JS and other church held a in , Ohio, on 12 September 1831 to discipline three members of the church. This conference appears to have followed the same format as two other conferences that met in early September to discipline members. But whereas the earlier conferences involved individuals who had been commanded to travel to in the summer of 1831, this conference dealt with people who had received no such and had remained in . The minutes do not detail their transgressions, but the individuals may have been part of an apostasy that occurred while JS and others were absent on their journey to Missouri. spoke in an October 1831 conference in , Cuyahoga County, Ohio, about a “falling away” that had transpired “since he took his journey to the Land of ,” while wrote in his history of the church that “in the absence of the Elders many apostitized.” The conference may have been following instructions given in an 11 September revelation, which commanded the elders to bring unrepentant members before the church “that ye may be Justified in the eyes of the law that ye may not offend him who is your lawgiver.” Whether the individuals who were disciplined actually attended this conference is unclear.

As clerk of the conference, recorded the minutes. copied them into Minute Book 2 sometime in 1838.