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The Book of the Law of the Lord, Book A

Source Note

Book of the Law of the Lord, Book A, Dec. 1841–May 1844; handwriting of , , , John McEwan, , and ; signatures of and ; 365 pages; in “The Book of the Law of the Lord,” Record Book, 1841–1845, CHL. Includes redactions and use marks.
Tithing and donations for December 1841–May 1844 were inscribed in a large, leather-bound blank book made with thick paper. The paper bears a star-shaped watermark in the middle of each leaf and was printed with forty-seven blue lines on each side. The text block was originally formed with thirty gatherings of eight leaves each. The second gathering, however, has only six leaves. Each set of front and back endpapers consists of a gathering of four leaves of unlined paper, but only two leaves are now extant in the back gathering. The trimmed pages measure 16¼ × 10½ inches (41 × 27 cm). Headbands were sewn onto the text block. The exterior pages of the endpapers are joined to the pasteboards with a strip of pink cloth. Marbled papers featuring a shell pattern with green body and veins of red and yellow are glued to the inside covers of the boards and to the exterior page of each gathering of endpapers. The leaf edges are stained green. The text block is bound in a ledger style to the boards. The spine was constructed with four false raised bands demarcating five panels. The boards and spine are covered in suede leather with additional leather strips over the top and bottom of the book. The suede leather was blind tooled on the outside covers, the raised bands of the spine, and the turned-in edges on the inside cover. The additional leather strips, which also cover the first and fifth panels of the spine, are embossed with dual lines and vegetal designs along the borders and have gold line filling. The spine is further embossed with the number “6” in 20-point type on the fifth panel. The second and fourth panels have black-painted squares of paper glued to them. These feature gold lining and decoration at the top and bottom. The completed volume measures 17 × 11 × 2¼ inches (43 × 28 × 6 cm) and includes 244 free leaves. A penciled inscription at the inside top corner of page [ii]—the verso of the front marbled flyleaf—gives what appears to be an expensive price for this high-quality blank book: “bth | 10.00”.
inscribed nine revelations in the book on the first twenty-three pages of lined paper. made minor revisions to these revelation texts. At some point page [1], the recto of the last leaf of unlined endpaper in the front of the book, was inscribed with a title: “THE | BOOK | of the | LAW | of the | LORD”. Because these words are hand lettered in various ornate styles, the handwriting cannot be identified. A matching title appears on the spine of the volume: the square label of black paper on the second panel of the spine bears a smaller square label of white paper with a hand-lettered inscription: “LAW | — of the — | LORD.” inscribed pages 26–126 of the book, with help from and on page 27, and on pages 72–87. inscribed the rest of the volume, pages 127–477, with help from on pages 168–171, on pages 189–190 and 192–201, John McEwan on pages 219–231, and on pages 313–343. These clerks and scribes generally paginated the book and inscribed dateline page headers along the way as they inscribed its texts. At various stages in the production of the volume, and signed their names to their work (pages 126, 181, 215).
Journal entries comprise 90 pages of the volume. The donation records constitute the majority of the volume, 387 pages.
Notes written on three white and three blue slips of paper of various sizes have been inserted in various places, as has a clipped portion of a -era elder’s certificate form with no notes (apparently just a placeholder). There are also two leaves of pink paper just inside the front of the volume. All of these slips and leaves of paper are loose and appear to have been added to the book at a later time.
The book is intricately related to its successor volume, the donation record, which the Joseph Smith Papers has titled “Book of the Law of the Lord, Book B,” and contains donations from May 1844–January 1846, as well as a volume that indexed the tithing and donation records. The “Law of the Lord” is listed as such in inventories of church records made in Salt Lake City, Utah, in the 1850s. These show that the volume was held for a time in the office of church president . In 1880, , president of the , carried the book to a stake Relief Society conference in Salt Lake City. At some point the book was marked on the spine with an archival sticker, which was later removed. The book eventually was housed with the papers of Joseph Fielding Smith, apparently during his tenure as church historian and recorder (1921–1970), and then became part of the First Presidency’s papers when he became church president in 1970. In 2010, the First Presidency gave custody of the book to the Church History Library. This evidence indicates continuous institutional custody and authenticity.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    This six-leaf gathering was either a binding error or the result of one sheet coming loose from the binding before the book was inscribed, as the book’s inscription and pagination runs through this gathering without skipping any text or page numbers.

  2. [2]

    The journal entries are inscribed on pages 26, 31, 33, 36, 39, 43, 44, 48, 56–61, 66–67, 88–95, 122–135, and 164–215.

