Receipt from Reynolds Cahoon, 11 February 1841
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Source Note
, Receipt, , Hancock Co., IL, to JS, 11 Feb. 1841; handwriting of ; one page; Newel K. Whitney, Papers, BYU. Includes docket and archival marking.Single, irregularly shaped leaf, measuring at its largest 3½ × 7⅝ inches (9 × 19 cm). The document contains one horizontal and one vertical fold. The bottom of the document is torn, indicating it was detached from a larger document. The document is ruled with seven faint lines and shows wear and tearing on the left edge; it also includes a watermark.A docket in unidentified handwriting reads, “Committe Receipts, $102.55”. This document, along with many other personal and institutional documents that kept, was inherited by his daughter Mary Jane Whitney, who married Isaac Groo. The documents were passed down within the Groo family. Between 1969 and 1974, the Groo family donated their collection of Newel K. Whitney’s papers to the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University.
Footnotes
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Andrus and Fuller, Register of the Newel Kimball Whitney Papers, 24.
Andrus, Hyrum L., and Chris Fuller, comp. Register of the Newel Kimball Whitney Papers. Provo, UT: Division of Archives and Manuscripts, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, 1978.
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Historical Introduction
, a member of the , wrote the receipt featured here on 11 February 1841 to JS, the trustee-in-trust for the . This receipt is representative of the building committee’s efforts to collect funds, goods, and materials for the ’s construction.At the October 1840 general church , JS spoke of the necessity to build a , and the conference formed a building committee consisting of , , and , “men of tried integrity.” The conference called for the committee to begin immediate preparations. An editorial in the Times and Seasons likewise encouraged the Saints to “hold up” the building committee’s efforts and “strengthen their hands.” The primary ways in which church members could contribute to the temple construction were through donations of funds, goods, and labor. On 1 February 1841 the Times and Seasons published an article by Higbee in which he encouraged the Saints to be generous and not to love money or possessions above God. He called for “those who live at a distance, who cannot put in work” on the building to instead “send in their tithing speedily, so that the work may be accomplished speedily.” The temple committee managed all donations earmarked for temple construction.The receipt from featured here encapsulates the process of funneling funds and material goods to the temple building committee. As illustrated in the receipt, JS transferred some promissory notes given to him as trustee-in-trust to Cahoon so that Cahoon could collect on those notes to generate funds for the . Over the next three months, JS, both as an individual and as the church’s trustee-in-trust, transferred to the temple building committee nearly $800 worth of cash, notes, orders, and goods.
Footnotes
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Cahoon had also served on the building committee for the Kirtland temple. (See Minutes, 6 June 1833.)
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2
Building the Nauvoo temple became increasingly important for JS and the Latter-day Saint community following a 19 January 1841 revelation that directed the Saints to construct a house “for the Most High.” JS had discussed building a temple in Nauvoo at least as early as April 1840 and spoke publicly on the subject in July. (Revelation, 19 Jan. 1841 [D&C 124:27]; “A Glance at the Mormons,” Hartford [CT] Daily Courant, 14 Aug. 1840, [2]; Discourse, ca. 19 July 1840.)
Hartford Daily Courant. Hartford, CT. 1840–1887.
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3
Minutes and Discourse, 3–5 Oct. 1840; Editorial, Times and Seasons, Oct. 1840, 1:184.
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
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5
Editorial, Times and Seasons, Oct. 1840, 1:184.
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
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Phebe Carter Woodruff wrote to her husband, Wilford, that church leaders “proposed building the Lord’s house by tytheing the people.” (Phebe Carter Woodruff, Lee Co., Iowa Territory, to Wilford Woodruff, Manchester, England, 6–19 Oct. 1840, Wilford Woodruff, Collection, CHL; see also Proclamation, 15 Jan. 1841.)
Woodruff, Wilford. Collection, 1831–1905. Digital scans. CHL. Originals in private possession.
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7
Elias Higbee, “Ecclesiastical,” Times and Seasons, 1 Feb. 1841, 2:296.
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
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8
See Trustee-in-trust, Index and Accounts, 1841–1847, CHL.
Trustee-in-Trust. Index and Accounts, 1841–1847. CHL.
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Documents make no distinction between JS’s individual contributions and those he collected from others in his role as trustee-in-trust. Extant receipts cover the next three months of transactions, while the committee’s ledger does not begin recording transactions until December 1841. Ledgers reveal that the temple building committee received a variety of goods, including bed quilts, guns, paper, books, watches, shares of Nauvoo House stock, cows, horses, and pigs. (Receipts, Nauvoo, IL, Feb.–May 1841, Newel K. Whitney, Papers, BYU; Trustee-in-trust, Index and Accounts, 1841–1847, pp. 28–30, CHL.)
Whitney, Newel K. Papers, 1825–1906. BYU.
Trustee-in-Trust. Index and Accounts, 1841–1847. CHL.
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