Pay Order to Newel K. Whitney for “Mrs. Young,” 15 June 1840
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Source Note
on behalf of JS, Pay Order, to , for “Mrs. Young,” , Hancock Co., IL, 15 June 1840; handwriting of ; endorsed by ; one page; Newel K. Whitney, Papers, CHL.One leaf, measuring 3¾ × 7¾ inches (10 × 20 cm). The left, right, and top edges of the leaf have the square cut of manufactured paper, while the bottom edge is unevenly torn. The leaf was folded, presumably for filing. The pay order underwent conservation at some point and is encased in a Mylar sleeve.received the pay order, as indicated by the endorsements he wrote on the back. The order—along with a small collection of other documents relating to business matters involving Newel K. Whitney, , Granger’s son-in-law , and others—was apparently passed down among Kimball’s descendants and eventually came into the possession of Augusta Bernadine Kimball Lubbe, who was a niece of Kimball. In 1928 Lubbe gave this order and over a dozen other documents to Howard Martin Pond, a Latter-day Saint who was serving a mission in , Illinois. In 1988 Pond donated the documents, including this pay order, to the church.
Footnotes
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See the full bibliographic entry for Newel K. Whitney, Papers, 1840–1844, in the CHL catalog; 1930 U.S. Census, Peoria, Peoria Co., IL, enumeration district 72-61, p. 30B; Death Certificate for Augusta Kimball Lubbe, 14 Mar. 1941, Peoria, Peoria Co., IL, certificate 12293, Illinois Public Board of Health, Death Certificates for the State of Illinois, 1916–1945, microfilm 1,832,580, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL; and Morrison and Sharples, History of the Kimball Family in America, 1090–1093.
Census (U.S.) / U.S. Bureau of the Census. Population Schedules. Microfilm. FHL.
U.S. and Canada Record Collection. FHL.
Morrison, Leonard Allison, and Stephen Paschall Sharples. History of the Kimball Family in America, from 1634 to 1897, and of Its Ancestors, the Kemballs or Kemboldes of England. Vol. 2. Boston: Damrell and Upham, 1897.
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Historical Introduction
On 15 June 1840, JS dictated a pay order instructing to allow a “Mrs Young” to have “any thing she wants.” Whitney was in charge of a “Store of Goods” in , Illinois, that operated until he left Nauvoo to deal with business in the eastern . The store probably served as a church , similar to other stores that either bishops—including Whitney—or church had operated in prior years, and it is likely that this pay order was directing Whitney to provide goods to Mrs. Young out of this store.The order does not identify Mrs. Young, but it likely referred to Mary Ann Angell Young, who was the wife of , one of the members of the serving a mission in . As early as October 1831, JS declared that “the Lord held the Church bound to provide for the families of the absent while proclaiming the Gospel.” This responsibility included constructing houses and fences for families of the Twelve living in . However, “owing to the poverty of the church,” as explained to in December 1839, the apostles’ families were “not altogether so comfortably situated as [he] could wish.” Indeed, Mary Ann Young and her children, who were living in , Iowa Territory, apparently lacked adequate food and shelter. An acquaintance later remembered Young knocking on her door around this same time “almost fainting with cold and hunger.” Because of Young’s impoverished situation, JS likely believed it necessary for to supply her with whatever items she needed from the storehouse.served as scribe for the pay order. Coray, a new convert to the church who had been in March 1840, had just started working as JS’s clerk after arriving in earlier in April. received the order; he recorded on the back of the document what appears to be a list of the goods he provided to Mrs. Young on 17 June.
Footnotes
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1
Pay Order to Newel K. Whitney for George Miller, 18 Sept. 1840; Pay Order to Oliver Granger, 15 Apr. 1840. Whitney received petitions for both goods and money at various times in 1840. (See, for example, Hyrum Smith, Nauvoo, IL, to Newel K. Whitney, 8 May 1840; and Hyrum Smith, Nauvoo, IL, to Newel K. Whitney, 3 July 1840, Newel K. Whitney, Papers, CHL.)
Whitney, Newel K. Papers, 1825–1906. BYU.
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For example, Whitney ran the church storehouse in Kirtland, Ohio, and Sidney Gilbert, an agent to Bishop Edward Partridge, operated a storehouse in Independence, Missouri, from 1831 to 1833. (“Ecclesiastical Organization.” )
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Young departed on this mission on 14 September 1839. (JS History, vol. C-1, 967.)
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5
Nauvoo High Council Minutes, 2 May 1840, 58–59.
Nauvoo High Council Minutes, 1839–1845. CHL. LR 3102 22.
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6
Hyrum Smith, Nauvoo, IL, to Parley P. Pratt, New York City, NY, 22 Dec. 1839, in JS Letterbook 2, p. 81.
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7
Emmeline B. Wells, “Biography of Mary Ann Angell Young,” Juvenile Instructor 26, no. 1 (1 Jan. 1891): 19; no. 2 (15 Jan. 1891): 57. Brigham Young, who was proselytizing in England, was concerned for his family in their dire circumstances. Just four days before this pay order was written, Brigham recorded a dream he had in England in which Mary Ann told him the church was unable to provide for her. (Young, Journal, 11 June 1840.)
Juvenile Instructor. Salt Lake City. 1866–1929.
Young, Brigham. Journals, 1832–1877. Brigham Young Office Files, 1832–1878. CHL. CR 1234 1, boxes 71–73.
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Coray, Autobiographical Sketch, 17.
Coray, Howard. Autobiographical Sketch, after 1883. Howard Coray, Papers, ca. 1840–1941. Photocopy. CHL. MS 2043, fd. 1.
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