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Warrant, 21 October 1833

Source Note

and , Warrant, , Geauga Co., OH, to , Kirtland Township, OH, 21 Oct. 1833; unidentified handwriting, possibly Oliver A. Crary; Kirtland Township Trustees Minutes, 114–115; Lake County Historical Society, Painesville, OH. Transcription from a digital color image made of the original in 2001.
The meeting minutes of the trustees are inscribed in a ledger book measuring 15½ × 6½ × 1 inches (39 × 17 × 3 cm). The volume has 114 leaves, including flyleaves, each measuring 15¼ × 6¼ inches (39 × 16 cm). Each page is vertically ruled with three red ledger lines. The leaves are stitched together through five thread holes. The thick paper covers are enclosed in black leather. The insides of the front and back covers have a decorative red and blue pattern covered with white pastedowns. The front pastedown has penciled ciphering numbers and “175” written in ink. A white label pasted on the cover reads “KIRTLAND TOWNSHIP | TRUSTEES’ MINUTES AND | POLL BOOK | 1817–1838”. A printed white label on the spine reads “KIRTLAND TWNSP MINUTES & POLL BOOK”. Most of the pages are numbered, though some page numbers are not consecutive. One blank flyleaf appears at the beginning of the ledger book and is followed by the township minutes, which appear on the next 186 pages. The minutes are followed by 27 blank pages and then 12 pages that feature drawings and descriptions of earmarks.
It is unknown when the township ledger book came into the possession of the Lake County Historical Society.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    The physical description of the ledger book is taken largely from Dornbos, “Kirtland Township Records,” 1.

    Dornbos, Paul E. “Kirtland Township Records, 1817–1838.” Manuscript description and typescript prepared for the Lake County History Center, Painesville, OH, 2003. Copy in editors’ possession.

Historical Introduction

The warrant featured here represents one of the earliest known anti-Mormon actions taken by local government officials against JS and his followers in . Like other states, Ohio had a law that allowed townships to elect overseers of the poor. These overseers were ostensibly responsible for providing relief to those suffering in indigent circumstances within a township. However, in order to prevent persons who were already destitute from settling within the township boundaries and thus becoming expensive wards, the law allowed overseers to “warn out” recently arrived settlers to the township who they feared would become a financial burden. Once such persons were warned, the township could absolve itself of future liability for their care. In some cases, those warned were physically removed by overseers and transported back to the township where they last resided. While such forcible and expensive evictions were rare, townships often used “warnings out” to prevent undesirables from attaining legal residence in the township. Legal residence secured access to relief funds if one became impoverished, and for males it also awarded the much more fundamental right of suffrage within the township. By superficially warning targeted individuals out of a township on the basis of alleged poverty, townships could delay newcomers from obtaining legal residence, and thus indefinitely prevent them from attaining the right to vote and influencing local politics. For example, in 1832 in , Ohio (about thirty-five miles south of ), a newspaper reported that someone had been warned out because of his political and social beliefs; the article lamented that one man had been “warned out of town because he belonged to the Temperance Society.”
As early as 13 January 1831, before JS and other church members had arrived in , records indicated an apparently targeted attempt to warn several early Mormon converts out of the township on the basis of their faith rather than their poverty. Men like , , and , who had been converted by missionaries by early November 1830, were among those warned out of the township in January 1831. Although was away on a journey to meet JS in New York at the time the warning was issued, he and his family were also warned out of the township. It is possible that this flurry of warnings in early 1831 was coincidental, because the new converts from other areas in Ohio who moved to Kirtland that winter had little or no money and may have genuinely been warned out because of their poverty. Anecdotal evidence, however, suggests otherwise. For instance, one of the individuals warned out on 13 January 1831 was , who owned over 140 acres of land in Kirtland in 1831, hardly making him a ready candidate for penury. Because of how quickly it was issued, perhaps one of the more telling warnings given in early January is the one directed to . Under JS’s instruction to help regulate the affairs of the church in Ohio, Whitmer traveled from New York and arrived in Kirtland only two or three days before the warrant was issued to warn him out, along with dozens of others.
In October 1831 a second group of warnings were directed at the following church members and their families: and , , , and at least four other known Mormons. The records do not contain any warnings for 1832, and thus it is unknown if warnings were issued to any residents that year. On 21 October 1833, constable received an order to warn out of the Kirtland Township the twenty-two individuals listed in the warrant featured here, and in many cases their families as well. JS and his family, his parents, and all those listed in the featured document who can be identified were members of the . On the same day Crary received these orders, another warrant was issued to constable Stephen Sherman in which another twenty-eight persons and their families were also ordered to “depart the township immediately” by order of the overseers of the poor. Twenty-six of these persons can likewise be identified as members of the Church of Christ.
Although there is no evidence that any Mormons responded to the warnings by leaving or that any were forcibly removed, the warnings appear to be specifically targeted at adherents of the Church of Christ. Decades later, when reflected on early relations between Mormons and other residents of Kirtland, he explained that part of the tension between the two groups originated from “boasts that in a short time they [the Mormons] would control all the county offices and elect a member of Congress from their own ranks.” As a result, Howe continued, “many of our citizens thought it advisable to take all the legal means within their reach to counteract the progress of so dangerous an enemy in their midst, and many law suits ensued.” These warnings out of the township may have been a part of that effort. The same day that this warrant was copied into the township minutes, Oliver A. Crary was listed as one of the members of a “Committee appointed by a public meeting held in Kirtland” in a notice published in Howe’s Telegraph; the committee concluded to “take measures to avert the evils which threaten the Public by the location in this vicinity, of Joseph Smith Jun. otherwise known as the Mormon Prophet—and who is now, under pretence of Divine Authority, collecting about him an impoverished population, alienated in feeling from other portions of the community, thereby threatening us with an insupportable weight of pauperism.”
While constable Stephen Sherman reported back to the overseers of the poor on 20 December 1833 the names of persons he had warned, it is not precisely clear in the record when constable reported back on the warrant featured here. The original warrant, issued 21 October 1833, was later copied into the trustees’ minute book, which opens with the date of 31 January 1834, suggesting that the warrant was copied on 31 January. If Oliver Crary, the township clerk, followed the dictates of the law, which required him to record the returned warrant within three days of receipt, William Crary would have returned his completed warrant no earlier than 28 January 1834.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Winkle, Politics of Community, 49–60.

