, Letter, , New Haven Co., CT, to JS, , Hancock Co., IL, ca. 15 Sept. 1841; handwriting presumably of ; four pages; JS Collection, CHL. Includes address, postal stamp, postal notation, docket, and notation.
Bifolium measuring 12¾ × 7¾ inches (33 × 20 cm); each leaf is ruled with thirty-seven horizontal blue lines. The top right corner of the first page is embossed with a logo from a paper mill: “I. Donagle New Haven”. The letter was written on all four pages, trifolded twice in letter style, addressed, sealed with an adhesive wafer, and stamped for postage. The second leaf was torn, likely when the letter was opened. An additional notation was added in unidentified handwriting. The additional notation appears to have been contemporaneous. The letter was later folded for filing and inscribed with a docket.
A docket by , who served in a clerical capacity for JS from 1841 to 1842, indicates the document was retained by the office of JS in 1841. The letter is listed in a Church Historian’s Office inventory from circa 1904. By 1973 the document had been included in the JS Collection at the Church Historical Department (now CHL). The docket, inventory, and inclusion in the JS Collection suggest continuous institutional custody of the letter since its receipt.
See the full bibliographic entry for JS Collection, 1827–1844, in the CHL catalog.
Historical Introduction
In September 1841, wrote a letter to JS about the ’s payment on a debt owed to him and his business partners. Tuttle, , and were partners in a land syndicate in that sold on credit to JS and the church significant amounts of property in the area of Illinois in 1839. Paying the interest due on this debt was among JS’s most pressing financial concerns in 1841, and he had written a letter to Hotchkiss in August 1841 expressing frustration at what he considered Hotchkiss’s unreasonable demands for an interest payment at that time. Because of his business relationship with Hotchkiss, Tuttle wrote to JS to clarify some of the misunderstandings between JS and Hotchkiss.
These misunderstandings resulted in part from the actions of and , whom JS had appointed as church and sent on a mission in spring 1841 to make payments on the land debts. Hyrum Smith and Galland planned to exchange lands in and for lands owned by church members in and and then transfer to the deeds to those eastern lands as payment. In March the two men met with Hotchkiss, who agreed to accept the land deeds as payment. Working with , Galland evidently secured some properties in early April. The properties, however, were never transferred to Hotchkiss’s ownership, prompting a letter of inquiry from Hotchkiss to JS on 24 July. JS’s response called into question Hotchkiss’s motives for seeking immediate payment and criticized him for not having patience with the Saints in the midst of difficult circumstances. In the letter featured here, defended Hotchkiss and outlined the failure of church agents to follow through on transferring the lands.
apparently wrote this letter on or shortly before 15 September, the date he mailed the letter through the , Connecticut, post office. JS received the letter sometime before 5 October and responded with a letter on 9 October.
think of , as he so stated to me on his return, & we forwarded the notes to our friend D. G. Whitney Esq at with instructions to call on you but if you could not conveniently pay, by no means to press the payment, & the first intimation I had of the delay you claim was from him— I have known too long to suppose that he would knowingly misrepresent the case, neither do I suppose that you would do it, but you could not I think have understood each other & I had supposed that after his interview with you at the time he took the note signed by the Messrs Ivins. I supposed you did <not> claim any more than the two years indulgence for the interest— I did not understand your brother to claim it— I repeat so far from wishing to crush you, you have not a stronger advocate in the Eastern states & hundreds of times in steam boats & other <public> places have I heard him bear testimony to the correct conduct of your people & that in no city had he ever seen so quiet a population at the same time so industrious & where a stranger would be treated with more respect— He has spread your persecutions in before the public in the most glowing colors & has often declared in presence of the members of the Presbyterian Church here (a very respectable Church) that he did not believe their Church contained any more sincere Christians than the at — I have uniformly read your paper (the times & seasons) in my Counting room to large numbers & always keep them on my desk in my Counting room where they a[re] read daily by many persons & you may rest assured that your denomination of Christians are not viewed with that contempt that some eastern editors would make you believe so far as my acquaintance extends & public opinions is setting in your favor & will continue to do so as long as your conduct as a body is correct— They will look more to your moral conduct than to your religion— Could you have witnessed s regrets on learning from your letter the deaths that had taken place I think you would have supposed he had some feeling for some of you. For a length of time, after noticing this, he apparently lost sight of the business contents of the letter— I think one reason why you cannot so readily sell the lands purchased of us, is, because the title is not complete untill you can get a deed from us, & which in my opinion is quite desirable— left his note against the Messrs Ivins, with a friend to negotiate in , as Mr was absent on a visit to & was also disappointed in finding him absent although it was no fault of as he did not know that would call on him— He <> is absent from home much of his time on business, & it was with much difficulty he could get time to go to — I think we mentioned to your & [p. [3]]
Daniel Greene Whitney worked as a merchant and ran a store in Quincy, Illinois, in 1841. He had been a resident of Quincy since at least May 1838. Whitney likely became acquainted with Hotchkiss and Tuttle while courting Mary Ann Pomeroy Munson Cutler, who was a native of Connecticut and lived in New Haven in 1838. Whitney and Cutler were married in New Haven’s Trinity Church on 15 August 1838. (New Haven, CT, Records of Births, Marriages, and Deaths, 1639–1902, vol. 4, p. 184, microfilm 1,405,858, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL; “Houses to Let,” Quincy [IL] Whig, 12 May 1838, [3]; “Boots and Shoes,” Quincy Whig, 11 Sept. 1841, [3].)
According to official histories of New Haven, the city did not have an official Presbyterian Church until Reverend James G. Rodger established the First Presbyterian Church of New Haven in 1885. Prior to that time, New Haven’s Presbyterians generally met with the Congregational churches. (Atwater, History of City of New Haven, 146.)
Atwater, Edward E., ed. History of the City of New Haven to the Present Time. New York: W. W. Munsell, 1887.
Throughout 1841 major eastern United States newspapers declared that the Latter-day Saints were comparable to Muslims, likening JS to Muhammad and claiming that the Saints would use violence to propagate their religion. (“The Mormons,” New-York Tribune, 26 June 1841, [2]; “Military Preparations—Nauvoo Legion,” New York Herald, 29 June 1841, [2].)
Although the note referred to here appears to have been connected to another debt and not the Hotchkiss purchase, Hotchkiss wrote JS in September to notify him that Hotchkiss had left a note for $2,500 with a friend in New Jersey to continue negotiations for the New Jersey property. (Letter from Horace Hotchkiss, 13 Sept. 1841.)