Letter from Alanson Ripley, 10 April 1839
-
Source Note
, Letter, , Adams Co., IL, to JS, , , , and , [, Clay Co., MO], 10 Apr. 1839. Featured version copied [between 29 May and 30 Oct. 1839] in JS Letterbook 2, pp. 16–17; handwriting of ; JS Collection, CHL. For more complete source information, see the source note for JS Letterbook 2.
-
Historical Introduction
On 10 April 1839, wrote from , Illinois, to JS and his fellow prisoners in the in , Missouri. In late 1838, Ripley was appointed by church leaders in , Missouri, to attend to the prisoners’ needs and “to importune at the feet of the judges” for the prisoners’ release. During the next few months, Ripley worked to fulfill this assignment. In early February 1839, he and four other church members apparently assisted the prisoners in an unsuccessful attempt to escape. In mid-March, Ripley assisted with and signed JS’s petition to the Supreme Court for . At the end of the month, he traveled to Liberty again to report that “all was well & the [prisoners’ families] were well also.” Upon his return to , Missouri, in early April, Ripley was told by the committee helping church members move out of Missouri that he needed to leave immediately for since anti-Mormons were threatening violence. Because of this need to seek “safty by leaving the State,” Ripley was “compelled to abandon the idea of importuning at the feet of the judges” and to “leave the prisoners in the hands of God.”On 10 April 1839, soon after his arrival in , wrote this letter to the prisoners. After summarizing ’s developing plans to pursue justice for wrongs that Latter-day Saints had suffered in , Ripley explained his hurried departure from the state and offered to return to Missouri and continue supporting the prisoners. Ripley indicated that he was aware that the prisoners might obtain a change of venue after being indicted by a grand jury in and suggested that, if desired, he would intercept them and their guards en route to the next destination. After Ripley completed the main body of his letter, he added two postscripts relaying brief words of greeting from other Latter-day Saints in Quincy. It is unknown whether Ripley’s 10 April missive was sent to Missouri, because Saints in Quincy were aware that the prisoners had been moved from the in . Although the original letter is apparently not extant, copied it or a retained copy into JS Letterbook 2 sometime between 29 May and 30 October 1839.
Footnotes
-
1
Alanson Ripley, Statements, ca. Jan. 1845, Historian’s Office, JS History Documents, 1839–1860, CHL.
Historian’s Office. Joseph Smith History Documents, 1839–1860. CHL. CR 100 396.
-
2
Ripley, Jonathan Barlow, David Holeman, William D. Huntington, and Erastus Snow were later arrested and charged as accomplices to the escape attempt. (Samuel Tillery, Testimony, Liberty, MO, 11 Feb. 1839; Alanson Ripley, Testimony, Liberty, MO, 12 Feb. 1839, State of Missouri v. Ripley et al. [J.P. Ct. 1839], Clay County Archives and Historical Library, Liberty, MO.)
State of Missouri v. Ripley et al. / State of Missouri v. Alanson Ripley, Jonathan Barlow, William D. Huntington, David Holman, and Erastus Snow (J.P. Ct. 1839). Clay County Archives and Historical Library, Liberty, MO.
-
3
Petition to George Tompkins, between 9 and 15 Mar. 1839; Hyrum Smith, Diary, 15 Mar. 1839.
Smith, Hyrum. Diary, Mar.–Apr. 1839, Oct. 1840. CHL. MS 2945.
-
4
Hyrum Smith, Diary, 31 Mar. 1839.
Smith, Hyrum. Diary, Mar.–Apr. 1839, Oct. 1840. CHL. MS 2945.
-
5
Alanson Ripley, Statements, ca. Jan. 1845, Historian’s Office, JS History Documents, 1839–1860, CHL.
Historian’s Office. Joseph Smith History Documents, 1839–1860. CHL. CR 100 396.
-
6
See Historical Introduction to Letter from Sidney Rigdon, 10 Apr. 1839.
-
7
Mulholland copied his own 29 May 1839 letter to Edward Partridge on page 15 of JS Letterbook 2, making that the earliest likely copying date for documents he subsequently copied but that had dates preceding 29 May.
-
1
Cite this page
