Between August and December 1843, JS balanced roles as prophet, president, and trustee-in-trust
of the ; mayor of , Illinois; chief
justice of the municipal court; and commanding officer of the . Thanks to a dedicated team of scribes and clerks,
significant doctrinal teachings, political activities, and events such
as the rise of the Anti-Mormon Party and the kidnappings of and were recorded in letters,
discourses, meeting minutes, petitions, a revelation, and numerous financial, legal, civic, and
military documents. While the vast majority of the ninety-eight
documents featured in this volume are housed in the Church History
Library of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, volume
editors also selected relevant documents deposited in archives around
the . In addition to the
documents featured herein, editors consulted hundreds of primary and
secondary sources to place JS’s papers into historical context.
More than half of the documents featured in this volume are
letters to and from an assortment of political leaders, business
partners, church leaders and members, religious seekers, and attorneys.
JS and Governor exchanged a
number of letters regarding threats from Missourians and the Anti-Mormon
Party, the kidnappings of and , and rumors about attempts to extradite JS to
. During this same period, JS wrote several letters
to potential candidates for the
presidency and received three responses in kind. JS also corresponded
with church leaders and members living in the region surrounding and in the eastern
United States and . Most of these letters are
preserved in collections at the Church History Library; the rest are
housed in archives at Brigham Young University, Clemson University, and
the Peabody Essex Museum. In addition to exchanging personal
correspondence, JS helped instigate or draft several lengthy redress
memorials or appeals to the United States Congress and to the citizenry
of several eastern states.
This volume also features several ecclesiastical records,
including eleven JS discourses or sets of remarks
remarks recorded contemporaneously in journals, notebooks, or minute
books by scribes and witnesses such as , , and Martha Jane Knowlton Coray,
, , , and
. JS’s participation in
assorted church , assemblies, and city council
meetings was similarly captured by scribes or audience members in their
personal journals or in Nauvoo City Council records.
Though JS was first and foremost a religious
leader, a significant amount of his time was devoted to financial,
legal, civic, and military matters. In his capacity as trustee-in-trust
of the church or mayor of , JS
was involved in dozens of financial transactions during this period,
which generated the selected pay orders, lease,
and authorizations featured herein. The kidnappings of and resulted in a profusion of civic and legal
documents in December 1843, as JS and the Nauvoo City Council scrambled
to protect the city’s residents from abduction and arrest. As mayor and
commanding general of the Nauvoo Legion, JS was involved in compiling
affidavits about the kidnappings, passing new city ordinances—including
one
creating a full-time police force in Nauvoo—and issuing orders to
mobilize the city militia. Documents related to the kidnappings compose
nearly a quarter of those featured in this volume.
To contextualize the featured texts, editors consulted
hundreds of primary sources located at the Church History Library and
other repositories. The most commonly cited contextual sources in the
volume’s footnotes are contemporaneous journals, including those of JS (often written by scribe ), , , Willard Richards, , and .
Contemporaneous correspondence also provided a wealth of contextual
information about JS’s personal interactions and activities; letters
contained in the Brigham Young Office Files and George A. Smith/George
Albert Smith Papers were among those most frequently cited. The Willard
Richards Journals and Papers, as well as the Bagby-Rogers Family Papers
held at the University of Kentucky, were useful in understanding the
antipathy between JS and tax
collector . To place JS’s letters to and
from the Potawatomi Indians into historical context, the records of the
Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Territorial Papers of the United States
(Territory of Iowa), as well as the Jonathan Dunham Papers, were
particularly helpful. Though a majority of extant sources were inscribed
by men, letters written by women—such as , Bathsheba Bigler Smith, Phebe Carter Woodruff, and
Charlotte Haven—offered critical insight into
the religious, political, and social developments of western during the early 1840s.
Contemporaneous newspaper articles and reminiscent accounts
also appear frequently in the footnotes of this volume. Editors cited
newspapers affiliated with the church—the Nauvoo
Neighbor, the Times and Seasons, the
Millennial Star, and the Wasp—and
other local newspapers, such as the Warsaw Message, the
Sangamo Journal, and the Quincy Whig.
Newspapers published elsewhere in the or
in —such as the New
York Herald, the New-York Daily Tribune, the
Northern Islander, the Zion’s
Messenger, the Preston Chronicle and Lancashire
Advertiser, and the Liverpool Mercury and Lancashire
General Advertiser—also provided useful material. Because
memories of the violence experienced by Latter-day Saints in during the 1830s remained highly relevant during
this period, newspaper articles, reminiscent accounts, and affidavits
describing these events were cited often. Another source of contextual
information was reminiscent accounts written by some of JS’s contemporaries: church members, such as , , and ;
politicians and journalists, such as and Thomas Gregg; and critics, such as , , and (who left the church after JS’s 1844
murder). Later letters, testimonies, and reminiscent accounts written by
, , , , , and
Roxsena Repshar Adams also helped illuminate
the then-secretive practice of plural marriage.
To contextualize JS’s financial and land
transactions, volume editors used Hancock County Deed Records, Trustee Land
Books A and B, and the Nauvoo Registry of Deeds. Nauvoo
City Council records, inscribed in minute books and on loose pages, were
critical to understanding JS’s civic responsibilities. The minutes and
docket book of the Nauvoo Municipal Court, as well as dozens of
affidavits, were useful in contextualizing documents generated by the
June 1843 extradition attempt and the November and December 1843
kidnappings of and . Court records preserved in the Clark County (Missouri) Court and
(Iowa)
District Court, as well as statutes compiled in Public and
General Statute Laws of the State of Illinois, were are also
cited frequently. Likewise, Nauvoo Legion records were essential in
examining the actions of that unit of the militia.
In order to provide biographical information on some of the people
mentioned in featured documents, volume editors consulted census records,
and ward censuses, ’s cemetery
records, and numerous birth, marriage, death, probate, and deed records.
Finally, JS’s multivolume manuscript history—in
which scribes incorporated JS’s journals, institutional documents, and
other private papers and collections into a documentary history of JS
and the church—supplies invaluable information, as do the history’s
draft notes. For more information on the manuscript history and the
draft notes, see the Histories series of
The Joseph Smith Papers.