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Letter from Unidentified Author, 15 February 1844

Source Note

Unidentified author, Letter, Strafford, Orange Co., VT, to the editor of Warsaw Message or Warsaw Signal [] and JS, [], Hancock Co., IL, 15 Feb. 1844; unidentified handwriting; five pages; Thomas C. Sharp and Allied Anti-Mormon Papers, 1844–1846, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT. Includes address and docket.
Four leaves measuring 12 × 7½ inches (30 × 19 cm). The letter was inscribed on the rectos of the first three leaves and the recto and verso of the fourth leaf, with a docket on the verso of the second leaf. The document was trifolded twice in letter style and addressed. The leaves were later taped into a larger book measuring 13¾ × 8¼ inches (35 × 21 cm).
The document was apparently kept by among his papers—presumably until his death in 1894. The custodial history of his papers during the early twentieth century is unknown. By 1970 they had been acquired by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Obituary for Thomas Sharp, Morning Herald-Despatch (Decatur, IL), 12 Apr. 1894, [8].

    Morning Herald-Despatch. Decatur, IL. 1890–1899.

  2. [2]

    Holland, “Note on Mormon Americana at Yale,” 387n2.

    Holland, Jeffrey R. “A Note on Mormon Americana at Yale.” BYU Studies 10, no. 3 (Spring 1970): 386–388.

Historical Introduction

On 15 February 1844, an unidentified author wrote a letter to JS that he or she hoped , editor of the Warsaw Signal, would publish in his , Illinois, newspaper. The letter responded to General Joseph Smith’s Appeal to the Green Mountain Boys, a pamphlet that wrote at the direction of JS and that appealed to the residents of JS’s native state of to help the obtain redress and reparations for their lost property in . In the pamphlet, JS invoked his family’s revolutionary heritage and the famed dedication to individual liberty of the “Green Mountain Boys,” Vermonters who fought in the American War for Independence.
According to the letter, the respondent wrote from Strafford, Vermont—a township bordering Tunbridge, Vermont, and one of the places where the Smith family lived before relocating to western in 1816 and 1817—and claimed to have known of the Smiths when they lived in . The unidentified author was critical of JS and the Latter-day Saints and dismissive of JS’s appeal for help. The respondent argued that the Saints were not persecuted but had brought their troubles upon themselves by their behavior and political speeches. He or she questioned the veracity of church members’ claims of lost lives and property in and stated that if Vermonters ever mobilized for a conflict involving the Saints, it would be to fight against them and not in their defense. The letter concluded with a poem that included a veiled threat against JS’s life. The author also suggested that the letter be published in an issue of the Signal.
Excerpts from JS’s pamphlet had been printed in some newspapers, but it appears that the pamphlet’s content had not elicited many public comments in that state. Much of the response to the pamphlet in Vermont newspapers came in the days and weeks following the drafting of this letter. However, the Warsaw Message (the name of the Warsaw Signal between January 1843 and February 1844) had reprinted the entire pamphlet and mocked it in January 1844. It is possible that this letter was not penned by a Vermonter but instead by an opponent of JS in the , Illinois, area as an editorial device to criticize JS and the church. This possibility is suggested by the letter writer’s apparent knowledge of local developments, such as the details of meetings of the Anti-Mormon Convention in , Illinois, and the pending name change of the Warsaw Message to the Warsaw Signal. The author was also apparently familiar with details of the Smith family’s life in Vermont, although many of those details had been printed in publications critical of JS.
There are no postal markings on the letter, and, according to the unidentified respondent, the letter was to be sent by courier to . The letter may have been hand delivered to Sharp or, because Sharp frequently criticized JS, may have originated with him. Regardless, Sharp never published the letter in the Warsaw Signal. Instead, he retained possession of it. Despite uncertainty about the author’s identity and the fact that the letter was never published, it is featured here because it was written as an open letter to JS.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    General Joseph Smith’s Appeal to the Green Mountain Boys, 21 Nov.–ca. 3 Dec. 1843.

  2. [2]

    General Joseph Smith’s Appeal to the Green Mountain Boys, 21 Nov.–ca. 3 Dec. 1843. Prior to the American Revolution, the “Green Mountain Boys” were a grassroots militia led by Ethan Allen in the 1770s to protect the property rights of settlers on land that was claimed by both New York and New Hampshire. (See Randall, Ethan Allen, chaps. 9–11.)

    Randall, Willard Sterne. Ethan Allen: His Life and Times. New York: W. W. Norton, 2011.

  3. [3]

    The Smith family lived in New Hampshire and Vermont from 1796 to 1816. (Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 17–29.)

    Bushman, Richard Lyman. Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. With the assistance of Jed Woodworth. New York: Knopf, 2005.

