Marriage License for John F. Boynton and Susan Lowell, 17 November 1835
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Source Note
Marriage License, for and , , OH, 17 Nov. 1835; printed form with manuscript additions in the handwriting of ; one page; Geauga Co., OH, Common Pleas Court Marriage Licenses, 1835–1836, CHL. Includes endorsement.Single leaf, measuring 6⅛ × 7¾ inches (16 × 20 cm). The bottom and left sides of the recto have the square cut of manufactured paper. A line of ornamental type appears above and below the text block. Inspection of this form and other extant 1835 marriage licenses suggests two to three licenses were printed per page, with a black line between each form. To the left of the license text is an embossed seal. The document was trifolded in letter style.This license has been in institutional custody likely since the period. Information from an old catalog folder suggests this and several other 1835 marriage licenses were banded together with a memorandum of agreement between and , 1836–1837, in the possession of the Church History Library.
Footnotes
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See full bibliographic entry for Geauga Co., OH, Common Pleas Court Marriage Licenses, 1835–1836, in the CHL catalog.
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Historical Introduction
JS performed marriage ceremonies for eleven couples in late 1835 and early 1836. The license featured here, obtained on 17 November 1835 for and , is representative of marriage licenses from this period and was presented to and preserved by JS, who officiated at the couple’s wedding. It does not, however, represent the first marriage solemnized by JS, which occurred on 24 November 1835, when he performed the marriage of and . Boynton and Lowell were wed on 20 January 1836.A man and woman intending to wed were required to apply for a marriage license from the county court clerk. Once an application was approved, the clerk—in this instance, Court clerk —issued a license to the couple, which they then presented to a marriage officiator. The clerk also recorded the license into the county’s marriage license ledger. and did not apply for their marriage license in person; on 17 November 1835, it was requested on their behalf by , a church member who had gone to , Ohio, for his own marriage license.According to the wording on the license and ’s 1824 Act Regulating Marriages upon which the license was based, any minister with a license from an Ohio court of common pleas or any justice of the peace could perform marriages. The same Ohio statute had another provision that authorized “the several religious societies agreeably to the rules and regulations of their respective churches, to join together as husband and wife, all persons not prohibited by this act.” In other words, Ohio law allowed a minister to marry couples, even if he had not obtained a license by the local court of common pleas, as long as the ceremony was done according to his church’s rules regarding marriage. JS qualified to perform marriages under this provision. In August 1835, the accepted a set of “rules and regulations” on marriage and included those articles in the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants. JS’s journal notes that he performed the - marriage “according to the rules and regulations of the church of the Latter-day-Saints.”On 22 February 1836, JS made “returns to the county clerk on 11. marriages which I have solemnized within 3. months past 8, by license from the clerk of the court of common pleas in Ohio, and 3, by publishment,” and sent them to with Elijah Fuller. state law required that a marriage certificate signed by the officiator be submitted to the county court clerk within three months of issuance of the marriage license; JS filled this requirement by signing a marriage certificate for each couple and having it delivered to the county office for recording. JS’s scribe, , helped him write out the certificates and noted the returns made on each of the original licenses, as is demonstrated in the featured document. It is not clear when received the signed certificates from JS, but Aiken used the 22 February date when he recorded the certificates in the county marriage ledger. Once recorded, the marriages were legally valid.
Footnotes
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JS, Journal, 24 Nov. 1835 and 20 Jan. 1836; Knight, Autobiography, 810–811. Notices of Boynton and Lowell’s marriage were printed in Portland, Maine, newspapers, likely because Lowell hailed from nearby Saco, Maine. (“Married,” Eastern Argus [Portland, ME], 9 Feb. 1836, [3]; “Married,” Portland [ME] Advertiser, 16 Feb. 1836, [1].)
Knight, Newel. Autobiography and Journal, ca. 1846. CHL. MS 767.
Eastern Argus. Portland, ME. 1803–1863.
Portland Advertiser. Portland, ME. 1829–1841.
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Geauga Co., OH, Probate Court, Marriage Records, 1833–1841, 17 Nov. 1835, microfilm 873,464, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL.
U.S. and Canada Record Collection. FHL.
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An Act, Regulating Marriages [6 Jan. 1824], Statutes of Ohio, vol. 2, p. 1407, sec. 2; see also Bradshaw, “Joseph Smith’s Performance of Marriages in Ohio,” 28, 34–37, 57.
The Statutes of Ohio and of the Northwestern Territory, Adopted or Enacted from 1788 to 1833 Inclusive: Together with the Ordinance of 1787; the Constitutions of Ohio and of the United States, and Various Public Instruments and Acts of Congress: Illustrated by a Preliminary Sketch of the History of Ohio; Numerous References and Notes, and Copious Indexes. 3 vols. Edited by Salmon P. Chase. Cincinnati: Corey and Fairbank, 1833–1835.
