Letter from Isaac Galland, 24 July 1839

Newspapers across the country were continuing to publish articles about the causes and results of the 1838 Missouri conflict. Additionally, newspapers began publishing in April 1839 a letter supposedly written by Matilda Sabin Spalding Davison that revived the allegation that the Book of Mormon was based on a fictional manuscript titled “Manuscript Found,” written by Davison’s late husband, Solomon Spalding. For example, a newspaper published at Chillicothe—the Scioto Gazette—printed at least two stories on the Saints in the month before Galland’s arrival. One condemned the reported beating and shooting of a church member in Iowa Territory, while the other summarized Davison’s letter. (“The Mormon Bible,” Scioto Gazette [Chillicothe, OH], 20 June 1839, [1]; “Inexcusable,” Scioto Gazette, 27 June 1839, [2]; see also John Storrs, “Mormonism,” Boston Recorder, 19 Apr. 1839, [1].)  

Scioto Gazette. Chillicothe, OH. 1827–1854.

Boston Recorder. Boston. 1830–1849.

Naudain served as a United States senator for Delaware from 1830 to 1836.a After his resignation from the Senate, Naudain apparently spent some time in the western United States and in 1837 contemplated moving to Illinois.b Like Galland, Naudain was a land speculator, and he owned significant tracts of land in Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa Territory. He was likely in Illinois because some of his property in Springfield, Illinois, had been seized and was pending auction in consequence of his failure to pay taxes.c  

Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–2005, the Continental Congress, September 5, 1774, to October 21, 1788, and the Congress of the United States, from the First through the One Hundred Eighth Congresses, March 4, 1789, to January 3, 2005, inclusive. Edited by Andrew R. Dodge and Betty K. Koed. Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2005.

Sangamo Journal. Springfield, IL. 1831–1847.

Gates, Paul Wallace. “Southern Investments in Northern Lands before the Civil War.” Journal of Southern History 5, no. 2 (May 1939): 155–185.

TEXT: Possibly “violence;”.  

While Naudain may have been referring to the recent expulsion of the Saints from Missouri, his remarks were more likely an expression of a broader complaint about the alleged lawlessness of American politics. Members of the Whig Party, such as Naudain, often considered themselves advocates for law and order, in opposition to the dangerous populism of Jacksonian Democrats. For example, in January 1838, ardent Whig Abraham Lincoln gave an address during which he complained about “the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country,” leading men to substitute “worse than savage mobs, for the executive ministers of justice.” Lincoln implored his listeners not “to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others.” (Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 599; Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 1:109, 112.)  

Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848. The Oxford History of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Edited by Roy P. Basler, Marion Dolores Pratt, and Lloyd A. Dunlap. 8 vols. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953.

Greene passed through Cincinnati on his way east to preside over the church in New York. (See Minutes, 6 May 1839; Authorization for John P. Greene, ca. 6 May 1839; and Letter from John P. Greene, 30 June 1839.)  

Carpenter was a doctor who served as editor of a local Whig newspaper, the Scioto Gazette and Independent Whig, from 1834 to 1835. (“Prospectus of the Scioto Gazette,” Scioto Gazette and Independent Whig [Chillicothe, OH], 23 Apr. 1834, [2]; “Valedictory,” Scioto Gazette and Independent Whig, 15 Apr. 1835, [3].)  

Scioto Gazette and Independent Whig. Chillicothe, OH. 1834–1835.

Swedenborg, an eighteenth-century Swedish theologian and mystic, published numerous books describing his visions of the afterlife, relating conversations with angels, and expounding esoteric doctrines. After his death, some of his followers in England formed the New Jerusalem Church, or New Church, based on his teachings. A national Swedenborgian society called the New Jerusalem Church was organized in the United States in 1817, and a congregation of the New Jerusalem Church was organized in Carpenter’s home in Chillicothe in 1838. (McDannell and Lang, Heaven, 181–184, 234–235; Ahlstrom, Religious History of the American People, 483–486; Smith, “Rise of the New Jerusalem Church in Ohio,” 393.)  

McDannell, Colleen, and Bernhard Lang. Heaven: A History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988.

Ahlstrom, Sydney E. A Religious History of the American People. 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004.

Smith, Ophia D. “The Rise of the New Jerusalem Church in Ohio.” Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly 61, no. 4 (Oct. 1952): 380–409.

See Revelation 17:5.  

In 1719, Swedenborg was elevated to the Swedish nobility. Because his status was roughly equivalent to that of an English baron, in the United States he was often referred to as Baron Swedenborg. (See Tafel, Documents concerning the Life and Character of Emanuel Swedenborg, 3, 32.)  

Tafel, J. F. I. Documents concerning the Life and Character of Emanuel Swedenborg, Late Member of the House of Nobles in the Royal Diet of Sweden, Assessor of the Royal Board of Mines, Fellow of the Royal Society of Upsala, and of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Stockholm, and Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg. Manchester, England: Joseph Hayward, 1841.

See Numbers chap. 11.