  4. [4]

    See, for example, “Joe Smith, the Mormon, in a Rage!—Warlike Movements in Illinois!!,” Bellows Falls (VT) Gazette, 17 Feb. 1844, [2]–[3]; and News Item, State Banner (Bennington, VT), 12 Mar. 1844, [2].

    Bellows Falls Gazette. Bellows Falls, VT. 1838–1851.

    State Banner. Bennington, VT. 1841–1849.

  5. [5]

    The newspaper was founded in May 1840 as the Western World. Sharp and James Gamble changed the title to the Warsaw Signal when they purchased the newspaper in May 1841. Later that year, Sharp became the sole proprietor of the paper. In January 1843, the newspaper’s name changed again to the Warsaw Message after Sharp sold the newspaper. In 1844 Sharp repurchased it and reverted the name to the Warsaw Signal beginning with the 14 February 1844 issue. (Gregg, History of Hancock County, Illinois, 748–750; “To the Public,” Warsaw [IL] Message, 7 Jan. 1843, [2].)

    Gregg, Thomas. History of Hancock County, Illinois, Together with an Outline History of the State, and a Digest of State Laws. Chicago: Charles C. Chapman, 1880.

    Warsaw Message. Warsaw, IL. 1843–1844.

  6. [6]

    “The Appeal to the Green Mountain Boys,” and “General Joseph Smith’s Appeal to the Green Mountain Boys,” Warsaw (IL) Message, Extra, 17 Jan. 1844, [1]–[2].

    Warsaw Message. Warsaw, IL. 1843–1844.

Page [3]

You have made great ado about persecution, and your dupes have cried loud and long; but we do not believe that you have been persecuted in any shape whatever, unless keeping you and your clan from robbing and murdering can be called persecution— you say that the privilege of worshiping enjoying life, & religion according to the most virtuous and enlightned customs, rules, and etiqu[et]te of the nineteenth century are to the disgrace of the d[e]nied you; Now Joe that is a base falshood, unless you mean your pure and undefiled religion which we believe to consist in filching all you can from your dupes, to keep a score of Cyprian Saints and Spiritual wives, and in devising ways and means for blood and carnage— <​and pirates might cry persecution when brought to Justice—​> As for your spiritual wife system, if fiends had set themselves to work to discover a mode of most effectually destroying whatever is venerable, graceful, or permanent, in domestic life, and of obtaining at the same time an assurance that the mischief which it was their object to create should be perpetuated from one generation to another, they could not have invented a more effectual plan——
As to the book of Mormon it is the silliest jumble of nonsense ever put in the form of a book,— Gullivers travels, and the Hindoo shastres are before it, but all three will do to go together—— As regards the death of your and any one that <​can​> be brought to believe in your pretentions, must believe that you are guilty of their death yourself for you and your pharisaical hypocrites publicly declare and have published to the world that or the hands of the will immediately heal the sick, and when so easy done who but a murderer would look and tamely se[e] their & die when so easy heald.— Why dont you immediately remoove the rheumatic affections from your and not let her suffer one day longer— you say your stood several times in the battles of American revolution, but he was not in it neither in the last war with the british nation but if you mean the revolution you attempted in it would look a little more plausible but we dont believe it in either case— He was a great coward when in the prime of life— You have passed some encomiums upon him but appear studiously to avoid saying anything about his being too extremely fond of muton to be seen hereabouts any longer, you ought to have given his full history for you was old enough when you left here to remember a great many things about him and how he used to tel about you being born with a veil over your face, and that he intended to procure a stone for you to see all over the world with— [p. [3]]
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Document Information

Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Letter from Unidentified Author, 15 February 1844
ID #
3075
Total Pages
8
Print Volume Location
Handwriting on This Page
  • Unidentified

Footnotes

  1. [16]

    In his 1842 exposé of JS and the church, John C. Bennett made exaggerated and seemingly falsified claims about plural marriage in Nauvoo. One of these was a claim that women convicted of immorality by the Nauvoo Relief Society were deemed cyprians, a term for prostitutes. (Bennett, History of the Saints, 220–221.)

    Bennett, John C. The History of the Saints; or, an Exposé of Joe Smith and Mormonism. Boston: Leland and Whiting, 1842.

  2. [17]

    Jonathan Swift [Lemuel Gulliver, pseud.], Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, 2 vols. (London: Benjamin Motte, 1726.)

    Swift, Jonathan [Lemuel Gulliver, pseud.]. Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. 2 vols. London: Benjamin Motte, 1726.

  3. [18]

    The dharmashastras contain rules of conduct and rites that are the basis for Hindu law. Nineteenth-century Americans often mocked the traditional tales found in these texts in order to portray Christianity and western civilization as superior to Hinduism and Indian civilization. (Altman, Heathen, Hindoo, Hindu, 56–60.)