Historical Introduction

In 1841 under the direction of JS, scribe started a record book that was eventually titled “The Book of the Law of the Lord.” Thompson and other scribes and church recorders, most notably and , used this ledger-style record book to keep important information for the church in , Illinois, from 1841 to 1845.
This book includes three types of records. The first, comprising twenty-five pages at the beginning of the volume, contains nine JS revelations copied in by between January and August 1841. Six of these nine revelations were canonized. The volume was also used to keep JS’s journal, covering the period from 11 December 1841 to 20 December 1842. The journal was recorded by scribes , , , and . The third and largest type of record in the volume is a listing of tithing and donations for the construction of the and . These donations were recorded by scribes Willard Richards, William Clayton, , , John McEwan, and Eliza R. Snow between late 1841 and 1845.
In December 1841, three months after ’s death, noted his appointment as “Recorder. for the Temple, and the Scribe for the private office of the President.” In this capacity, Richards took responsibility for keeping JS’s journal and also began recording donations and tithing in the Book of the Law of the Lord. Journal entries and donation records were kept concurrently, alternating sometimes every other page. This pattern is more pronounced at the beginning of the book, where donations and journal entries occasionally appear together on a single page. Over time, however, larger blocks of text were dedicated to either donations or journal entries.
In late June 1842, prepared to leave for a trip to the eastern to move his family from and collect donations for the . On 29 June, he transferred responsibility for the Book of the Law of the Lord to . JS appointed Clayton as temple recorder on 3 September 1842 to replace the absent Richards. After Richards returned to Nauvoo in fall 1842, he resumed work as secretary and historian for JS, while Clayton continued working as the temple recorder. In December 1842 Richards began keeping JS’s journal in a smaller and more portable volume, no longer using the Book of the Law of the Lord for journal entries. Clayton and other scribes used the remainder of the volume, pages 216–477, to record tithing and donations. A second volume was started in May 1844 to continue the record.
Tithing and donations were mostly recorded contemporaneously in the first volume from December 1841 to May 1844. However, in December 1844, used a portion of the volume, pages 216–231, which had likely been left blank for journal entries, to record donations collected as part of the penny fund subscription. Clayton recorded penny fund donations dating from 3 July 1844 to 25 April 1845. When he ran out of space in the first volume, he wrote the remaining subscriptions in the second volume.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Thompson died on 27 August 1841. (“Death of Col. Robert B. Thompson,” Times and Seasons, 1 Sept. 1841, 2:519.)

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

  2. [2]

    The six canonized revelations constitute, in order of their recording by Thompson, sections 124, 125, 105, 111, 87, and 103 in the current Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The three uncanonized revelations include one dated 20 March 1841 and two dictated on 12 January 1838 before JS departed Ohio and moved to Missouri.

  3. [3]

    JS, Journal, December 1841–December 1842.

  4. [4]

    See JS, Journal, 13 Dec. 1841.

  5. [5]

    “To The Eastern Churches,” Times and Seasons, 1 June 1842, 3:814.

  6. [6]

    See JS, Journal, 29 June 1842; Richards, Journal, 1 July 1842; and Clayton, History of the Nauvoo Temple, 30.

    Richards, Willard. Journals, 1836–1853. Willard Richards, Papers, 1821–1854. CHL. MS 1490, boxes 1–2.

    Clayton, William. History of the Nauvoo Temple, 1845. CHL

  7. [7]

    Clayton, History of the Nauvoo Temple, 30–31.

    Clayton, William. History of the Nauvoo Temple, 1845. CHL

  8. [8]

    For more on this division of labor, see Smith, “Book of the Law of the Lord,” 131–163.

    Smith, Alex D. “The Book of the Law of the Lord,” Journal of Mormon History 38 (Fall 2012): 131–163.

  9. [9]

    See JS, Journal, Dec. 1842–June 1844, bk. 1.

  10. [10]

    The Joseph Smith Papers Project has labeled this second volume “Book of the Law of the Lord, Book B.” See Historical Introduction to Book of the Law of the Lord, Book B.

  11. [11]

    For more on the Nauvoo penny fund, see Book of the Law of the Lord, Book A, 216.

  12. [12]

    See Book of the Law of the Lord, Book B, 551.

    Trustee-in-Trust. Tithing and Donation Record, 1844 May–1846 January. CHL.

