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Letter from Reuben Hedlock, 16–17 October 1843

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Letter from Reuben Hedlock, 16–17 October 1843

Source Note

, Letter, , Lancashire, England, to , the (including JS), and , , Hancock Co., IL, 16–17 Oct. 1843; handwriting and signature of ; eight pages; Brigham Young Office Files, CHL. Includes address, notation, and docket.
Two bifolia folded together to make a gathering of four leaves measuring 9¾ × 7¾ inches (25 × 20 cm). The letter was inscribed on all eight pages. It was trifolded twice in letter style and addressed. The letter was later refolded and docketed for filing.
The notation “ Nov 5[th]. 1843 & Conserning Pasengers” was added in unidentified handwriting either in or after the document was received in . The letter was docketed by Jonathan Grimshaw, who served as a clerk in the Church Historian’s Office (later Church Historical Department) from 1853 to 1856. By 1994 the document had been included in the Brigham Young Office Files at the Church Historical Department (now CHL). The document’s early docket and inclusion in the Brigham Young Office Files by 1994 suggest continuous institutional custody.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Historian’s Office, Journal, 7 June 1853; Wilford Woodruff, Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, to George A. Smith, 30 Aug. 1856, in Historian’s Office, Letterpress Copybooks, vol. 1, p. 364.

    Historian’s Office. Journal, 1844–1997. CHL. CR 100 1.

    Historian’s Office. Letterpress Copybooks, 1854–1879, 1885–1886. CHL. CR 100 38.

  2. [2]

    See the full bibliographic entry for Brigham Young Office Files, 1832–1878, in the CHL catalog.

Historical Introduction

On 16 and 17 October 1843, , the of the British mission, wrote a second letter from the mission office in to the and the in , Illinois, reporting on the state of the in the British Isles. During the early 1840s, the church had grown immensely in the region due to the proselytizing efforts of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and other missionaries. The message preached by these missionaries was especially attractive to members of the working class, many of whom labored in the burgeoning industrial centers of Lancashire and Staffordshire. Missionaries organized scores of new Latter-day Saint congregations throughout , Scotland, and Wales, which generated both enthusiasm and antagonism toward the church.
In 1841 and 1842, the return of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and other prominent missionaries to the —as well as the emigration of some British leaders to —resulted in a leadership vacuum in local , doctrinal disagreements, and apostasy in some congregations. At the same time, negative depictions of the church circulated in the British media, especially because of the writings of , an English-born Episcopalian minister and professor of divinity at Kemper College in . In April 1842, Caswall visited Nauvoo with the intent to expose JS as a fraud. According to his account, Caswall showed JS an ancient Greek psalter and asked him to explain the text inscribed on it. Caswall later claimed that JS told him the book was a “dictionary of Egyptian Hieroglyphics . . . like the letters that was engraved on the golden plates.” Caswall apparently denounced JS as a fraud in front of a group of church members and later publicized his account of their conversation in The City of the Mormons; or, Three Days at Nauvoo, in 1842, an exposé published in in 1842. Sometime before April 1843, he published another critical depiction of the Latter-day Saints in the book The Prophet of the Nineteenth Century. In October 1843, the Times and Seasons published an account refuting Caswall’s characterization of the 1842 encounter, insisting that JS “declined having any thing to do with it” after a nervous Caswall asked for a translation of the psalter. The writings of Caswall and other individuals hostile to the church in Great Britain remained a source of consternation to missionaries and church leaders in fall 1843.
The lack of strong leadership and the proliferation of literature antagonistic to the church throughout Great Britain convinced and other local leaders that they needed to disseminate accurate news, correct doctrine, and general instruction through official church publications. In November 1842, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles directed church leaders in to cease publishing the -based newspaper Millennial Star following ’s departure until they received further instruction. British leaders received the directive in February 1843, but in early October 1843, Hedlock and his counselors, and , appealed to church leaders in to allow them to continue publishing the Millennial Star or to send them copies of the newspaper Times and Seasons to ensure “a means of communication with, and instruction of the English churches.” In his letter written on 16 and 17 October, featured here, Hedlock appealed again to church leaders to allow him to resume publishing the Millennial Star or to reprint the Times and Seasons.
wrote his letter to the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in his office in . He apparently began writing late in the evening on 16 October and wrote until two o’clock in the morning on 17 October. Later that morning, he resumed and completed the letter. In addition to describing the state of individual branches in Great Britain, Hedlock acknowledged leadership problems, doctrinal disagreements, and the propagation of antagonistic literature in Great Britain. He specifically mentioned ’s influence and included a lengthy quotation from his writings. Hedlock also communicated information related to Latter-day Saint migration from to . At the end of the letter, Hedlock wrote a paragraph directed specifically to apostles and regarding British sales of the newspapers Times and Seasons and Nauvoo Neighbor and a paragraph directed specifically to JS related to an unspecified business arrangement between the two men. Lastly, he included a postscript indicating that he would send personal items for , , and others on subsequent ships bound for the . Hedlock also mentioned that he would include the most recent Millennial Star issues, which are no longer with the letter. The letter contains no postal marks or seals and was likely conveyed to Nauvoo by a courier who traversed the Atlantic aboard the steamship Britannia.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Hedlock sent a letter to church leaders on 4 October, shortly after he arrived in Liverpool; this second communication provided a more comprehensive overview of the challenges facing the church in the British Isles. (Letter from Reuben Hedlock, 4 Oct. 1843.)

