Letter to William W. Phelps and Others, 25 July 1836
-
Source Note
, JS, , , and , Letter, , Geauga Co., OH, to and others [likely , , , , , , , , , , , , and R. Evans], , Clay Co., MO, 25 July 1836. Featured version published in “Kirtland, Ohio, July 25, 1836,” Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate, Aug. 1836, 2:359. For more complete source information, see the source note for Letter to Oliver Cowdery, Dec. 1834.
-
Historical Introduction
On 1 July 1836, leaders in , Missouri, under as chairman, met and discussed the 29 June resolutions presented to them by the Clay County citizens’ committee that had demanded the Mormons leave the county. It was “for the sake of friendship,” the church leaders said, “and to be in a covenant of peace with the citizens of Clay county” that they acquiesced to the committee’s request. On 2 July, the church leaders met with the citizens’ committee, which accepted their commitment to leave and further resolved to “assist the Mormons in selecting some abiding place where they will be in a measure the only occupants” and where “none will be anxious to molest them.” At the end of 1836, and others from Clay County helped push forward a statute in the state legislature that created specifically for Mormon settlement.and other church leaders in wrote to JS and the church in , Ohio, on 1 July 1836 to inform them of these developments and the agreement to vacate the county. In the church presidency’s reply, presented here, JS and the presidency approved the decision made by Phelps and the Latter-day Saints to peaceably leave the county.The original letter is no longer extant; the version featured here was printed in the August 1836 issue of the Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate.
Footnotes
-
1
For more information on the situation in Clay County leading to these resolutions, see Letter to John Thornton and Others, 25 July 1836.
-
2
“Public Meeting,” LDS Messenger and Advocate, Aug. 1836, 2:359–361. Edward Partridge also reported that on 30 June 1836, before the official statement by the Saints was delivered to the citizens’ committee, he, his counselors, and others met the committee and reported that they “wanted peace and were willing to make sacrifices, to keep it.” (Partridge, Journal, 30 June 1836.)
Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate. Kirtland, OH. Oct. 1834–Sept. 1837.
Partridge, Edward. Journal, Jan. 1835–July 1836. Edward Partridge, Papers, 1818–1839. CHL. MS 892, box 1, fd. 2.
-
3
“Public Meeting,” LDS Messenger and Advocate, Aug. 1836, 2:361.
Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate. Kirtland, OH. Oct. 1834–Sept. 1837.
-
4
An Act to Organize the Counties of Caldwell and Daviess [29 Dec. 1836], Laws of the State of Missouri [1836], 46–47; Alexander Doniphan, Jefferson City, MO, to William W. Phelps, Shoal Creek, MO, 8 Jan. 1837, William W. Phelps, Collection of Missouri Documents, CHL.
Laws of the State of Missouri, Passed at the First Session of the Ninth General Assembly, Begun and Held at the City of Jefferson, on Monday, the Twenty-First Day of November, in the Year of Our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty-Six. 2nd ed. St. Louis: Chambers and Knapp, 1841.
Phelps, William W. Collection of Missouri Documents, 1833–1837. CHL. MS 657.
-
5
No copy of the 1 July 1836 letter from Phelps to JS has been located.
-
1
