, Letter, , Philadelphia Co., PA, to JS, [, Hancock Co., IL], 25 Jan. 1842; handwriting of ; one page; Helen Vilate Bourne Fleming, Collection, CHL. Included enclosures (not extant); includes address, dockets, and notations.
Bifolium measuring 9¾ × 7⅝ inches (25 × 19 cm). When the bifolium is folded so that the letter appears on the recto of the first leaf, the address appears on the recto of the second leaf. The letter included an enclosure of twenty-eight dollars (not extant). The letter was trifolded twice in letter style, addressed, and sealed with a red adhesive wafer. The second leaf was torn when the letter was opened, and its verso contains wafer residue. It was later refolded for filing. Separations along the folds have been repaired.
After the letter was received, notations and two dockets were inscribed by , who served as JS’s scribe from December 1841 until JS’s death in June 1844 and served as church historian from December 1842 until his own death in March 1854. This letter was in a collection of papers held by Helen Vilate Bourne Fleming, a descendant of and . The collection was passed down to Fleming’s descendant Helen Marian Fleming Petersen. Shortly after Petersen’s death in February 1988, one of her children found this letter and other items in a box in her home. By December 1988 the materials had been donated to the Church Historical Department (now CHL).
See the full bibliographic entry for Helen Vilate Bourne Fleming, Collection, 1836–1963, in the CHL catalog.
Historical Introduction
On 25 January 1842 wrote to JS from , enclosing money to repay a debt. Members of the Philadelphia were sending the money as their final payment to , who had loaned them $125 for a meeting space. The payments were made directly to the and credited on Leonard Soby’s tithing account as donations toward the construction of the , Illinois, . In addition to explaining the enclosed payment of $28, Nicholson listed the previous payments and asked for a receipt of the final payment.
A note on the letter indicates carried it to . He delivered the letter by 26 February 1842, as indicated in one of ’s notations, at which time Richards recorded the donation in the Book of the Law of the Lord. On the verso of the second leaf, Richards inscribed information about the five banknotes sent as payment, providing the name of the issuing institution, the denomination, and the serial number of each note. No response to this letter has been located, perhaps because JS stopped issuing receipts around this time.