Prayer, 11 January 1834
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Source Note
JS, , , , , and , Prayer, , Geauga Co., OH, 11 Jan. 1834. Featured version copied [ca. late Jan. 1834] in JS, Journal, 1832–1834, pp. 43–48; handwriting of ; JS Collection, CHL. For more complete source information, see the source note for JS, Journal, 1832–1834.This document appears to have been originally recorded on a separate leaf of paper. later copied the prayer into JS’s journal.
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Historical Introduction
This prayer by JS and five of his close associates addressed several related concerns, including their personal safety and that of other church members, the protection of the church’s press, and the growing debt facing members of the . All of these issues were connected to the real and threatened violence church members had been subjected to for several months. Four of the prayer’s petitioners—JS, , , and —were members of the , Ohio, branch of the United Firm, while another——was a member of the branch of the firm. , the final person mentioned in this prayer, was clerk to the and had recently returned from Missouri with a report of the violence that immediately preceded the expulsion of church members from .Several months earlier, in July 1833, vigilantes in had destroyed the church’s , an important source of projected income for the United Firm. The destruction of the printing office exacerbated their financial problems, as several members of the firm were heavily in debt to the firm’s mercantile establishment and to other creditors from whom they had purchased land and goods necessary for fulfilling their . The purchase of a new press in order to commence printing operations in created additional debt.JS’s correspondence from this period indicates that he and others who were living in feared that events in might repeat themselves in . As early as 18 August 1833, for example, JS wrote to those in that he was “no safer here in Kirtland then you are in ” because “the cloud is gethering arou[nd] us with great fury and all pharohs host or in other words all hell and the com[bined] pow[e]rs of Earth are Marsheling their forces to overthrow us.” Likewise, on 5 December 1833, JS stated that “the inhabitants of this county threaten our distruction and we know not how soon they may be permitted to follow the examples of the Missourians.” B. F. Norris, a resident of nearby , Ohio, who was not a member of the , corroborated JS’s reports, writing on 6 January 1834 that a group had “threatend mob[b]ing” church members in Kirtland. Norris also observed that “Smith has four or five armed men to gard him every night.” Two days later, reported that vigilantes had fired a cannon at midnight in an attempt to intimidate the members of the church. “No one was frightened,” Cowdery explained, “but all prepared to defend ourselves if they made a sally upon our houses.”At least part of the persecution the Mormons faced in stemmed from the allegation of , a former member of the church, that the Book of Mormon was based on an unpublished work of fiction written by Solomon Spalding. Hurlbut was “lieing in a wonderful manner,” JS wrote on 18 August 1833, “and the peapl [people] are running after him and giveing him mony to b[r]ake down mormanism which much endangers our lives.” Hurlbut allegedly threatened to kill JS in mid-December, prompting JS to file a complaint against him on 21 December 1833 with Kirtland justice of the peace . A hearing on the issue was set for 13 January 1834, two days after this prayer was offered.
Footnotes
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1
JS, Journal, 25 Nov. 1833; “The Outrage in Jackson County, Missouri,” The Evening and the Morning Star, Dec. 1833, 118–120.
The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, MO, June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland, OH, Dec. 1833–Sept. 1834.
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2
Revelation, 20 July 1831 [D&C 57:11]; Revelation, 12 Nov. 1831 [D&C 70:3–8]; Revelation, 4 Dec. 1831–B [D&C 72:20–21]; Minutes, 12 Nov. 1831; Parkin, “Joseph Smith and the United Firm,” 37–38.
Parkin, Max H. “Joseph Smith and the United Firm: The Growth and Decline of the Church’s First Master Plan of Business and Finance, Ohio and Missouri, 1832–1834.” BYU Studies 46, no. 3 (2007): 5–66.
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3
Letter to Edward Partridge et al., 30 Mar. 1834. The new press, which began operating in Kirtland in December 1833, replaced the one damaged in Missouri.
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6
B. F. Norris, Mentor, OH, to Mark Norris, Ypsilanti, Michigan Territory, 6 Jan. 1834, Mark Norris Papers, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library, MI, as cited in David W. Grua, “Joseph Smith and the 1834 D. P. Hurlbut Case,” 38.
Grua, David W. “Joseph Smith and the 1834 D. P. Hurlbut Case.” BYU Studies 44, no. 1 (2005): 33–54.
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7
Oliver Cowdery, Kirtland, OH, to William W. Phelps and John Whitmer, Clay Co., MO, 21 Jan. 1834, in Cowdery, Letterbook, 22.
Cowdery, Oliver. Letterbook, 1833–1838. Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.
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8
Winchester, Plain Facts, 8–10.
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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9
Letter to Church Leaders in Jackson Co., MO, 18 Aug. 1833. Hurlbut had delivered at least one advertised lecture in Kirtland about the alleged connection between Spalding’s work and the Book of Mormon; he also announced his intention to publish a book “which . . . would divulge the whole secret” of the supposedly fraudulent origins of the Book of Mormon. Some of those present at the lecture contributed funds to Hurlbut’s project, and an anti-Mormon committee in the area employed Hurlbut “to ascertain the real origin of the Book of Mormon, and to examine the validity of Joseph Smith’s claims to the character of a Prophet.” Hurlbut traveled through Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts in search for Spalding’s manuscript. He collected several affidavits from people in New York testifying against the character of JS and his family, and he claimed to have found Spalding’s manuscript, though he never published it. (Winchester, Plain Facts, 9–11; “To the Public,” Painesville [OH] Telegraph, 31 Jan. 1834, [3].)
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.
Painesville Telegraph. Painesville, OH. 1822–1986.
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10
Winchester, Plain Facts, 11; Geauga Co., OH, Court of Common Pleas, Court Records, 1807–1904, Final Record Book P, pp. 431–432, microfilm 20,278, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL.
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.
U.S. and Canada Record Collection. FHL.
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