Letter from Heber C. Kimball and Others, 25 May 1840
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Source Note
, , and , Letter, , Lancashire, England, to the First Presidency (including JS), high council, and bishop, [], Hancock Co., IL, 25 May 1840. Featured version copied [ca. late July 1840] in JS Letterbook 2, p. 168; handwriting of ; JS Collection, CHL. For more complete source information, see the source note for JS Letterbook 2.
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Historical Introduction
On 25 May 1840, and British mission members and wrote a letter from , England, to leaders in , Illinois. The letter introduced a group of Latter-day Saints immigrating to the Nauvoo area from the Preston region. described this group, which consisted of forty-one individuals, as the “first Company of Saints from .” The company—led by John Moon, a cousin of Clayton’s wife, —departed on 6 June 1840 and arrived in on 20 July., , and may have mailed this letter to . Alternatively, they may have entrusted it to John Moon or another member of the company, who may have posted it upon arrival in . Had Moon carried the letter all the way to Nauvoo, it would not have reached church leaders until almost a year after it was written. Though the company of Saints departed overland for Nauvoo only eight days after they arrived in the , they stayed almost eight months in the area and did not arrive in , Iowa Territory—across the from Nauvoo—until April 1841. The original letter is not extant. copied the letter into JS Letterbook 2 likely sometime around the end of July 1840.
Footnotes
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1
Fielding was appointed as president of the British mission on 8 April 1838, with Clayton as his second counselor. (Thompson, Journal of Heber C. Kimball, 37–38; Fielding, Journal, 10 Apr. 1838, 60.)
Thompson, Robert B. Journal of Heber C. Kimball an Elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Nauvoo, IL: Robinson and Smith, 1840.
Fielding, Joseph. Journals, 1837–1859. CHL. MS 1567.
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2
Historian’s Office, Brigham Young History Drafts, 40.
Historian’s Office. Brigham Young History Drafts, 1856–1858. CHL. CR 100 475, box 1, fd. 5.
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3
William Clayton, Penwortham, England, to Brigham Young and Willard Richards, Manchester, England, 19 Aug. 1840, Brigham Young Office Files, CHL. The Saints reached New York Harbor on 17 July but were held in quarantine for three days before being allowed to disembark. (Allen and Alexander, Manchester Mormons, 98.)
Brigham Young Office Files, 1832–1878. CHL. CR 1234 1.
Allen, James B., and Thomas G. Alexander, eds. Manchester Mormons: The Journal of William Clayton, 1840 to 1842. Santa Barbara, CA: Peregrine Smith, 1974.
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4
“Book of the Life of Hugh Moon,” 25–26.
“The Book of the Life of Hugh Moon.” In Biographical Sketches of the Moon Family of Malad, Idaho, compiled by Deseret Moon, Elva E. Moon, Ellen Greer Rees, and Lavern Ward, 23–38. Provo, UT, 1955. Copy at BYU.
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5
The letter is preceded and followed in the letterbook by incoming and outgoing JS correspondence dated to the last two weeks of July 1840. (Letter to Horace Hotchkiss, 28 July 1840; Letter from John C. Bennett, 25 July 1840.)
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