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Revelation, 30 April 1832 [D&C 83]

Source Note

Revelation, “” [, Jackson Co., MO], 31 May [30 Apr.] 1832. Featured version copied [ca. 31 May 1832]; handwriting of ; one page; Newel K. Whitney, Papers, BYU. Includes docket and archival marking.
One leaf, measuring 5 × 7⅞ inches (13 × 20 cm). The top and the right side of the recto have the square cut of manufactured paper. The left side is unevenly cut, suggesting the leaf was excised from a book. The bottom of the leaf is unevenly torn off from what was originally a larger leaf. The document was later folded for filing and docketed by in graphite: “as to Women & children; | Inheretance at Zion | 30 apl. 1832”.
This document and several other revelations, along with many other personal and institutional documents kept by , were inherited by his daughter Mary Jane Whitney, who married Isaac Groo. This collection was passed down in the Groo family and donated by members of the family to the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University during the period 1969–1974.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Andrus et al., “Register of the Newel Kimball Whitney Papers, 1825–1906,” 5–6.

    Andrus, Hyrum L., Chris Fuller, and Elizabeth E. McKenzie. “Register of the Newel Kimball Whitney Papers, 1825–1906,” Sept. 1998. BYU.

Historical Introduction

According to a later JS history, JS “sat in council with the brethren” on 30 April 1832 in , Jackson County, Missouri, and dictated a revelation clarifying the rights of women and children who had lost their husbands or fathers. Although there were civil laws outlining specific property rights for women upon the death of their husbands, it was not clear what would happen if a husband had property to the church. The 30 April revelation helped clarify the church’s position in such instances.
An earlier revelation on the laws of the church outlined principles of consecration, stating that consecration was a means for church members to take care of the poor among them. That revelation instructed members to consecrate their properties to the church and to convey back that were sufficient for their needs and those of their families. The “residue” of the consecrated property was then kept in the “ to administer to the poor and needy.” In accordance with this revelation, a few church members in consecrated properties to the church for a brief time in 1831. After was designated as the location of in July 1831, the practice of consecration was instituted there. As more members consecrated property, questions inevitably arose. For example, according to Missouri statutes, a woman had no claim on her personal property when she married, giving up that right to her husband. If her husband died, a woman had a dower right, or a right to a third part of her husband’s real estate. She was also “entitled absolutely to a share” in her husband’s “other personal estate” that was “equal to the share of a child of such deceased husband, after the payment of debts.” The doctrine of consecration, as established in the “Laws of the Church of Christ” and subsequent revelations, did not address what claims a widow had on property her husband had consecrated to the church or what would happen to children who lost their fathers.
JS apparently became concerned about such questions while in in April 1832. Perhaps one reason was his short trip from 28–29 April to visit the Saints from , New York, who had settled about twelve miles west of in , Missouri. JS had good friends in this settlement, including the Knight family. He later reported that he “received a welcome only known by brethren and sisters united as one in the same faith.” Among those living in Kaw Township were at least two widows: Phebe Crosby Peck, who had four children, and Anna Slade Rogers, who had a daughter. These women’s husbands died in 1829 before the revelation on the “Laws of the Church of Christ” was dictated, but JS’s association with them may have prompted him to wonder about a widow’s claim to consecrated property, which may in turn have led to this 30 April revelation.
may have written this revelation as JS dictated it in late April 1832. The apparent misdating of “May 31st” indicates that the version featured here, in Rigdon’s handwriting, is probably not the original but is a copy made for . Whitney corrected this error in an endorsement that labeled and characterized the revelation: “as to Women & children; Inheretance at 30 apl. 1832.” Sometime after April 1832, copied the revelation into Revelation Book 1, giving it the date of 30 April—a date that was perpetuated in a later JS history. It was also published in the January 1833 issue of The Evening and the Morning Star under the title “Items in Addition to the Laws for the Government of the Church of Christ, Given April, 1832.”

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    JS History, vol. A-1, 213.

  2. [2]

    Revelation, 9 Feb. 1831 [D&C 42:30–34].

  3. [3]

    See, for example, Revelation, 20 May 1831 [D&C 51].

  4. [4]

    Revelation, 20 July 1831 [D&C 57]; Revelation, 1 Aug. 1831 [D&C 58].

  5. [5]

    An Act concerning Dower [Mar. 20 1835], Revised Statutes of the State of Missouri [1835], p. 228, secs. 1–2; Shammas et al., Inheritance in America, 67–68.

    The Revised Statutes of the State of Missouri, Revised and Digested by the Eighth General Assembly, During the Years One Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty-Four, and One Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty-Five. Together with the Constitutions of Missouri and of the United States. 3rd ed. St. Louis: Chambers and Knapp, 1841.

    Shammas, Carole, Marylynn Salmon, and Michel Dahlin. Inheritance in America: From Colonial Time to the Present. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1987.

  6. [6]

    Revelation, 9 Feb. 1831 [D&C 42:30–38]; Revelation, 20 July 1831 [D&C 57:7]; Revelation, 1 Aug. 1831 [D&C 58:35–36].

  7. [7]

    JS History, vol. A-1, 213.

  8. [8]

    Ira J. Willes, Statement, 20 May 1862, CHL. Ira Willes, who moved to Missouri with the Colesville Saints in the summer of 1831 and later prepared a list of the Colesville members that migrated at that time, listed Molly Slade as a widow as well, but she was apparently separated from her husband, who chose to remain in New York when the Colesville Saints migrated to Ohio in 1831. (See Hartley, Stand By My Servant Joseph, 112.)

    Willes, Ira J. Statement, 20 May 1862. CHL. MS 4050.

    Hartley, William G. Stand by My Servant Joseph: The Story of the Joseph Knight Family and the Restoration. Provo, UT: Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2003.

  9. [9]

    Hartley, Stand By My Servant Joseph, 146, 177; “Rogers, Mr. Henry R.,” in Inscriptions on the Headstones in the Cemetery at Afton, Chenango Co., N.Y. (formerly part of Brimfield), microfilm 973,007, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL.

    Hartley, William G. Stand by My Servant Joseph: The Story of the Joseph Knight Family and the Restoration. Provo, UT: Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2003.

    U.S. and Canada Record Collection. FHL.

Asterisk (*) denotes a "featured" version, which includes an introduction and annotation. *Revelation, 30 April 1832 [D&C 83] Revelation, 30 April 1832, as Recorded in Gilbert, Notebook [D&C 83] Revelation Book 1 Revelations printed in The Evening and the Morning Star, June 1832–June 1833 Revelation Book 2 Doctrine and Covenants, 1835 Revelations printed in Evening and Morning Star, January 1835–June 1836 History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834] Doctrine and Covenants, 1844 “History of Joseph Smith”

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Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Revelation, 30 April 1832 [D&C 83]
ID #
1473
Total Pages
2
Print Volume Location
JSP, D2:240–243
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