    Winkle, Kenneth J. The Politics of Community: Migration and Politics in Antebellum Ohio. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

  2. [2]

    “Temperance Raisings,” Observer and Telegraph (Hudson, OH), 7 June 1832, [3].

    Observer and Telegraph. Hudson, OH. 1830–1833.

  3. [3]

    Kirtland Township Trustees’ Minutes and Poll Book, 13 Jan. 1831, p. 76, in Kirtland, Lake Co., OH, Minutes, microfilm 877,763, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL.

    U.S. and Canada Record Collection. FHL.

  4. [4]

    The 18 January 1831 issue of the Painesville Telegraph informed readers that “a young gentleman by the name of Whitmer, arrived here last week from Manchester, N. Y., the seat of wonders, with a new batch of revelations from God, as he pretended, which have just been communicated to Joseph Smith.” A few months after these first warnings were issued to several Mormons, the Ohio legislature revised the statute regarding the overseers; township residence was to be automatically conferred upon anyone who resided in a township for one year without being warned out. However, if warned during that year, the newcomer had to then abide in the township for three more years without being warned out again in order to obtain residency. (“Mormonism,” Painesville [OH] Telegraph, 18 Jan. 1831, [3], italics in original; An Act for the Relief of the Poor [14 Mar. 1831], Acts of a General Nature, 320–321, sec. 1; Winkle, Politics of Community, 59–60.)

    Painesville Telegraph. Painesville, OH. 1822–1986.

    Acts of a General Nature, Enacted, Revised and Ordered to Be Reprinted, at the First Session of the Twenty-Ninth General Assembly of the State of Ohio. Columbus: Olmsted and Bailhache, 1831.

    Winkle, Kenneth J. The Politics of Community: Migration and Politics in Antebellum Ohio. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

  5. [5]

    Kirtland Township Trustees’ Minutes and Poll Book, 29 Oct. 1831, p. 82, in Kirtland, Lake Co., OH, Minutes, microfilm 877,763, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL.

    U.S. and Canada Record Collection. FHL.

  6. [6]

    The relationship of William B. Hollis and Latten Seeley to the church is unknown.

  7. [7]

    The following individuals, in most cases along with their families, were also warned out on 21 October 1833: Samuel Alger, Ira Ames, Mary Angel, Gladden Bishop, Isaac Bishop, Jacob Bump, Gideon Carter, Jared Carter, Luman Carter, Giles Cook, William Cowdery, Marvel C. Davis, Edson Fuller, John Gander, Jedediah M. Grant, Joseph Hancock, Levi Hancock, Thomas Hancock, Martin Harris, Joel Johnson, John Johnson, Luke Johnson, Lyman Johnson, Moses Martin, Dorvill Patten, John Reid, Leonard Rich, and Ezekiel Rider. (Kirtland Township Trustees’ Minutes and Poll Book, 21 Oct. 1833, pp. 115–116, in Kirtland, Lake Co., OH, Minutes, microfilm 877,763, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL.)

    U.S. and Canada Record Collection. FHL.

  8. [8]

    Howe, Autobiography and Recollections, 44–45.

    Howe, Eber D. Autobiography and Recollections of a Pioneer Printer: Together with Sketches of the War of 1812 on the Niagara Frontier. Painesville, OH: Telegraph Steam Printing House, 1878.

  9. [9]

    “To the Public,” Painesville (OH) Telegraph, 31 Jan. 1834, [3].

    Painesville Telegraph. Painesville, OH. 1822–1986.