Asterisk (*) denotes a "featured" version, which includes an introduction and annotation. *Blessing to John and Catharine Paine Wilkie, 15 March 1844

Page 121

1842
May 16th. Received of Jane Ann Smith p[e]r hand Cash $15.00.— on $15.00
[May 16th.] Received of pr hand Cash $5.00.— on $5.00
[May 16th.] Received of pr hand Cash $2.50 on $2.50
[May 16th.] Received of 4 Shares of the Capital Stock of the Nos. 86, 87, 88, 89 value $50.00 ea[ch]— $200.00.— on tithing $200.00
[May 16th.] Received pr Letter of a receipt for $305.00— which is to apply on a note which said holds against Joseph Smith and passed to the credit of the following brethren on tithing, To Wit:—
— $75.00
— $50.00
— $20.00
— $7.00
Matilda Bailey— $3.00
— $150.00
[May 16th.] Received of Wm. Fry $11.25. on tithing, it being Redemption money and Taxes for the South West quarter of Sec 28, Township 10 South, Range 2 West Also Cash pr Letter $1.00.— on tithing $12.25
[May 16th.] Received of $20.00.— on his labor tithing as pr receipt of May 14th. 1842 $20.00
17th. Received of pr hand 9¼ yds of blue cloth @ $2.50 pr Yd— on tithing $23.12
[17th.] Received of 1 Book of Mormon $1.00 on his tithing $1.00
[17th.] Received of John Qail [Quayle] pr hand Cash £5–0–0. on tithing $25.00
[17th.] Received of pr hand Cash $2.00.— on tithing $2.00
[17th.] Received of Julia Allen pr hand Cash $0.25 on $0.25
[17th.] Received of William Brown pr hand Cash $0.25 on $0.25
[17th.] Received of pr hand part of a Barrel of Beef value $4.00.— on tithing $4.00
[17th.] Received of <​$​>20.00.— it being pr account with — on tithing $20.00
[17th.] Received of 1 Bull & Steer value $35.00.— on tithing $35.00
[p. 121]
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Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
The Book of the Law of the Lord, Book A
ID #
20389
Total Pages
382
Print Volume Location
Handwriting on This Page
  • William Clayton

Footnotes

  1. [52]

    In April 1841, Amos Fielding was appointed by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles to serve as an emigration agent in Liverpool, England, to assist British Saints in traveling to the United States and gathering with the Saints in Illinois. In April 1842, he landed in New Orleans with a group of around 150 Saints. This group arrived in Nauvoo by May. Fielding brought tithing and donations from British Saints, which he gave to church clerks to be recorded. (See Brigham Young et al., “An Epistle of the Twelve,” Times and Seasons, 1 Sept. 1842, 3:896; Letter from Parley P. Pratt, 13 Mar. 1842; and Notice, Times and Seasons, 16 May 1842, 3:790.)

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

  2. [53]

    Letter to George Boosinger, 24 Feb. 1842; Letter from George Boosinger, 9 Apr. 1842; see also Historical Introduction to Letter from George Boosinger, 9 Apr. 1842.

  3. [54]

    British currency in the nineteenth century consisted of coins of varying values. The primary currency used was the pound sterling, often in the form of a gold sovereign. Smaller coins called shillings and pence were also commonly used. A pound was traditionally divided into twenty shillings, and each shilling was divided into twelve pennies, or pence. The two smallest coins were divisions of a penny, into four farthings or two halfpennies. The abbreviation used in ledgers and other financial records for this form of currency was “£ s d.” The pound symbol (£) derived from the word “Libra,” meaning “a pound” in Latin. The “s” was an abbreviation for the Latin “solidus,” which in English was referred to as a “shilling.” The “d” was an abbreviation of “denarius,” or a Roman silver coin, which was also initially used as the name of the English silver penny. While other countries in the British empire abandoned this system, currency in the United Kingdom of Great Britain was not decimalized and standardized into units of one hundred until 1971. (“Pound,” in Oxford English Dictionary, 7:1202; “Solidus,” in Oxford English Dictionary, 10:401; “Denarius,” in Oxford English Dictionary, 3:191; Sutherland, English Coinage 600–1900; see also “Pounds, Shillings and Pence,” The Royal Mint Museum, accessed 3 July 2023, https://www.royalmintmuseum.org.uk/journal/history/pounds-shillings-and-pence/.)

    The Oxford English Dictionary. Edited by James A. H. Murray, Henry Bradley, W. A. Craigie, and C. T. Onions. 12 vols. 1933. Reprint, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970.

    Sutherland, Carol Humphrey Vivian. English Coinage 600–1900. London: B. T. Batsford, 1973.

    The Royal Mint Museum. https://www.royalmintmuseum.org.uk/journal/history/pounds-shillings-and-pence/.

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