Essay on Sources Cited in Documents, Volume 11

During the final months of 1842, the threat of arrest and extradition that loomed over JS affected the number and nature of the documents he created. Because JS went into hiding to avoid capture, he was absent from several meetings as well as from meetings of the , Illinois, city government. Accordingly, the rate and number of official documents that JS had a hand in creating decreased during September and October 1842. In addition, JS’s circumstances and his plans to legally counter the ongoing extradition efforts characterize the substance of many of the documents created during the first four months covered by this volume.

Letters, accounts of JS discourses, land and legal records, and newspaper editorials compose the majority of this volume’s documents. In many instances, the original sent copies of letters survive and are featured in the volume. In other instances, the originals do not exist, but drafts or retained copies of letters—or copies published in newspapers—are extant and are featured herein. Of the letters featured in this volume that JS sent to others, only three are transcribed from the original letters. Of the featured letters that he received from others, the majority are transcribed from the original documents. JS delivered his public discourses extemporaneously, so the only surviving records of the texts of his discourses come from journals and notebooks of men and women who heard him speak as well as from official minutes kept by clerks for some of the meetings in which he spoke.

This volume also includes a representative sample of documents related to land purchases in , including deeds and promissory notes. Legal documents were created by or for various courts, including the mayor’s court and the Circuit Court for the District of Illinois. As for newspaper sources, this volume features editorial materials that appeared in the September and October issues of the Times and Seasons, for which JS served as editor, as well as other JS documents published in subsequent issues, including notices, poems, and letters. Other notices and articles that appeared in the newspaper, while not featured in this volume, provide important context to events in JS’s life in and around Nauvoo.

The volume also features minutes of certain civic and ecclesiastical organizations such as the , the , and the Nauvoo City Council. recorded the minutes for the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, recorded the minutes for the high council, and kept the minute book for the city council. The volume also includes ordinances passed by the city council.

Throughout this period, JS continued to employ clerks and scribes to write for him. The majority of JS’s financial and property records are in ’s handwriting, as are several drafts and retained copies of letters JS sent to others. Many of the documents JS created that related to city business were written by , who served as the city recorder and clerk of the municipal court. , another prominent scribe, was absent from Nauvoo during the early part of the period covered by this volume. However, in mid-December, shortly after Richards returned to the city, JS appointed him to “act as his private se[c]retary & historian.” Thereafter, Richards served as a clerk for JS’s church business and kept JS’s daily journal.

The journals that JS’s clerks and scribes kept for him during the months covered by this volume are the most significant sources for the introductions and annotation included herein, and several of the featured documents were recorded or copied into JS’s journal. From September to mid-December 1842, JS’s journal was kept by , who received some help from and . Of these three scribes, Clayton was the most active.

Various other contemporaneous records—including journals, diaries, correspondence, and newspapers—help contextualize the featured texts. Indispensable journals and diaries include those kept by , , , and . Autobiographies and reminiscences, such as those published by and , are important sources as well and offer the perspectives of church members and those outside of the church alike. The correspondence between Richards and offers important insights into developments in as well as into the church’s efforts to counter the public criticism leveled at JS and the church. In addition to the two Nauvoo newspapers—the Wasp and the Times and Seasons—several newspapers throughout the provided reports and commentary on events related to JS and the church during this period. In , these newspapers include the Sangamo Journal (published in ), the Register and North-Western Gazetteer (published in ), the Alton Telegraph, the Quincy Whig, and the Warsaw Signal. Beyond Illinois, several newspapers, such as the Daily Missouri Republican (published in ), provide valuable context. In the eastern United States, the New York Herald, ’s Daily Atlas, and Hartford’s Connecticut Courant, among others, published articles and commentary on the activities of Latter-day Saint missionaries as well as reports and editorials on the growth of the church in Illinois.

Finally, JS’s multivolume manuscript history—in which JS’s scribes incorporated JS’s reminiscences, institutional documents, and private papers and collections into a documentary history of JS and the church—supplies invaluable information, as do the history’s draft notes. The history for the months covered by this volume was completed in fall and winter 1845–1846. For more information on those historical manuscripts, see the Histories series of The Joseph Smith Papers.