  2. [2]

    There were approximately eight thousand members in Great Britain by October 1843; this figure does not include the thousands of British Saints who had already migrated to Nauvoo. (Letter from Thomas Ward and Hiram Clark, 3 Oct. 1843; “General Conference,” Millennial Star, July 1843, 4:36.)

    Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star. Manchester, England, 1840–1842; Liverpool, 1842–1932; London, 1932–1970.

  3. [3]

    Morris, “Emergence and Development of the Church . . . in Staffordshire, 1839–1870,” chaps. 3–5; Allen and Thorp, “Mission of the Twelve to England, 1840–41,” 499–500, 503–521.

    Morris, David Michael. “The Emergence and Development of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Staffordshire, 1839–1870.” PhD diss., University of Chichester, 2010.

    Allen, James B., and Malcom R. Thorp. “The Mission of the Twelve to England, 1840–41: Mormon Apostles and the Working Classes.” BYU Studies 15, no. 4 (Summer 1975): 499–526.

  4. [4]

    “General Conference,” Millennial Star, July 1843, 4:33–36; see also Allen and Thorp, “Mission of the Twelve to England, 1840–41,” 522–523.

    Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star. Manchester, England, 1840–1842; Liverpool, 1842–1932; London, 1932–1970.

    Allen, James B., and Malcom R. Thorp. “The Mission of the Twelve to England, 1840–41: Mormon Apostles and the Working Classes.” BYU Studies 15, no. 4 (Summer 1975): 499–526.

  5. [5]

    Woodruff, Journal, 20 Apr. and 19 May 1841; Hiram Clark, “Extract from Elder Hiram Clark’s Journal, and Address to the Saints in the British Islands,” Millennial Star, Feb. 1844, 4:145–148; Letter from Thomas Ward and Hiram Clark, 1 Mar. 1843; “From P. P. Pratt,” Millennial Star, Apr. 1843, 3:206; Letter from Thomas Ward and Hiram Clark, 3 Oct. 1843.

    Woodruff, Wilford. Journals, 1833–1898. Wilford Woodruff, Journals and Papers, 1828–1898. CHL. MS 1352.

    Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star. Manchester, England, 1840–1842; Liverpool, 1842–1932; London, 1932–1970.

  6. [6]

    Kemper College, Catalogue of the Officers and Students, 9.

    Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Kemper College, for the Year 1842–43. St. Louis: Ustick & Davies, 1843.

  7. [7]

    Caswall, City of the Mormons, 5, 35–37, 43–45, italics in original; “Caswall’s Prophet of the Nineteenth Century,” Millennial Star, Apr. 1843, 3:195–199.

    Caswall, Henry. The City of the Mormons; or, Three Days at Nauvoo, in 1842. London: J. G. F. and J. Rivington, 1842.

    Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star. Manchester, England, 1840–1842; Liverpool, 1842–1932; London, 1932–1970.

  8. [8]

    “Reward of Merit,” Times and Seasons, 15 Oct. 1843, 4:364–365. Speaking of Caswall’s 1842 visit to Nauvoo, John Taylor later recalled, “I saw Mr. Caswell in the printing office at Nauvoo; he had with him an old manuscript, and professed to be anxious to know what it was. I looked at it, and told him that I believed it was a Greek manuscript. In his book, he states that it was a Greek Psalter; but that none of the Mormons told him what it was. Herein is a falsehood, for I told him.” (Taylor, Three Nights’ Public Discussion, 5.)

    Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.

    Taylor, John. Three Nights’ Public Discussion between the Revds. C. W. Cleeve, James Robertson, and Philip Cater, and Elder John Taylor, of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. . . . Liverpool: [By the author], 1850.

  9. [9]

    Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Minutes, 21 Nov. 1842; Letter from Thomas Ward and Hiram Clark, 1 Mar. 1843; Letter from Reuben Hedlock, 4 Oct. 1843; Letter from Thomas Ward and Hiram Clark, 3 Oct. 1843. Though Ward halted the newspaper’s operations for two months, he resumed publishing the paper in July 1843. (Letter from Reuben Hedlock, 4 Oct. 1843; “Editorial,” Millennial Star, May 1843, 4:13.)

    Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Minutes, 1840–1844. CHL.

    Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star. Manchester, England, 1840–1842; Liverpool, 1842–1932; London, 1932–1970.

