Note to Newel K. Whitney, circa October 1833–Early 1834
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Source Note
JS, Note, to , [, Geauga Co., OH, ca. Oct. 1833–early 1834]; handwriting of JS; one page; George A. Smith Family Papers, University of Utah, Salt Lake City.One leaf measuring 7¼ × 8 inches (18 × 20 cm). This document has been folded, apparently for filing. At some point, an archival note was pasted to the document, indicating that staff of the University of Utah performed conservation work on the document in 1977. The bulk of the collection of which this document is a part contains papers of , his wife, Lucy E. Woodruff Smith, and his daughter Emily Smith Stewart. It is unclear when the note to was integrated into the papers of the George A. Smith family. In 1965, the University of Utah purchased the family papers from Stewart. The papers were transferred to the J. Willard Marriott Library during the period 1965–1969.
Footnotes
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Brown and Townsend, “Inventory of the George A. Smith Family Papers.”
Brown, Lisle G., and Lisa Townsend. “Inventory of the George A. Smith Family Papers, 1731–1969.” Unpublished finding aid, 1975. Online version at Northwest Digital Archives. Accessed 11 June 2014. http://nwda.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv66580.
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Historical Introduction
This undated note from JS to informed Whitney of an impending lawsuit against and The lawsuit was instigated by , who apparently aimed to take control of the farm owned by in , Ohio. Hurlbut had been excommunicated from the church by a on 3 June 1833 and appealed his case to JS and the ’s court on 21 June. Though JS and his council confirmed the decision of the bishop’s court, Hurlbut’s membership was reinstated after he penitently pleaded for mercy. Only two days later, however, Hurlbut’s case was again taken up on the grounds that he had stated that “he had deceived Joseph Smith’s God, or the Spirit by which he is actuated.” Hurlbut was again excommunicated, and JS soon thereafter wrote that the church was “suffering great persicution” at Hurlbut’s instigation and that “the peapl [people] are running after him and giveing him mony to b[r]ake down mormanism which much endangers our lives at preasnt [present].” Aside from holding lectures that derided Mormonism and claimed that the Book of Mormon originated from a manuscript written by a former preacher named Solomon Spalding, Hurlbut, as this note indicates, also threatened JS’s brother Hyrum and Joseph Smith Sr. with legal action.The ambiguous circumstances surrounding the creation of this note prevent historians from definitively identifying the date it was created. Clearly, the attempt to levy a lawsuit against over ’s farm did not occur until after ’s excommunication on 23 June 1833. No legal record of the lawsuit mentioned in this letter has been found. According to one account, Hurlbut left immediately before his second excommunication, refused to give up his ’s , and began lecturing in western . In August and September he collected affidavits critical of JS and the Book of Mormon from residents of Conneaut, Ohio, and , Pennsylvania. Hurlbut then returned to Kirtland around that same time and held public meetings against Mormonism and reportedly received financial backing from other residents opposed to the church. By November 1833, Hurlbut was in collecting more affidavits, but he returned to sometime in December. If Hurlbut did in fact bring a suit against Hyrum in 1833, it would have been during one of the occasions he was in Kirtland. On 21 December, JS filed a complaint against Hurlbut with a Kirtland justice of the peace saying he feared that Hurlbut “would wound, beat or kill him, or destroy his property.” JS explained in his 28 January 1834 journal entry that Hurlbut had “saught the distruction of the sainst [Saints] in this place and more particularly myself and family.” The reference to JS’s family in the entry possibly alludes to Hurlbut’s threatened suit against Hyrum Smith mentioned in this note to , thereby suggesting the note was written before 28 January 1834.Another aspect of the note provides clues as to when the document may have been created. The note appears to have been written in haste, as an afterthought, to inform of ’s intentions. Given JS’s proximity to Whitney (JS and his family were living in Whitney’s until around November 1833), it seems unlikely that JS would ordinarily write a note like this to Whitney instead of telling him in person. It is much more likely that JS wrote the note as he was departing for a multiday journey. It is possible, for instance, that JS penned this note as he departed for his monthlong mission to on 5 October; the note gave Whitney essential information about Hurlbut’s impending lawsuit that would have been helpful if it had materialized in JS’s absence. JS was also absent from Kirtland on several occasions in the winter and early spring of 1834 to attend the court proceedings related to his legal complaint against Hurlbut. Between 26 February and 28 March 1834, JS was again absent from Kirtland as he traveled to several areas in western in an effort to recruit volunteers and raise funds for the expedition. His next prolonged absence from Kirtland occurred in early May 1834, when he left for at the head of the Camp of Israel expedition.In addition to this dating ambiguity, the brief note featured here presents two other questions, neither