  10. [10]

    An Act for the Relief of the Poor [19 Feb. 1810], Statutes of Ohio, vol. 1, chap. 234, p. 696, sec. 4.

    The Statutes of Ohio and of the Northwestern Territory, Adopted or Enacted from 1788 to 1833 Inclusive: Together with the Ordinance of 1787; the Constitutions of Ohio and of the United States, and Various Public Instruments and Acts of Congress: Illustrated by a Preliminary Sketch of the History of Ohio; Numerous References and Notes, and Copious Indexes. 3 vols. Edited by Salmon P. Chase. Cincinnati: Corey and Fairbank, 1833–1835.

Page 114

Jany 31st. 1834 x
State of OhioTo Constable of the Township Greeting
We the overseeers of the Poor of the Township of — Command you to warn the following persons to depart the Township immediately Viz—
& family
Hiram Stratton x
Lucinda Bigelow & family
& family x
& family x
& family
Almon Shermon [Sherman] & family
Wm. B. Hollis—
& family x
Joseph Smith Jr & family x
& family x
& family x
Joseph Wood & family
& family x
& family
& family
Latten Seeley & family
&
Given under our hands this 21st day of Octr 1833—
)overseer of the Poor—
)
Which warrant was returneded with the following endorsement to wit.
Served on Lucinda Bigelow [p. 114]
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Source Note

Document Transcript

Page 114

Document Information

Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Warrant, 21 October 1833
ID #
3621
Total Pages
2
Print Volume Location
JSP, D3:325–331
Handwriting on This Page
  • Unidentified

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    This date marks when the recorder copied the information from the completed warrant into the town record, not the date the warrant for JS and others was initially issued.

  2. [2]

    Barker was later listed among the “names of those who were blessed in consequence of their working on the House of the Lord in Kirtland and those also who consecrated to its upbuilding.” (Minute Book 1, 7–8 Mar. 1835.)

  3. [3]

    Robbins later participated in the Camp of Israel expedition in 1834. (Minute Book 1, 14–15 Feb. 1835.)

  4. [4]

    Stratton later participated in the Camp of Israel expedition in 1834. (Minute Book 1, 14–15 Feb. 1835.)

  5. [5]

    It is uncertain when Bigelow joined the church, but she was recognized as being a member “from near its first organization” in her obituary published in the June 1834 issue of The Evening and the Morning Star. She died on 8 June 1834 at the age of forty-four. Her obituary reads, “She has been a worthy member of the church of the Latter Day Saints from near its first organization, during which she has maintained a circumspect and pious walk before all, and has now gone to the enjoyment of those who ‘rest from their labors, while their works follow them.’ She has left a large family of children, some young, to mourn the loss of a tender mother. ‘My flesh shall rest in hope!’” (Obituary for Lucinda Bigalow, The Evening and the Morning Star, June 1834, 167, italics in original.)

    The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, MO, June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland, OH, Dec. 1833–Sept. 1834.

  6. [6]

    Lyman Sherman assisted in laying the cornerstones of the House of the Lord in Kirtland in June 1834. (Johnson, “A Life Review,” 11.)

    Johnson, Benjamin Franklin. “A Life Review,” after 1893. Benjamin Franklin Johnson, Papers, 1852–1911. CHL. MS 1289 box 1, fd. 1.

  7. [7]

    In August 1834, Almon Sherman was listed among the participants in a church conference. (Minute Book 1, 23 Aug. 1834.)

  8. [8]

    Wood and a William Pratt returned to Kirtland in early 1833 from serving a mission. They were instructed by a 19 March 1833 conference to again “journey together to the east after settling their business.” (Minute Book 1, 19 Mar. 1833.)

  9. [9]

    Harriet Howe was the sister of Eber D. Howe, the anti-Mormon newspaper editor of the Painesville Telegraph. She was baptized into the Church of Christ in 1832.

  10. [10]

    Whiteside was probably already a member of the Church of Christ by this time. A few months after this warrant was issued, he donated money for the Camp of Israel expedition to Missouri. By May 1835 he was listed as a seventy in Minute Book 1. (Account with the Church of Christ, ca. 11–29 Aug. 1834; Minute Book 1, 2 May 1835.)

  11. [11]

    Cottrell owned land in section 8 of Kirtland Township, which was near the Mormon landholdings to the west. He was at least somewhat familiar with prominent Mormon leader Sidney Rigdon, as Rigdon had officiated at Cottrell’s marriage to Matilda Otis in 1827, three years before Rigdon joined the Church of Christ. (Geauga Co., OH, Deed Records, 1795–1921, vol. 13, p. 504, 25 Mar. 1830, microfilm 20,235, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL; “The Story of Sidney Rigdon and the Book of Mormon,” Saints’ Herald, 14 Nov. 1894; see also the illustration of church landholdings in Kirtland.)

    U.S. and Canada Record Collection. FHL.

    Saints’ Herald. Independence, MO. 1860–.

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