  10. [10]

    The Britannia was a steamship built in 1840 by the Cunard Line, a steamship company that transported passengers and mail across the Atlantic Ocean between Liverpool and Boston. (“Duties on Imports by British Steamers at Boston and New York,” 377; Gibbs, Passenger Liners of the Western Ocean, 48; Smith, Coal, Steam and Ships, 102.)

    "Duties on Imports by British Steamers at Boston and New York." Hunt's Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review 25, no. 3 (Sept. 1851): 377–379.

    Gibbs, C. R. Vernon. Passenger Liners of the Western Ocean: A Record of the North Atlantic Steam and Motor Passenger Vessels from 1838 to the Present Day. London: Staples Press, 1952.

    Smith, Crosbie. Coal, Steam and Ships: Engineering, Enterprise and Empire on the Nineteenth-Century Seas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.

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, Oct 16th. 1843
Mr and the & the Greetin
Much Esteemed and Beloved Breathen I take my pen to adress a few lines to you, to inform you of the my arrival in this Distant Land and which was on the 30th of September last and hope these few lines will find you and the Saints in Enjoying good health as they leave me at present, I also write to let you know the situation of things in this land as far as I have Become aquainted with them the shortness of time that I have been hear will not permit me to give you all particulars which I will inform you of as fast as I Become acquainted with them I should Be extremly happy could you find time amidst the multiplisety of the care and buesnis [business] that Devolves upon you to write to me once a month for you know my need of your counill [counsel] in the great Concern that nessaryly Devolves upon me therefore in order that you may be able to give Council adapted to the circunstances in which I am placed it will Be Recqured that I should give you every particular concerning the affairs of the in this Land which I shall not fail to Do as often as opertunity presents it self.
I found & well and the saints in in good standing with few exceptons soon after my arival hear I Received in connection with Elders and letters from Different parts of viz one from saying that there was Diffacuties [difficulties] Existing there that Required immediat attention also one from Chetingham saying that th[e]y needed a and some Diffacuties there to Be setled one from Graway Desiering that somthing mite Be done for them there was much need of instruction to the young Elders that were laboring there also one from Stafford shire pot[te]ries also by the presiding that is now hear on a vissit that there was much need of instrutions [p. [1]]
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Document Information

Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Letter from Reuben Hedlock, 16–17 October 1843
ID #
3414
Total Pages
8
Print Volume Location
JSP, D13:198–211
Handwriting on This Page
  • Reuben Hedlock

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    In a 4 October 1843 letter to the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Reuben Hedlock provided additional details about his arrival in Liverpool, including the members of his party—John Cairns, James Sloan, Mary Magill Sloan, James Houston, and William Jarman—and their journey across the Atlantic Ocean. (Letter from Reuben Hedlock, 4 Oct. 1843.)

  2. [2]

    Before departing England for America in October 1842, apostle Parley P. Pratt appointed Ward, a British convert, as his “successor in the office of the General Presidency of the Church in Europe.” Clark, who was sent by the Twelve to take charge of the emigration from England in place of Fielding, served as Ward’s counselor. Fielding continued to assist with emigration despite receiving instructions to return to Nauvoo. (Parley P. Pratt, “To the Saints in Europe,” Millennial Star, Oct. 1842, 3:110; Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Minutes, 14 June 1842; Letter from Thomas Ward and Hiram Clark, 1 Mar. 1843.)

    Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star. Manchester, England, 1840–1842; Liverpool, 1842–1932; London, 1932–1970.

    Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Minutes, 1840–1844. CHL.

  3. [3]

    In October 1843, the London conference included 332 church members divided into at least six branches. In early 1844, Reuben Hedlock reported to JS and the apostles that there were “some strange teachings in the London Conference” and considerable “Dissadisfaction ammong the Saints in London,” and that many members were excommunicated. (“London Conference,” Millennial Star, Oct. 1843, 4:84–85; Reuben Hedlock, Liverpool, England, to JS and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, [Nauvoo, IL], 10–21 Jan. 1844, p. 7, JS Collection, CHL.)

    Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star. Manchester, England, 1840–1842; Liverpool, 1842–1932; London, 1932–1970.

  4. [4]

    Cheltenham is located on the River Chelt in south-central England. In June 1842, the Cheltenham conference consisted of 540 church members divided into seventeen branches. Elder Barradale was “appointed to take the presidency” of the Cheltenham branch in June 1843, but it is unclear who led the conference in October 1843. (“General Conference,” Millennial Star, June 1842, 3:29; “General Conference,” Millennial Star, July 1843, 4:35.)

    Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star. Manchester, England, 1840–1842; Liverpool, 1842–1932; London, 1932–1970.

  5. [5]

    This likely referred to the group of church members living in and near Garway, England. In April 1844, church member Richard Blakey reported that the Garway conference, comprising 172 members, was “much disorganized, but that it was now progressing.” (“General Conference,” Millennial Star, Apr. 1844, 4:195, 197–198; see also “General Conference,” Millennial Star, Apr. 1845, 5:169, 173.)

    Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star. Manchester, England, 1840–1842; Liverpool, 1842–1932; London, 1932–1970.

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