Minutes, 17 September 1837–A
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Source Note
Minutes, , Geauga Co., OH, 17 Sept. 1837. Featured version copied [ca. 17 Sept. 1837] in Minute Book 1, p. 242; handwriting of ; CHL. For more complete source information, see the source note for Minute Book 1.
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Historical Introduction
JS and , members of the ’s , presided over and participated in a Sunday meeting on 17 September 1837 in the in , Ohio, during which and received new assignments. After Kirtland nominated Marks to become the to the bishop, Marks was unanimously sustained by the members in attendance. Marks appears to have acted as an agent for JS and Rigdon beginning in April 1837, and this appointment may have been an extension of that role. He formally accepted the position in an evening meeting of the elders of the church on 17 September.After was sustained, spoke of the need to appoint a new general recorder and clerk for the church since , who had previously acted in this position, had recently moved to , Missouri. Rigdon nominated one of his sons-in-law, , for the office, and the assembled church members unanimously elected him. Robinson appears to have promptly undertaken his new office; he recorded the minutes featured here, acknowledging his position as “Clerk of the Church.”
Footnotes
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1
Whitney’s request for an agent and Marks’s appointment were printed in minutes in the Elders’ Journal summarizing events that occurred on 17 September. (Minutes, Elders’ Journal, Nov. 1837, 17.)
Elders’ Journal of the Church of Latter Day Saints. Kirtland, OH, Oct.–Nov. 1837; Far West, MO, July–Aug. 1838.
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2
In April 1837, JS and Rigdon each transferred land to Marks, and in May 1837 they transferred ownership of the Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate and the church’s Kirtland printing office to Marks. It is not clear whether any money was exchanged in these transactions, but Marks’s willingness to transfer his right to land involved in the mortgage of the House of the Lord to Mead, Stafford & Co. suggests he was likely holding this land as an agent. (Deed to William Marks, 10 Apr. 1837; Sidney Rigdon to William Marks, Geauga County Deed Record, vol. 23, p. 535, Geauga County Archives and Records Center, Chardon, OH; “Notice,” LDS Messenger and Advocate, May 1837, 3:512; Mortgage to Mead, Stafford & Co., 11 July 1837.)
Geauga Co., OH, Deed Records, vol. 23. Geauga County Archives and Records Center, Chardon, OH.
Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate. Kirtland, OH. Oct. 1834–Sept. 1837.
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4
Oliver Cowdery left Kirtland with his family to travel to Far West shortly after 15 September 1837, the date of his last docket entry as a Kirtland justice of the peace. (Cowdery, Docket Book, 14 June–15 Sept. 1837.)
Cowdery, Oliver. Docket Book, June–Sept. 1837. Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.
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