of which can be definitively answered with extant sources: what were the charges levied against , and what land was Hurlbut seeking as damages in his lawsuit? Hurlbut’s personal conflict with Hyrum might have begun as early as 5 April 1833, when Hyrum presided over a meeting of missionaries and high priests in western at which Hurlbut and his preaching companion, , were separated for an undisclosed reason and assigned new traveling companions. At this meeting, Hyrum, along with , may have brought the initial charges of “unchristianlike conduct with the female sex while on a mission to the east” against Hurlbut, which led to his excommunication in absentia by a bishop’s court on 3 June 1833. In any case, when Hurlbut appealed the decision in person to JS and his court on 21 June, “the testimony against him [was] given in by Orson Hyde & Hyrum Smith.” After his second and final excommunication from the church on 23 June 1833, Hurlbut may have sought damages against Hyrum, perhaps accusing him of slander because of his testimony.Though the note does not specifically identify which property was seeking as damages, he was likely seeking ’s farm, where both and were then living. may have been uncertain of the legal status of Williams’s farm as it was still nominally owned by Frederick G. Williams but was occupied by Joseph Smith Sr., Hyrum Smith, and their families throughout 1833. The land was formally deeded over to JS on 5 May 1834, the same day JS departed with the ; Hurlbut’s lawsuit may have spurred JS to obtain the official deed prior to his departure. Both Williams and Hyrum Smith were members of the expedition and left with JS, making this informative note all the more necessary for Whitney to have in early May 1834, as most of the men who would have been familiar with the farm’s legal status would have been absent.As a result of JS’s successful legal action against , on 31 March 1834 Hurlbut was ordered to put up a $200 bond and pay court costs in excess of $110; thus, it is also possible that Hurlbut may have wanted to retaliate against the Smith family by initiating his own suit against . It is also possible that Hurlbut’s suit was part of a larger effort by area residents to stem the growth of the there. On 31 January 1834, ’s Telegraph published a public notice from a Kirtland committee that had determined to “take measures to avert the evils which threaten the Public by the location in this vicinity, of Joseph Smith Jun.” These measures included funding Hurlbut’s attempts to defame JS and provide an alternative explanation for the origin of the Book of Mormon. Howe later explained that as a result of citizens trying to “counteract the progress of so dangerous an enemy in their midst . . . many law suits ensued.” This alleged lawsuit may have been among them.
Footnotes
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4
Winchester, Plain Facts, 6–7.
Winchester, Benjamin. Plain Facts, Shewing the Origin of the Spaulding Story, concerning the Manuscript Found, and Its Being Transformed into the Book of Mormon; with a Short History of Dr. P. Hulbert, the Author of the Said Story . . . Re-published by George J. Adams, Minister of the Gospel, Bedford, England. To Which Is Added, a Letter from Elder S. Rigdon, Also, One from Elder O. Hyde, on the Above Subject. Bedford, England: C. B. Merry, 1841.
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Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, 278–287.
Howe, Eber D. Mormonism Unvailed: Or, A Faithful Account of That Singular Imposition and Delusion, from Its Rise to the Present Time. With Sketches of the Characters of Its Propagators, and a Full Detail of the Manner in Which the Famous Golden Bible Was Brought before the World. To Which Are Added, Inquiries into the Probability That the Historical Part of the Said Bible Was Written by One Solomon Spalding, More Than Twenty Years Ago, and by Him Intended to Have Been Published as a Romance. Painesville, OH: By the author, 1834.
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Eber D. Howe, author of Mormonism Unvailed, in which many of Hurlbut’s affidavits were published, later explained that residents of northern Ohio particularly feared the potential political power of the Mormons and thus employed Hurlbut after his excommunication to gather evidence against the Book of Mormon and JS. Howe recalled, “In 1833 and 34 Grandison Newel[,] Orrin Clapp[,] Nathan Corning of Mentor and many leading citizens of Kirtland and Geuaga Co employed and defrayed the expenses of Doctor Philastus Hurlbut who had been a Mormon preacher and sent him to Palmyra NY and Penn to obtain affidavits showing the bad character of the Mormon Smith Family. . . . Hurlbut returned to Ohio and lectured about the county on the Origin of Mormonism and the Book of Mormon. . . . I published only a small part of the statements Hurlbut let me have. Among them was a Manuscript written by Solomon Spaulding which he called Conneaut Story. It was written on about two quires of paper and was a Romance of Indian wars along the shore of Lake Erie between various Tribes one of which he called Erie another Chicago. . . . I was not acquainted with Hurlbut untill he came to me to have his evidence published. He was good sized fine looking full of gab but illiterate and had lectured on many subjects.” (Eber D. Howe, Statement, 8 Apr. 1885, Collection of Manuscripts about Mormons, 1832–1954, Chicago History Museum.)
Collection of Manuscripts about Mormons, 1832–1954. Chicago History Museum.
