Letter from Parley P. Pratt, 22 November 1839
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Source Note
, Letter, , New York Co., NY, to JS, [, Hancock Co., IL?], 22 Nov. 1839. Featured version copied [between late Nov. 1839 and Apr. 1840] in JS Letterbook 2, pp. 77–79; 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 22 November 1839, wrote a letter to JS requesting permission to print the Book of Mormon and other publications in . Along with his brother , Pratt was traveling to by way of , , , and New York City. In New York City, they reunited with fellow , , , , and , as well as several other of the church who accompanied the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on their mission.After apprising JS of the church’s status in , , and , indicated that members in those states needed church publications, including copies of the Book of Mormon and the church’s hymnal. Pratt had experience printing church publications, including the 1837 edition of the Book of Mormon. JS held the copyrights to both the Book of Mormon and the hymnbook and was designated in a November 1831 revelation to act as part of a group of stewards over the publications of the church. Recent events had demonstrated the vigor with which JS guarded his responsibility to oversee church publications. In October 1839, JS presided over a general of the church that directed that an unauthorized edition of the hymnal published by , a church member in , be “utterly discarded” and “that a new edition of Hymn Books be printed immediately.” Pratt may have wanted to avoid a similar situation by seeking permission to print more church-authorized publications.At the time wrote this letter, JS was en route to . Pratt sent the letter—endorsed in a postscript by , of the —to , Illinois, instead of to Washington. Pratt either was unaware of JS’s planned trip to the nation’s capital when he wrote the letter or opted to have church leaders in Commerce forward the information to JS rather than allow the letter to sit in a Washington post office awaiting JS’s arrival.received the letter in and communicated to JS both the contents of ’s letter and his own responses to Pratt and . Even before receiving this letter, JS and other church leaders were apparently already aware of the Book of Mormon shortage in ; a newspaper reported that JS traveled through , Illinois, in November 1839 carrying several copies of the Book of Mormon “destined, no doubt, for converts recently made in New York.” In his reply to Pratt, Hyrum Smith wrote that though copies of the Book of Mormon were needed throughout the country, he could not “give any encouragement for the publication of the same, other, than at this place [Commerce] or, where it can come out under the immediate inspection of Joseph and his councillors, so, that no one may be chargeable with any mistakes that may occur.”The original letter is apparently not extant. The version featured here was copied into JS Letterbook 2 by in late 1839 or early 1840.
Footnotes
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1
Pratt, Autobiography, 327–328. Parley P. Pratt had been in Detroit for two weeks visiting family after spending six days ministering to “several small branches of the Church” located “within part of a day’s journey of Detroit.” Though a group of church missionaries, including Pratt, had first preached in the Buffalo, New York, area in September 1830 and Pratt had preached in that city while en route to Canada in 1836, he did not record the details of any interaction with church members there on this 1839 journey. Pratt arrived in New York City by 24 October 1839. (Woodruff, Journal, 24 Oct. 1839.)
Pratt, Parley P. The Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, One of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Embracing His Life, Ministry and Travels, with Extracts, in Prose and Verse, from His Miscellaneous Writings. Edited by Parley P. Pratt Jr. New York: Russell Brothers, 1874.
Woodruff, Wilford. Journals, 1833–1898. Wilford Woodruff, Journals and Papers, 1828–1898. CHL. MS 1352.
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2
Pratt, Autobiography, 331.
Pratt, Parley P. The Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, One of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Embracing His Life, Ministry and Travels, with Extracts, in Prose and Verse, from His Miscellaneous Writings. Edited by Parley P. Pratt Jr. New York: Russell Brothers, 1874.
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3
See Collection of Sacred Hymns [1835], ii. In 1829 JS took steps to obtain a copyright for the Book of Mormon, but he may not have completed the process. Nevertheless, JS asserted his copyright authority for the Book of Mormon on at least one occasion in 1830 when a newspaper editor printed passages of the book without JS’s permission. (Copyright for Book of Mormon, 11 June 1829.)
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4
Revelation, 12 Nov. 1831 [D&C 70:1–6]. In his reply to this letter, Hyrum Smith stated that the Book of Mormon fell under the stewardship of this group. (Hyrum Smith, Nauvoo, IL, to Parley P. Pratt, New York City, NY, 22 Dec. 1839, in JS Letterbook 2, pp. 80–81; Hyrum Smith, Nauvoo, IL, to Lucian R. Foster, New York City, NY, Jan. 1840, in JS Letterbook 2, pp. 82–84.)
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5
Minutes and Discourses, 5–7 Oct. 1839. When Rogers faced church discipline the following year, his unauthorized hymnbook was the subject of one of three charges a general conference of the church brought against him. A 28 October meeting of the Nauvoo high council took up the matter of funding a new edition of the hymnbook and voted to request financial assistance from Oliver Granger. (Minutes and Discourse, 6–8 Apr. 1840; Nauvoo High Council Minutes, 28 Oct. 1839, 28–29.)
Nauvoo High Council Minutes, 1839–1845. CHL. LR 3102 22.
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6
Letter from Hyrum Smith, 2 Jan. 1840; Hyrum Smith, Nauvoo, IL, to Parley P. Pratt, New York City, NY, 22 Dec. 1839, in JS Letterbook 2, pp. 80–81; Hyrum Smith, Nauvoo, IL, to Lucian R. Foster, New York City, NY, Jan. 1840, in JS Letterbook 2, pp. 82–84.
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7
News Item, Wisconsin Enquirer (Madison), 9 Nov. 1839, [2]. At this time, approximately eight thousand copies of the Book of Mormon had been printed in two editions. However, not all of those copies were in circulation, as an undisclosed number were destroyed in a fire in the Kirtland printing office on 15 January 1838. In December 1839, the Nauvoo high council reported to the Times and Seasons that several missionaries traveling throughout the country requested church publications “of all kinds” and that the high council resolved to reprint thousands of new copies of the Book of Mormon and hymnbook. (Crawley, Descriptive Bibliography, 1:29–32, 66–68; “Sheriff Sale,” Painesville [OH] Telegraph, 5 Jan. 1838, [3]; Prospectus for the Elders’ Journal, 30 Apr. 1838; News Item, Times and Seasons, Dec. 1839, 1:25.)
Wisconsin Enquirer. Madison, Wisconsin Territory. 1838–1840.
Crawley, Peter. A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church. 3 vols. Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1997–2012.
Painesville Telegraph. Painesville, OH. 1822–1986.
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
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8
Hyrum Smith, Nauvoo, IL, to Parley P. Pratt, New York City, NY, 22 Dec. 1839, in JS Letterbook 2, p. 80.
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9
Hyrum Smith appointed Thompson as a clerk after James Mulholland died in November 1839. In April 1840, Howard Coray took up the task of recording letters in JS Letterbook 2. Thompson, therefore, must have copied this letter into the letterbook sometime between late November 1839 and April 1840. (Letter from Emma Smith, 6 Dec. 1839; Coray, Autobiographical Sketch, 17–19.)
Coray, Howard. Autobiographical Sketch, after 1883. Howard Coray, Papers, ca. 1840–1941. Photocopy. CHL. MS 2043, fd. 1.
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