Letter to Church Leaders in Jackson County, Missouri, 21 April 1833
Source Note
JS, Letter, , Geauga Co., OH, to “Brethren in Zion,” [, MO], 21 Apr. 1833. Retained copy, [ca. 21 Apr. 1833], in JS Letterbook 1, pp. 32–36; handwriting of ; JS Collection, CHL. For more complete source information, see the source note for JS Letterbook 1.
Historical Introduction
Beginning in the summer of 1831, when a JS revelation placed the location of in , tensions arose between church leaders in Missouri and those approximately one thousand miles to the northeast, in , Ohio. The process of establishing Zion, which included actions ranging from deciding matters of ecclesiastical governance to resolving temporal concerns about the allocation of land and money, occasionally resulted in conflict among leaders in the two areas.
In the spring of 1832, JS visited with , , and “to comfort the Saints and Setle som[e] little dificulties, and regulate the church and affairs concerning it.” According to , the Missouri members “had a pleasant visit with them and they returned again in peace.” However, if the relationship between church leaders in and those in Missouri seemed peaceful at the time of parting, it soon deteriorated once again. A series of letters exchanged by Kirtland and Missouri leaders between June 1832 and March 1833 reveal the discord: After JS returned to Kirtland in June 1832, he received a letter from , a counselor to Missouri . JS described the letter as an indictment of him for purportedly seeking after “Monarchal power and authority.” JS stated that Corrill’s letter demonstrated “that the devel had set to work” among the church leaders in Missouri “by stirring up [their] hearts . . . by raking up evry fault, which those eyes that are filled with beams could see in looking for motes.” , the church’s agent in Missouri, penned another missive on 10 December 1832, which, according to Kirtland church leaders, also charged JS with seeking “Kingly power.” A January 1833 found these accusations to be “low, dark, & blind,” and the conference directed and to write a response to the Missouri leaders. In their letter, Hyde and Smith encouraged Gilbert to “do his business in the spirit of the Lord,” to repent, and to do the work of him. Kirtland church leaders sent the letter in mid-January 1833 along with a letter from JS to and a copy of a recent revelation known as the “olive leaf.” According to the letter featured below, these materials produced the “desired effect.”
, , and had been embroiled off and on in tensions with JS and church leaders for more than a year and a half when, on 26 February 1833, they called a “special council of ” in to resolve the conflict. The previous December, Partridge had “appointed a in all the , which was to be held as a day of confession, and repentance.” Partridge and other leaders “went from branch to branch exorting, until he had gone through them all.” At this February 1833 session of high priests, Partridge “laid before the council the effect of the proceedings of the Solemn assemblies as held throughout Zion.” Satisfied with the results of those solemn assemblies and in order “to effect a perfect harmony between” them and their “brethren in ,” the Missouri high priests appointed a committee, which comprised , , and John Corrill, to write an epistle reporting the widespread repentance in Missouri and confessing their previous error of challenging and criticizing JS and other Ohio leaders. The three men wrote the letter, asking for forgiveness and seeking unity with the church in Kirtland, that same day. The council accepted it, and the letter was dispatched immediately to church leaders in Ohio. In the letter featured here, written on behalf of the Kirtland leadership, JS accepted the sentiments expressed in that February missive.
Aside from acknowledging the resolution of conflict among church leaders, the document is typical of many letters that JS sent to church leaders in . It responds to specific questions, communicates the contents of a recently dictated revelation, describes developments in , and offers general counsel. In this and subsequent letters, JS continued to advise and implore church leaders and members in Missouri to repent and to be obedient and humble. How the Missouri leaders reacted to this letter is unknown; the only extant record that mentions the letter, briefly and without commentary, is the June 1833 issue of The Evening and the Morning Star.
Letter to Edward Partridge et al., 14 Jan. 1833. In his January 1833 letter to Phelps, JS stated, “Let me say to you, seek to purefy yourselves, & also all the inhabitants of Zion lest the Lords anger be kindled to fierceness, repent, repent, is the voice of God, to Zion.” JS called the revelation that accompanied the January letter to Phelps the “Olieve leaf which we have plucked from the tree of Paradise” and “the Lords message of peace to us” because he saw it as a way to heal ongoing difficulties with Missouri church leaders. (Letter to William W. Phelps, 11 Jan. 1833; Revelation, 27–28 Dec. 1832 [D&C 88:1–126].)
The Evening and the Morning Star mentioned the letter only to refer to Sidney Rigdon’s proselytizing efforts in Medina County, Ohio, which are discussed near the end of the missive. ([William W. Phelps], “The Progress of the Church of Christ,” The Evening and the Morning Star, June 1833, 100.)