Bradshaw, M. Scott. “Joseph Smith’s Performance of Marriages in Ohio.” BYU Studies 39, no. 4 (2000): 23–69.
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JS, Journal, 20 Jan. 1836. Despite the Ohio law’s allowance for unlicensed ministers to perform marriages, reminiscent accounts cast doubt on JS’s ability to legally solemnize marriages. John C. Dowen, a justice of the peace in Kirtland from 1833 to 1839, stated in 1885: “Mormons were not permitted to marry couples. They often had me perform the legal marriage ceremony, and afterward Joe Smith would, as he claimed, marry them according to the gospel.” According to Lydia Knight, Ohio law “did not recognize the ‘Mormon’ Elders as ministers.” Knight recalled that some unnamed Mormon elders were arrested and fined for performing marriages. Nevertheless, as M. Scott Bradshaw has argued, “Joseph was indeed within his statutory rights in assuming the authority to solemnize marriages. Moreover, he was correct when he stated that performing marriages was his ‘religious privilege.’” (John C. Dowen, Statement, 5, microfilm, Chicago Historical Society, Collection of Mormon Materials, 1836–1886, CHL; Gates, Lydia Knight’s History, 30; Bradshaw, “Joseph Smith’s Performance of Marriages in Ohio,” 31; see also Knight, Autobiography and Journal, [45]–[46].)
Chicago Historical Society, Collection of Mormon Materials, 1836–1886. Microfilm. CHL. MS 8136.
Gates, Susa Young [Homespun, pseud.]. Lydia Knight’s History. Noble Women’s Lives Series 1. Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1883.
Bradshaw, M. Scott. “Joseph Smith’s Performance of Marriages in Ohio.” BYU Studies 39, no. 4 (2000): 23–69.
Knight, Newel. Autobiography and Journal, ca. 1846. CHL. MS 767.
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JS, Journal, 22 Feb. 1836. Regarding marriages for which the couples had obtained licenses, see JS, Journal, 24 Nov. 1835; 3 and 13 Dec. 1835; 14 and 20 Jan. 1836; and Cowdery, Diary, 3 Feb. 1836. Regarding marriages legitimized by publishment—that is, giving sufficient public notice of a couple’s intent to marry without a license—see An Act, Regulating Marriages [6 Jan. 1824], Statutes of Ohio, vol. 2, p. 1407, sec. 8.
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.
The Statutes of Ohio and of the Northwestern Territory, Adopted or Enacted from 1788 to 1833 Inclusive: Together with the Ordinance of 1787; the Constitutions of Ohio and of the United States, and Various Public Instruments and Acts of Congress: Illustrated by a Preliminary Sketch of the History of Ohio; Numerous References and Notes, and Copious Indexes. 3 vols. Edited by Salmon P. Chase. Cincinnati: Corey and Fairbank, 1833–1835.
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To meet the three-month deadline, JS had only two days left to file the certificate for Newel and Lydia Goldthwaite Bailey Knight, the first of the eleven marriages he solemnized. Though the marriage certificate for John F. Boynton and Susan Lowell is no longer extant, county clerk David D. Aiken recorded the certificate after 22 February 1836 in the ledger of solemnized marriages. The other ten marriages officiated by JS and recorded by Aiken in the official county record include Newel Knight and Lydia Goldthwaite Bailey (married 24 Nov. 1835); Warren Parrish and Martha H. Raymond (3 Dec. 1835); Ebenezer Robinson and Angeline Eliza Works (13 Dec. 1835); Edwin Webb and Eliza Ann McWithy (13 Dec. 1835); Thomas Carrico and Elizabeth (Betsey) Baker (14 Jan. 1836); John Webb and Catharine Wilcox (14 Jan. 1836); Joseph C. Kingsbury and Caroline Whitney (3 Feb. 1836); William Cahoon and Nancy Gibbs (17 Jan. 1836); Harvey Stanley and Lerona Cahoon (17 Jan. 1836); and Tunis Rappleye and Louisa Cutler (17 Jan. 1836). (Geauga Co., OH, Probate Court, Marriage Records, 1806–1920, vol. C, pp. 141–144, microfilm 873,461, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL; see also JS, Journal, 17 and 19 Jan. 1836.)
U.S. and Canada Record Collection. FHL.
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An Act, Regulating Marriages [6 Jan. 1824], Statutes of Ohio, vol. 2, p. 1407.
The Statutes of Ohio and of the Northwestern Territory, Adopted or Enacted from 1788 to 1833 Inclusive: Together with the Ordinance of 1787; the Constitutions of Ohio and of the United States, and Various Public Instruments and Acts of Congress: Illustrated by a Preliminary Sketch of the History of Ohio; Numerous References and Notes, and Copious Indexes. 3 vols. Edited by Salmon P. Chase. Cincinnati: Corey and Fairbank, 1833–1835.
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