    Altman, Michael J. Heathen, Hindoo, Hindu: American Representations of India, 1721–1893. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.

  4. [19]

    In General Joseph Smith’s Appeal to the Green Mountain Boys, JS attributed the deaths of his father, Joseph Smith Sr. (in 1840), and his brother Don Carlos Smith (in 1841) to illnesses contracted as a result of their expulsion from Missouri in winter 1838–1839. (General Joseph Smith’s Appeal to the Green Mountain Boys, 21 Nov.–ca. 3 Dec. 1843; “Death of General Don Carlos Smith,” Times and Seasons, 16 Aug. 1841, 2:503.)

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

  5. [20]

    Church elders practiced faith healing by the laying on of hands but did not guarantee immediate healing. One of JS’s early revelations stated that those with faith would be healed unless they were “appointed unto death,” in which case they would “die unto [God].” (Revelation, 9 Feb. 1831 [D&C 42:44, 48].)

  6. [21]

    In General Joseph Smith’s Appeal to the Green Mountain Boys, JS stated, “And my mother, too, though she yet lingers among us, from her extreme exposure in that dreadful tragedy, was filled with rheumatic affections and other diseases, which leaves her no enjoyment of health. She is sinking in grief and pain, broken hearted, from Missouri persecution.” (General Joseph Smith’s Appeal to the Green Mountain Boys, 21 Nov.–ca. 3 Dec. 1843.)

  7. [22]

    In General Joseph Smith’s Appeal to the Green Mountain Boys, JS stated that his father fought in the American Revolution. JS’s father, Joseph Smith Sr., fought in neither the American Revolution nor the War of 1812. However, JS’s grandfather Solomon Mack fought in the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War and underwent a very similar experience to that related in the pamphlet. JS may have assigned William W. Phelps to write about both his grandfather’s experience of fighting for independence in the Revolution and his father’s subsequent experience of being deprived of his liberties in Missouri, and these experiences may have been intentionally or unintentionally conflated during the drafting or editing of the text. (General Joseph Smith’s Appeal to the Green Mountain Boys, 21 Nov.–ca. 3 Dec. 1843; Mack, Narraitve of the Life of Solomon Mack, 6–10; Anderson, Joseph Smith’s New England Heritage, 118.)

    Mack, Solomon. A Narraitve [sic] of the Life of Solomon Mack, Containing an Account of the Many Severe Accidents He Met With During a Long Series of Years, Together With the Extraordinary Manner in Which He was Converted to the Christian Faith. To Which is Added, a Number of Hymns Composed on the Death of Several of His Relations. Windsor, VT: By the author, 1811.

    Anderson, Richard Lloyd. Joseph Smith’s New England Heritage: Influences of Grandfathers Solomon Mack and Asael Smith. Rev. ed. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2003.

  8. [23]

    Joseph Smith Sr. and his family migrated from Vermont to New York in 1816–1817. Several of Joseph Smith Sr.’s former New York neighbors later claimed that the Smith family were indigent and stole sheep for food as well as for sacrifice to supernatural treasure guardians. These claims were widely publicized in the first major work opposing JS. (Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, 239, 249–250.)

    Howe, Eber D. Mormonism Unvailed: Or, A Faithful Account of That Singular Imposition and Delusion, from Its Rise to the Present Time. With Sketches of the Characters of Its Propagators, and a Full Detail of the Manner in Which the Famous Golden Bible Was Brought before the World. To Which Are Added, Inquiries into the Probability That the Historical Part of the Said Bible Was Written by One Solomon Spalding, More Than Twenty Years Ago, and by Him Intended to Have Been Published as a Romance. Painesville, OH: By the author, 1834.

  9. [24]

    “Veil” was a folk term for a birth caul, and it was thought that being born with a caul of amniotic membrane over the head or face generally signified good fortune and health. Some believed it could also portend the future ability of one so born to use a seer stone; have visions of lost objects, treasure, spirits, or the future; or become a prophet. (“Caul,” in Dictionary of Superstitions, 66–67; Forbes, “Social History of the Caul,” 119–128; Ashurst-McGee, “Pathway to Prophethood,” 99–118.)

    Opie, Iona, and Moira Tatem, eds. A Dictionary of Superstitions. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

    Forbes, Thomas R. “The Social History of the Caul.” In The Manner Born: Birth Rites in Cross­Cultural Perspective, edited by Lauren Dundes, 119–132. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2003.

    Ashurst-McGee, Mark. “A Pathway to Prophethood: Joseph Smith Junior as Rodsman, Village Seer, and Judeo-Christian Prophet.” Master’s thesis, Utah State University, 2000.

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