Letter to Presendia Huntington Buell, 15 March 1839
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Source Note
JS, Letter, , Clay Co., MO, to , , MO, 15 Mar. 1839. Featured version copied [16 Dec. 1854]; handwriting of ; two pages; inserted in JS History, 1838–1856, vol. C-1, p. 898; Historian’s Office, History of the Church, 1839–ca. 1882, CHL. Includes docket and redactions.Single leaf measuring 12½ × 8 inches (32 × 20 cm), with thirty-five printed lines per page. The top, bottom, and right edges have the square cut of manufactured paper; the left edge is unevenly cut. After the document was folded for filing, added a docket. At an unknown date, a wafer was used to attach the top right corner of the verso to page 898 of JS History, 1838–1856, volume C-1. The top right corner of both the recto and the verso of the letter were inscribed in graphite with “898”. At some point, cellophane tape was applied where the paper had torn away from the adhesive wafer.Little is known about the custodial history of the original letter, which is apparently not extant. It presumably remained in ’s possession for much of her life. On 16 December 1854, Buell temporarily loaned it to , a clerk in the Church Historian’s Office, for copying. Bullock’s copy was likely filed in the Church Historian’s Office for some time before it was inserted into volume C-1, as evidenced by wear along the copy’s folds. It was added to that volume by 1905. Volume C-1 has remained in the custody of the Church Historian’s Office and successor institutions since its creation, as noted in inventories of church records.
Footnotes
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1
See History of the Church, 3:285.
History of the Church / Smith, Joseph, et al. History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Edited by B. H. Roberts. Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1902–1912 (vols. 1–6), 1932 (vol. 7).
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2
See “Schedule of Church Records. Nauvoo 1846,” [1]; “Inventory. Historians Office. G. S. L. City April 1. 1857,” [1]; “Index of Records and Journals in the Historian’s Office 1878,” [6], Historian’s Office, Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904, CHL.
Historian’s Office. Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904. CHL. CR 100 130.
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Historical Introduction
On 15 March 1839, JS wrote from the in , Missouri, to , a who was also living in the county. noted in his journal that earlier in the day, Buell visited the jail with her father, , as well as , , and . Presumably, the purpose of the visit was for the four men to sign JS’s petition for a writ of . While there, Buell requested to converse with the prisoners privately, but the jailer would not permit it.On the afternoon or evening of 15 March 1839, after the visitors departed and the petition was completed, JS wrote this letter to . While imprisoned in , JS often relied on his fellow prisoners to act as scribes for lengthy documents created for a general church audience or for the government, but he personally wrote short communications to his wife . Because the original letter to Buell is apparently not extant, it is unknown who acted as the scribe. However, at the conclusion of this letter, JS stated that “I wanted to communicate something and I wrote this,” suggesting he penned the letter himself. Believing that Buell desired counsel as to whether she and her husband, Norman Buell, should remain in or with the in , JS advised the latter. He also offered encouragement, quoted liberally from scripture, and expressed his desire to once again be with church members and teach them the gospel. The address, “To Mrs. Norman Buel | Clay Co. | Mo.,” suggests that JS completed the letter after Buell left the and that he had someone carry the letter to her home.A copy of the letter was made on 16 December 1854 by . Bullock’s inclusion of the address at the bottom of the letter strongly suggests that Bullock had access to the original letter rather than a subsequent copy. In 1877, writer Edward Tullidge published a copy of the letter. It is unknown whether he copied the original letter or a subsequent version. Bullock’s version is featured here because it was presumably copied much earlier (when the original may have been more legible), because it is unknown whether Tullidge’s published version depended upon an intermediate printer’s manuscript, and because Tullidge may have edited his version for publication. Significant textual variants between Bullock’s and Tullidge’s versions are noted in annotation.
Footnotes
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1
“A Venerable Woman,” Woman’s Exponent, 15 Jan. 1883, 123; 1 Mar. 1883, 147.
Woman’s Exponent. Salt Lake City. 1872–1914.
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2
Hyrum Smith, Diary, 15 Mar. 1839; Petition to George Tompkins, between 9 and 15 Mar. 1839; Tullidge, Women of Mormondom, 209–210.
Smith, Hyrum. Diary, Mar.–Apr. 1839, Oct. 1840. CHL. MS 2945.
Tullidge, Edward W. The Women of Mormondom. New York: Tullidge and Crandall, 1877.
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3
See, for example, Petition to George Tompkins, between 9 and 15 Mar. 1839; Letter to Edward Partridge and the Church, ca. 22 Mar. 1839; Letter to Emma Smith, 4 Nov. 1838; and Letter to Emma Smith, 21 Mar. 1839.
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4
Historian’s Office, Journal, 16 Dec. 1854, 17:252.
Historian’s Office. Journal, 1844–1997. CHL. CR 100 1.
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5
Tullidge, Women of Mormondom, 210–212.
Tullidge, Edward W. The Women of Mormondom. New York: Tullidge and Crandall, 1877.
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