, Letter, [, NJ], to JS, [, Hancock Co., IL], 3 Apr. 1840. Featured version copied [between Apr. and June 1840] in JS Letterbook 2, pp. 125–127; handwriting of ; JS Collection, CHL. For more complete source information, see the source note for JS Letterbook 2.
Historical Introduction
On the morning of 3 April 1840, wrote a letter from to JS regarding Rigdon’s plans to return to the , Illinois, area. Throughout the delegation’s travels in the eastern , Rigdon had been afflicted with poor health. While the delegation waited for Congress to consider the church’s memorial, JS and visited church members in and throughout the Delaware River Valley, and Rigdon eventually joined them. Although JS and Higbee returned to at the end of January 1840, Rigdon remained ill after arriving in Philadelphia and was forced to stay there. According to Higbee, Rigdon finally left Philadelphia for New Jersey on 5 March. The dateline of this letter indicates that Rigdon composed it at the home of near Hornerstown, New Jersey, where he likely stayed.
In the letter, relayed to JS information from a letter Rigdon had received from the previous day: that Congress had declined to further hear the church’s memorial for redress and reparations for the property the Saints lost in . Rigdon also described the financial assistance that Senator provided the church delegation, his own health and plans to return to , and rumors of recent misconduct in , Ohio, by former church leader .
presumably sent the letter to JS by post. The original letter is not extant. The version featured here was copied into JS Letterbook 2 by sometime between the third week of April and June 1840.
with, we are therefore left to bear the loss without redress at present
is on the way home, and has been for ten days, he obtained money from , to what amount I cannot say, but he will be able to tell you when he gets home— The Judge continues his friendship, and is ready, to accommodate with money, whenever called for— Shurely he is a friend indeed, and ought never to be forgotten. I am up to this time without means to get home; but I have no uneasiness abo[u]t it. I shall doubtless get means as soon as my health will admit of my going.
My health is slowly improving, and I, think if I have no relaps, I will be able to leave for home some time in the month of May. I have not had a chill for about four weeks, my appetite is quite good, and my food sits well on my stomach, and digests well, but there are the remains, by spells, of that foulness of stomach, which has troubled me so much; and those morbid sensations, which were the cause the cause of it, my feet and legs swell every afternoon, considerably.
There is a great excitement got up here by about going to , a number from are going immediately. Now it is my opinion that this is an unwise movement: large purchases have been made there for the , and if they should fail to purchase, it will leave us in difficulty. Grate complaints are made and making against br. Granger in , about his getting drunk. It is said that he and took a real drunken scrape together, and that he went into the Pulpit and preached, when he was so drunk, that he could scarcely stand: these reports come from defferent persons, and I suspect they are true; and they ought not to go unreproved.
I wish you would say to my family, that on yesterday I had a letter from , dated [p. 126]
Although Rigdon likely returned in May, it is unknown precisely when he left Philadelphia and arrived in the Commerce area. He was certainly in Nauvoo by July, when he declined an invitation to debate his cousin John Rigdon, a prominent Campbellite minister then traveling in western Illinois. (Sidney Rigdon, Nauvoo, IL, to H. W. Miller, in Times and Seasons, July 1840, 1:134–137.)
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
Following the expulsion of the church from Missouri, church leaders initially directed Saints traveling west to gather in Kirtland. Even after the Saints began resettling on land in the Commerce area and in Iowa Territory that the church purchased in 1839, some expressed a desire to return to Kirtland, which concerned church leaders. (Lee Co., IA, Land Records, 1836–1961, Deeds [South, Keokuk], vol. 1, pp. 507–509, microfilm 959,238; vol. 2, pp. 3–6, 13–16, microfilm 959,239, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL; Cook, “Isaac Galland,” 270–275.)
Brother Granger was probably Gilbert Granger, the son of Oliver Granger. Gilbert was then residing in Kirtland. Although Oliver had been assigned to travel to Kirtland to transact church business and to serve as the presiding authority there, he had not yet left Nauvoo by this time. (Gilbert Granger and Alice Marble Granger to Joseph Hollister and Allen Butler Jr., Deed, 13 May 1840, Lake Co., OH, Recorder’s Office, Land Registry Records, vol. A, pp. 43–44, CHL; Recommendation for Oliver Granger, 1 Nov. 1839; Minutes, 4–5 May 1839; Leonora Cannon Taylor, Montrose, Iowa Territory, to John Taylor, Preston, England, 12 Mar. [1840], John Taylor, Collection, CHL; Pay Order to Oliver Granger, 15 Apr. 1840.)
Lake Co., OH, Recorder’s Office. Land Registry Records, 1840–1842. CHL.
Taylor, John. Collection, 1829–1894. CHL. MS 1346.
In 1840 Rigdon’s family consisted of his wife, Phebe Brooks Rigdon, and his nine surviving children: Athalia, Nancy, Eliza, Sarah, Algernon Sidney, John, Lacy Ann, Phebe, and Hortensia. (“Records of Early Church Families,” Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine 27 [Oct. 1936]: 161; “Record of the Names of the Members,” [6]–[7].)
“Records of Early Church Families.” Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine 27 (Oct. 1936): 156–162.
Sloan, James, and Willard Richards. “A Record of the Names of the Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Who Have Handed In Certificates, with the Names of the Persons, and Their Office, Who Gave Same, Also the Branch from Which They Came, and Date of Certificate.” Oct. 1841–Jan. 1846. In Far West and Nauvoo Elders’ Certificates, 1837–1838, 1840–1846, 1862. CHL.