig, 23 Feb. 1839, [1].)
Quincy Whig. Quincy, IL. 1838–1856.
Rigdon replaced his son-in-law, George W. Robinson, as postmaster of Nauvoo in 1841. A year later, JS accused Rigdon, Robinson, and others of stealing money and letters sent to JS or the church. In November 1842, JS oversaw the collection of affidavits and the drafting of a petition calling for Rigdon to be removed as postmaster and for JS to be appointed to that position. (U.S. Post Office Department, Record of Appointment of Postmasters, reel 28, vol. 12B, p. 514; Letter to George W. Robinson, 6 Nov. 1842; JS, Journal, 8 Nov. 1842.)
U.S. Post Office Department. Record of Appointment of Postmasters, 1832–September 30, 1971. National Archives Microfilm Publications, microcopy M841. 145 microfilm reels. Washington DC: National Archives, 1977.
In January 1843, Bennett wrote a letter to Rigdon and Orson Pratt informing them that he was on his way to Missouri to encourage the courts there to make a new attempt to arrest JS on the 1838 charges of treason, burglary, and other crimes. After he received the letter, Rigdon passed it along to Pratt, who delivered it to JS. Both Rigdon and Pratt were disaffected from JS at the time due to disagreements about plural marriage, but Pratt’s delivery of the letter to JS marked the beginning of their reconciliation, while Rigdon’s failure to do so led JS to further suspect his loyalty. (Letter to Justin Butterfield, 16 Jan. 1843; Minutes, 20 Jan. 1843.)
Sometime in August 1843, an individual working on the steamboat Annawan told Orson Hyde that “Mr Prentice in the vicinity of Quincy” claimed that in 1842 Rigdon promised Thomas Carlin, who was then governor of Illinois, that he “would use all the influence that his circumstances would admit of. to have Joseph Smith arrested, and deliverd into the hands of the Missourians.” JS made this accusation public on 13 August 1843—and again on 27 August, when Rigdon was forced to give up his ministerial license. (Thomas Carlin, Quincy, IL, to Sidney Rigdon, [Nauvoo, IL], 18 Aug. 1843; Historical Introduction to Discourse, 13 Aug. 1843–B; JS, Journal, 27 Aug. 1843.)