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Geauga Co., OH, Court of Common Pleas, Court Records, 1807–1904, Final Record Book P, pp. 431–432, 31 Mar. 1834, microfilm 20,278, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL. A warrant was issued, and a preliminary hearing was held on 13–15 January. The court ruled in JS’s favor and affirmed that he indeed “had reason to fear” Hurlbut’s actions. Hurlbut was ordered to “enter into a recognizance to keep the peace generally and especally towards” JS. The final judgment was rendered on 31 March 1834, and the court ordered Hurlbut to put up a bond of $200 that assured he would keep the peace for six months as well as pay the substantial court costs of $112.59. George A. Smith later said that Hurlbut had, during his lectures, “said he would wash his hands in Joseph Smith’s blood.” Many years later, James A. Briggs, a Kirtland resident and professed attorney of Hurlbut, claimed that “in the winter of 1833–’34, . . . Dr. Hurlbut . . . had the prophet, Joseph Smith, arrested on a warrant of a justice of the peace for assault and battery. He had an examination before two justices in the Old Methodist Church in Painesville. It lasted three days. Judge Benjamin Bissell was the attorney for Smith and I was the attorney for Dr. Hurlbut.” Briggs may have simply been mistaken in remembering JS as the defendant in the trial involving Hurlbut. Briggs’s account of a three-day trial coincides precisely with extant legal records of the initial hearing held on 13–15 January 1834 to determine Hurlbut’s liability for threats he had made against JS. However, while legal records place that hearing at Chardon, Ohio, Briggs’s reminiscence places, specifically and descriptively, the proceedings in the Methodist church in Painesville, Ohio. These major differences between Briggs’s memory and extant legal documents of JS’s trial against Hurlbut allow for the possibility that there may have been two separate trials, one in which JS was the defendant and stood accused by Hurlbut, and the one recorded in legal documents that list JS as the complainant and Hurlbut as the defendant. (George A. Smith, Discourse, 15 Nov. 1864, in George D. Watt, Discourse Shorthand Notes, 15 Nov. 1864, Pitman Shorthand Transcriptions, CHL; Staker, Hearken, O Ye People, 597; James A. Briggs, “The Spaulding Romance,” New-York Daily Tribune, 31 Jan. 1886, 3.)
U.S. and Canada Record Collection. FHL.
Pitman Shorthand Transcriptions, 1998–2013. CHL.
Staker, Mark L. Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith’s Ohio Revelations. Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2009.
New-York Daily Tribune. New York City. 1841–1924.
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Hyrum Smith, Diary, 5 Apr. 1833, [12]–[13].
Smith, Hyrum. Diary, Mar.–Apr. 1839, Oct. 1840. CHL. MS 2945.
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Joseph Smith Sr., Lucy Mack Smith, Hyrum Smith, and members of Hyrum’s family all moved onto Williams’s land after their respective arrivals in Kirtland. Joseph Smith Sr. began living on Frederick G. Williams’s farm, as instructed by revelation, in February 1831, and his family joined him a few months later. Lucy Mack Smith remembered, “We moved onto a farm which was purchased by Joseph and the Church on this farm my family were all established with this arrangement that we were to cultivate the farm and the produce was to be applied to the suport [of] our families and the use of persons who were came to the place and had no acquaintances there.” Hyrum Smith explained in his diary that he moved onto Williams’s land on 10 April 1833. Because both Hyrum and Joseph Smith Sr. are named in this letter in relation to the farm, it is improbable that JS was referencing the other major Kirtland landholding, the Peter French farm, which had been purchased in early April 1833. On 17 June 1833, Newel K. Whitney & Co. was deeded the French farm from Joseph Coe, who had initially purchased the property as the church’s agent. By the time Hurlbut was excommunicated, therefore, Whitney would not have needed JS to explain to him, as he does in this letter, that the United Firm owned the French farm. This fact would have been well known by Whitney, who would have recently signed the deed that transferred ownership of the land to the firm. (Hyrum Smith, Diary, 10–12 Apr. 1833, [14]; Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1844–1845, bk. 12, [6]; Geauga Co., OH, Deed Records, 1795–1921, vol. 17, pp. 38–39, 359–360, 10 Apr. 1833; vol. 17, pp. 360–361, 17 June 1833, microfilm 20,237, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL.)
Smith, Hyrum. Diary, Mar.–Apr. 1839, Oct. 1840. CHL. MS 2945.
U.S. and Canada Record Collection. FHL.
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Frederick G. Williams later wrote that he had allowed JS and his family to use his farm and sell its produce without receiving any payment from JS and that the farm was deeded over to JS in 1834 without any remuneration. During the same period, JS had apparently borrowed hundreds of dollars from Williams to pay for farm implements and other miscellaneous items, but when a revelation directed the members of the United Firm to forgive all of their debts with one another, Williams dutifully canceled the notes owed him by JS. (Frederick G. Williams, Statement, no date, Frederick G. Williams, Papers, CHL; see also Frederick G. Williams, “Account on Farm,” no date, Frederick G. Williams, Papers, CHL.)
Williams, Frederick G. Papers, 1834–1842. CHL. MS 782.
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“To the Public,” Painesville (OH) Telegraph, 31 Jan. 1834, [3].
Painesville Telegraph. Painesville, OH. 1822–1986.
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Howe, Autobiography and Recollections, 45.
Howe, Eber D. Autobiography and Recollections of a Pioneer Printer: Together with Sketches of the War of 1812 on the Niagara Frontier. Painesville, OH: Telegraph Steam Printing House, 1878.
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