The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, MO, June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland, OH, Dec. 1833–Sept. 1834.
assistence for the Lord established him in Zion for that express purpose, it is not the will of the Lord to print any of the new translation in the Star but when it is published it will all go to the world together in a volume by itself, and the new Testament and the book of Mormon will be printed together
With respect to private letter to me on the subject of giving deeds & receiving contrabutions from brethren &c I have nothing further to say on the subject but to make yourselves acquainted with the of the Lord and the Laws of the and govern yourselves accordingly was here yesterday and shewed us a letter from and we were well pleased with the spirit it was writen in the probability is that he will not go to at present as he has bought in We rejoice to here that to the siminary lands are reduced in price and are coming into market and be assured that we shall use our influence to send brethren to that are able to help you in the purchase of lands &c &c——
We have just received a letter from he has bui[l]t up a church of 8 members in Ohio and prospects of more— With respect to the deaths in we feel to mourn with those that mourn but remember that the god of all the earth will do right and now my beloved brethren I commend you to god and his grace praying him to keep and preserve you [p. 35]
Editor William W. Phelps had routinely printed excerpts of revelations and even some passages from the Book of Mormon and JS’s translation of the Old Testament in the monthly periodical The Evening and the Morning Star. (See, for example, “Extract from the Prophecy of Enoch,” The Evening and the Morning Star, Aug. 1832, [2]–[3] [Moses chap. 7]; “The Book of Jacob,” The Evening and the Morning Star, Sept. 1832, [2]–[4] [Jacob chap. 5]; and Revelation, 1 Nov. 1831–B, in “Revelation Given, Hiram, Ohio, November 1, 1831,” The Evening and the Morning Star, Mar. 1833, [6] [D&C 1].)
The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, MO, June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland, OH, Dec. 1833–Sept. 1834.
Oliver Cowdery’s letter has not been located. Legal problems arose in Missouri over what to deed and what kind of deed to give to a person who received a stewardship in return for his or her consecrations. Though JS had “nothing further to say on the subject” in this letter, two weeks later he sent BishopEdward Partridge a letter giving details on his “views, concerning consecration, property, and giving inheritances.” The “commandments of the Lord” likely refer to earlier revelations containing guidelines for consecration, which include Revelation, 9 Feb. 1831 [D&C 42:30–39, 54–55]; and Revelation, 20 May 1831 [D&C 51]. (Letter to Edward Partridge, 2 May 1833; see also De Pillis, “Development of Mormon Communitarianism,” 189–204.)
De Pillis, Mario S. “The Development of Mormon Communitarianism, 1826–1846.” PhD diss., Yale University, 1960.
A later Missouri state law required that any transfers of registered land be recorded by the county assessor. (An Act to Provide for Levying, Assessing, and Collecting the Revenue [14 Mar. 1835], Revised Statutes of the State of Missouri [1835], 533.)
The Revised Statutes of the State of Missouri, Revised and Digested by the Eighth General Assembly, During the Years One Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty-Four, and One Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty-Five. Together with the Constitutions of Missouri and of the United States. 3rd ed. St. Louis: Chambers and Knapp, 1841.
Deed records indicate that David Elliott did not purchase land in Geauga County, in which Chagrin (later Willoughby) was located, until 1836, when he received a deed for a parcel of land sold to him by JS. Elliott, however, resided in Chagrin as early as 22 January 1834, suggesting that he may have begun the process of purchasing the land much earlier than 1836. About two weeks before this letter was written, Elliott and his wife, Mary Cahoon, initiated a land sale to Luther Snow for a piece of property in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, for $500. (Geauga Co., OH, Deed Records, 1795–1921, vol. 23, p. 422, 15 Oct. 1836, microfilm 20,240, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL; Cuyahoga Co., OH, Deeds and Mortgages, 1815–1866, vol. N, pp. 191–192, 9 Apr. 1833, microfilm 1,994,223, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL; Letter to the Church in Clay Co., MO, 22 Jan. 1834.)
In 1828 the United States government publicly announced that it would begin selling federal lands in Missouri. Such lands were sold at auction for $1.25 per acre in tracts of at least eighty acres. Purchasers paid the surveyors’ fees up front, filed the necessary paperwork, and were required to complete payment within two or three years in order to obtain title to the land. In 1831 the federal government offered for sale the lands it had reserved to benefit public education, including the “Seminary Lands,” which had been set aside to fund higher education in Missouri and included much of the land in Jackson County. The seminary land was initially offered for sale at $2 per acre. (An Act to Provide for the Sale of Seminary Lands [31 Dec. 1830], Laws . . . of the State of Missouri, vol. 2, chap. 155, pp. 209–213.)
Laws of a Public and General Nature of the State of Missouri, Passed between the Years 1824 and 1836, Not Published in the Digest of 1825, Nor in the Digest of 1835. Vol. 2. Jefferson City, MO: W. Lusk and Son, 1842.
The 20 July 1831 revelation, which designated Independence as the center place of Zion and identified the exact location for the temple in Independence, also instructed members of the church to purchase the temple site and “also every tract lying westward even unto” the Missouri border so that they would own land “in all the regions round about.” By January 1832, Edward Partridge, Sidney Gilbert, and other church leaders had purchased 1,200 acres for the Saints in an ongoing effort to obtain land. (Revelation, 20 July 1831 [D&C 57:3–6]; Letter from Oliver Cowdery, 28 Jan. 1832.)
The Evening and the Morning Star mentioned this 21 April letter from JS only in regards to this information about Rigdon. Apparently, the editors of the Star in Missouri received a subsequent letter dated 2 May 1833, reporting that Rigdon had recently returned to Kirtland and that during his brief mission to Medina County he had baptized sixteen people. ([William W. Phelps], “The Progress of the Church of Christ,” The Evening and the Morning Star, June 1833, 100.)
The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, MO, June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland, OH, Dec. 1833–Sept. 1834.