Letter to Quorum of the Twelve, 4 August 1835
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Source Note
Council of presidencies and others (including JS), Letter, , Geauga Co., OH, to , [, York Co., ME], 4 Aug. 1835. Retained copy, [ca. 4 Aug. 1835], in JS Letterbook 1, pp. 90–93; handwriting of ; JS Collection, CHL. For more complete source information, see the source note for JS Letterbook 1.
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Historical Introduction
On 4 August 1835, a council consisting of members of the , the presidency of the , “and others” composed a letter to the , who were holding in the eastern and . In the letter, the council chastised the Twelve for not discussing in their conferences the need for church members to donate funds for the construction of the in , Ohio; for the redemption of church members’ lands in , Missouri; and for the printing of the Doctrine and Covenants. The council also reprimanded and for making disparaging remarks about the Kirtland school that was conducting and then reproved the Twelve for complaining about the conditions of their families and for allegedly setting themselves up in the conferences as “an independant counsel subject to no authority of the church.”By the time this letter was written, the Twelve, as they had planned in a March 1835 council, had conducted conferences in six locations: , , Lyonstown, and Pillar Point, New York; West Loughborough, Upper Canada; and St. Johnsbury, Vermont. The Twelve’s records of their conferences and other meetings shed little light on what they did to cause church leaders to issue such a strong reprimand. For instance, reports of four of their conferences were published in the May and July 1835 issues of the Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate, but none of these provide information to suggest how the Twelve Apostles might have been acting as “an independant counsel.” The minutes of the Twelve’s meetings also provide little basis for ascertaining whether or to what extent they had acted improperly.According to this 4 August letter, at least three letters from the eastern prompted the reprimand. In the first letter, , the presiding authority of the , New York, , told church leaders that the Twelve had not instructed church members at a conference in Freedom about the need to donate funds for the construction of the . Leaders were also upset by a letter wrote to his wife, Emeline Miller McLellin, which implied that he and had no confidence in the way was conducting a school in . This school, described by as “a Grammar school,” opened in December 1834, with McLellin and as teachers. While he was teaching there, McLellin promoted the school as teaching “the sciences of penmanship, arithmetic, English grammar and geography” and as “a place where strict attention is paid to good morals as well as to the sciences.” When McLellin left Kirtland with the Twelve, Rigdon apparently began teaching in his place. In June 1835, Hyde made a brief trip to Kirtland and then gave a disparaging report to McLellin about the school, prompting McLellin to comment about it in the letter to his wife. His comment caused the members of the council to withdraw their fellowship from McLellin and Hyde. Finally, , one of the Twelve Apostles, sent a letter that to church leaders gave undue credit to McLellin and for their “able preaching.”In late August 1835, the Twelve received this 4 August letter while conducting conferences in . The minutes for those meetings specify that the Twelve talked on “the redemption [of ], the Building of the in , and the printing of the word of God to the nations”—the three subjects that the 4 August letter chastised them for not discussing. In response to the letter, the Twelve agreed to finish their work in the eastern and meet in , New York, on 24 September 1835. From there, they planned to travel together to Kirtland. Immediately after reaching Kirtland on 26 September 1835, the Twelve met with JS, , , , , , and to discuss the charges in the letter. and “frankly confessed” their errors “and were forgiven,” and the Twelve convinced JS and others that the complaints against them “originated in the minds of persons whose minds were dark[e]ned in consequence of covetousness or some other cause other than the spirit of truth.”The Twelve also “prefered a charge” against “for his unchristian conduct,” presumably in making accusations against them. On 5 March 1836, Warren Cowdery “confessed his mistake” in a meeting with the Twelve, JS, , and and stated his willingness to publish a statement that the Twelve had “delivered those instructions which he supposed they had not.” This statement appeared in the Messenger and Advocate, declaring that although Cowdery was “actuated by the purest motives at the time he wrote,” he had since become convinced that the Twelve had delivered the necessary instructions.The original version of this 4 August 1835 letter is not extant. served as clerk of the council and presumably served as scribe for the letter; JS signed it as moderator and also added a postscript to his brother . copied the letter into JS’s letterbook, likely before the letter was sent.
Footnotes
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1
Minutes, 12 Mar. 1835; Record of the Twelve, 17–19 July 1835.
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2
Minutes, LDS Messenger and Advocate, May 1835, 1:115–116; Editorial, LDS Messenger and Advocate, July 1835, 1:153.
Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate. Kirtland, OH. Oct. 1834–Sept. 1837.
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3
Record of the Twelve, 4–9, 10–11, and 22–23 May 1835; 19–22 and 29 June 1835; 17–19 July 1835.
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4
Kimball, “Journal and Record,” 51; McLellin, Journal, 22 Dec. 1834.
Kimball, Heber C. “The Journal and Record of Heber Chase Kimball an Apostle of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,” ca. 1842–1858. Heber C. Kimball, Papers, 1837–1866. CHL. MS 627, box 1.
McLellin, William E. Journal, July 1834–Apr. 1835. William E. McLellin, Papers, 1831–1836, 1877–1878. CHL. MS 13538, box 1, fd. 4. Also available as Jan Shipps and John W. Welch, eds., The Journals of William E. McLellin, 1831–1836 (Provo, UT: BYU Studies; Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994).
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5
William E. McLellin, Notice, 27 Feb. 1835, LDS Messenger and Advocate, Feb. 1835, 1:80.
Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate. Kirtland, OH. Oct. 1834–Sept. 1837.
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6
Record of the Twelve, 5 June 1835.
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7
Editorial, LDS Messenger and Advocate, July 1835, 1:153, underlining in original.
Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate. Kirtland, OH. Oct. 1834–Sept. 1837.
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8
JS, Journal, 16 Jan. 1836; Record of the Twelve, 21–23 and 28 Aug. 1835.
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9
Record of the Twelve, 21 Aug. 1835.
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10
Esplin and Nielsen, “Record of the Twelve,” 48.
Esplin, Ronald K., and Sharon E. Nielsen. “The Record of the Twelve, 1835: The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles’ Call and 1835 Mission.” BYU Studies 51, no. 1 (2012): 4–52.
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11
JS, Journal, 26 Sept. 1835; Minutes, 26 Sept. 1835.
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13
JS, Journal, 16 Jan. 1836.
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14
Cowdery, Diary, 5 Mar. 1836.
Cowdery, Oliver. Diary, Jan.–Mar. 1836. CHL. MS 3429. Also available as Leonard J. Arrington, “Oliver Cowdery’s Kirtland, Ohio, ‘Sketch Book,’” BYU Studies 12 (Summer 1972): 410–426.
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15
“Notice,” 7 Mar. 1836, in LDS Messenger and Advocate, Feb. 1836, 2:263.
Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate. Kirtland, OH. Oct. 1834–Sept. 1837.
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