Parley P. Pratt, History of the Late Persecution, 1839
Source Note
, History of the Late Persecution Inflicted by the State of Missouri upon the Mormons, in Which Ten Thousand American Citizens were Robbed, Plundered, and Driven from the State, and Many Others Imprisoned, Martyred, &c. for Their Religion, and All This By Military Force, By Order of the Executive; i–vi, 7–84 pp.; Detroit, MI: Dawson & Bates, 1839. The copy used for this transcription is held at CHL.
Historical Introduction
While incarcerated at , Missouri, in March 1839, JS addressed a letter to the church “at Illinois and scattered abroad and to in particular,” instructing the Saints to gather up “a knoledge of all the facts and sufferings and abuses put upon them by the people of this state.” (JS et al., Liberty, MO, to the church members and Edward Partridge, Quincy, IL, 20 Mar. 1839, in Revelations Collection, CHL [D&C 123:1, 6].) Edward Partridge responded with an account that became the three opening installments of “A History, of the Persecution, of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints in Missouri,” an eleven-part series published in the church’s Illinois newspaper, Times and Seasons, between December 1839 and October 1840. “A History, of the Persecution” receives comprehensive treatment in volume 2 of the Histories series of The Joseph Smith Papers and is available on this website.
may have intended to tell the entire story himself, but he fell ill shortly after publication of “A History, of the Persecution” began and died on 27 May 1840. Prompted by Partridge’s illness and subsequent death, the editors of the Times and Seasons, and , sought elsewhere for source materials to continue the series. It is probable that they composed the fourth installment to provide a brief transition from Partridge’s account, which ends in 1836, and the conflicts in and adjoining counties beginning in 1838. In April and June 1840, the fifth and seventh installments reprinted passages from ’s History of the Late Persecution Inflicted by the State of Missouri upon the Mormons (Detroit: Dawson and Bates 1839). The sixth and eighth through tenth installments drew upon ’s pamphlet, An Appeal to the American People. The series concluded with an eleventh installment in October 1840, featuring Missouri militia general ’s callous speech to the Saints after their surrender at , Missouri, in November 1838.
wrote History of the Late Persecution, the document featured here, during his eight-month imprisonment in jails in 1838–1839. His wife, , daringly smuggled the manuscript out of the jail. After his escape on 4 July 1839 and reunion with the Saints in , Pratt left on a mission to England with the Twelve Apostles. When he reached he paused to visit relatives and arranged for the publication of his history there, obtaining a copyright for his book on 30 September 1839. Revised versions were subsequently reprinted in in 1840 as a pamphlet under the same title and as an expanded hardback with the title Late Persecution of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints. (Crawley, Descriptive Bibliography, 89–90, 100–103.) Pratt later drew upon his history when he composed his autobiography in the 1850s.
’s History of the Late Persecution provides an autobiographical account of events in , , , and counties, Missouri, beginning in 1833. Some of the material describing events that transpired in Jackson County in 1833 was drawn from an earlier publication Pratt co-authored with and , “‘The Mormons’ So Called.” History of the Late Persecution also rehearses the conflict that engulfed Caldwell and Daviess counties, the expulsion of the Saints from Missouri, the mistreatment of Mormon prisoners by Missouri authorities, and the smuggling of Pratt’s manuscript copy of the History from jail, concluding with his narrow escape from imprisonment in Columbia, Missouri.
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ing committed to jail, after causing us to travel all day without eating, or refresment of any kind. Our jail in Columbia was a large wooden block building, with two apartments; one was occupied by the jailor and his family, and the other by the prisonars. Our dungeon I have already described as disagreeable and gloomy; its walls consist of three tiers of hewn timber, which are, in all, about a yard thick; it is lighted by two small windows, about sixteen inches square each, and fortified with three rows of large iron grates.
Our upper room was about eighteen feet square, with a decent floor, and two large grated windows, one looking to the east, and the other to the west, thus giving a free circulation of air, which in summer renders it very pleasant. It has a fine prospect of part of the flourishing village, and some fine farms, and upon the whole is as comfortable as one can expect to enjoy, when shut from all exercise, and from his family and friends, and every thing dear to his heart. After being in this jail for some days, a messenger arrived from , bringing news from our families. This was Mr. Watson Barlow. His coming truly refreshed our spirits. My wrote to me, that she intended to come and see me soon. On arriving at Columbia, we applied to the Hon. Judge Reynolds, for a special term of the Court to be holden for our trials; this petition was granted, and the first of July was appointed for the sitting of said Court. It is now the thirteenth of June, in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-nine; I have been in confinement seven months and fourteen days; this record has all been written in prison, and most of it in a dark, cold, filthy, crowded room, in the midst of the chat of six or seven prisoners, and the threatening, abuse, blasphemy and gambling of miserable, unfeeling wretches, under the name of guards. Under these considerations, I trust its literary defects will be kind [p. 65]