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Letter from Elias Higbee, 24 March 1840

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Letter from Elias Higbee, 24 March 1840

Source Note

, Letter, , to JS, [, Hancock Co., IL?], 24 Mar. 1840. Featured version copied [between Apr. and June 1840] in JS Letterbook 2, pp. 105–107; handwriting of ; JS Collection, CHL. For more complete source information, see the source note for JS Letterbook 2.

Historical Introduction

While in on 24 March 1840, wrote a letter to JS, the last in a series of letters apprising JS of the actions of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, which was considering the ’s memorial to Congress. In this letter, Higbee informed JS that the Senate approved the committee’s resolution to no longer consider the church’s memorial and that he had retrieved all the documents the church’s delegation had submitted along with the memorial. He also updated JS on the prospect of submitting the memorial to the House of Representatives and on his plans to travel back to the , Illinois, area.
presumably sent this letter to . The original letter is not extant. copied the version featured here into JS Letterbook 2 sometime between April and June 1840.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    See Historical Introduction to Letter from Elias Higbee, 20 Feb. 1840–A.

  2. [2]

    Coray, Autobiographical Sketch, 17, 19.

    Coray, Howard. Autobiographical Sketch, after 1883. Howard Coray, Papers, ca. 1840–1941. Photocopy. CHL. MS 2043, fd. 1.

Asterisk (*) denotes a "featured" version, which includes an introduction and annotation.
*Letter from Elias Higbee, 24 March 1840
Letterbook 2 History, 1838–1856, volume C-1 [2 November 1838–31 July 1842] “History of Joseph Smith”

Page 105

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Mar. 24, 1840
Dear Brother
Our business is at last ended here. Yesterday, a resolution passed the Senate, that the Committee should be discharged; and that we might withdraw the accompanying papers, which I have done: I have also taken a copy of the memorial, and want to be off for the west immediately— I have not gotten a letter from , although I have frequently written to him— I have recd. a letter from , stating that he was in the Jerseys— and that he was calculating to have me come that way and go home with him, and also that he had business which he wanted me to attend to at the office here—
When he last wrote, he stated that as yet, he had [p. 105]
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Source Note

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Page 105

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Document Information

Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Letter from Elias Higbee, 24 March 1840
ID #
530
Total Pages
3
Print Volume Location
JSP, D7:232–234
Handwriting on This Page
  • Howard Coray

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Journal of the Senate of the United States, 26th Cong., 1st Sess., 23 Mar. 1840, 259–260. The church’s delegation to the federal government had submitted documents in support of its memorial, including affidavits and pamphlets. (Journal of the Senate of the United States, 26th Cong., 1st Sess., 17 Feb. 1840, 179; Historical Introduction to Memorial to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, ca. 30 Oct. 1839–27 Jan. 1840.)

    Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, Being the First Session of the Twenty-Sixth Congress, Begun and Held at the City of Washington, December 2, 1839, and in the Sixty-Fourth Year of the Independence of the Said United States. Washington DC: Blair and Rives, 1839.

  2. [2]

    Memorial to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, ca. 30 Oct. 1839–27 Jan. 1840.

  3. [3]

    Rigdon did not return to Washington DC from Philadelphia with JS and Elias Higbee in January 1840. Instead, he remained in Philadelphia until 5 March 1840, when he left for New Jersey. Bennett was appointed as the presiding elder of the Philadelphia branch in January 1840. (Historian’s Office, JS History, Draft Notes, 27 Jan. 1840, 2; Letter from Elias Higbee, 9 Mar. 1840; Minutes and Discourse, 13 Jan. 1840.)

  4. [4]

    In a letter to JS earlier that month, Higbee wrote of a similar plan for returning home with Rigdon. The business to which Rigdon wanted Higbee to attend and the office to which he referred are unknown. (Letter from Elias Higbee, 9 Mar. 1840.)

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