Pay Order to Newel K. Whitney for George Miller, 18 September 1840
Source Note
JS, Pay Order, , Hancock Co., IL, to , for , , Hancock Co., IL, 18 Sept. 1840; handwriting of ; signature of JS; one page; Newel K. Whitney, Papers, CHL. Includes endorsements.
One leaf, measuring 9¾ × 7¾ inches (25 × 20 cm). An illegible paper mill mark is present in the upper left-hand corner of the recto. The leaf was folded, presumably for filing. There is pronounced wear along the folds and some paper loss at the folds and edges of the leaf. The entire leaf has been reinforced with Japanese paper and is enclosed in a Mylar sleeve.
’s endorsement indicates that he received the pay order the day after it was written. The order—along with a small collection of other documents relating to business matters involving Whitney, , , and others—was apparently passed down among Kimball’s descendants and eventually came into the possession of Augusta Bernadine Kimball Lubbe, who was a niece of Kimball. In 1928 Lubbe gave this order and over a dozen other documents to Howard Martin Pond, a Latter-day Saint who was serving a mission in , Illinois. In 1988 Pond donated the documents, including this pay order, to the church.
See the full bibliographic entry for Newel K. Whitney, Papers, 1840–1844, in the CHL catalog; 1930 U.S. Census, Peoria, Peoria Co., IL, enumeration district 72-61, p. 30B; Death Certificate for Augusta Kimball Lubbe, 14 Mar. 1941, Peoria, Peoria Co., IL, certificate 12293, Illinois Public Board of Health, Death Certificates for the State of Illinois, 1916–1945, microfilm 1,832,580, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL; and Morrison and Sharples, History of the Kimball Family in America, 1090–1093.
Census (U.S.) / U.S. Bureau of the Census. Population Schedules. Microfilm. FHL.
U.S. and Canada Record Collection. FHL.
Morrison, Leonard Allison, and Stephen Paschall Sharples. History of the Kimball Family in America, from 1634 to 1897, and of Its Ancestors, the Kemballs or Kemboldes of England. Vol. 2. Boston: Damrell and Upham, 1897.
Historical Introduction
On 18 September 1840, JS dictated a pay order to , Illinois, allowing to use JS’s credit to obtain store goods. Whitney was operating a “Store of Goods” in Nauvoo on behalf of , who was in , Ohio. JS may have extended his credit to Miller because Miller, who had recently moved to Nauvoo, had exhibited generosity to the Latter-day Saints after their expulsion from . In spring 1839, Miller, who was not yet a member of the , invited the families of JS’s brothers and and the family of JS’s brother-in-law to live on his farm in , Illinois. Miller also offered eight thousand bushels of grain to “destitute Mormons.” After JS first met Miller in spring 1839, he referred to Miller as “a Samaritan” who had “bound up the wounds of his bleeding friends” by caring for JS’s family and the Saints.
served as scribe for the pay order, which JS signed. Miller evidently presented it to on 19 September 1840 and obtained sixty-five dollars’ worth of goods from the store, as Whitney noted in his endorsement on the back of the order.