Revelation, 23 April 1834 [D&C 104]
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Source Note
Revelation, , Geauga Co., OH, 23 Apr. 1834. Featured version copied [between 23 Apr. and 18 Aug. 1834] in Orson Hyde and Orson Pratt, Notebook of Revelations, pp. [19]–[43]; handwriting of ; Revelations Collection, CHL. For more complete source information, see the source note for Revelation, 24 Feb. 1834.
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Historical Introduction
This 23 April 1834 revelation contains instructions for the reorganization of the , which was formed in April 1832 to manage the church’s mercantile and publishing endeavors and had served as an important administrative structure since that time. The firm consisted of three components. The first was , a company originally formed in 1826 by and in , Ohio; it functioned as the firm’s mercantile branch in Kirtland. The second was , a company formed by Gilbert and Whitney after Gilbert moved to in early 1832; it served as the firm’s mercantile branch in Missouri and operated Gilbert’s in , Jackson County, Missouri. The third component was the , an organization of six men who managed church publications. The Literary Firm supervised , the organization responsible for the church’s printing operations in Missouri, and , the company in charge of the church’s printing efforts in Kirtland. Members of the United Firm—JS, , , , , , , Newel K. Whitney, Sidney Gilbert, , and — property to the church, but these properties were still held in the names of the individual members. Profits from the different enterprises were to fund their individual endeavors and provide income to the firm’s members.By 1834, the firm faced several significant issues. Because of the violence that drove church members from in summer and fall 1833, ’s and ’s were no longer in operation. Yet the firm was still responsible for debts incurred to supply these establishments. In , firm members became increasingly indebted to N. K. Whitney & Co., which was in turn indebted to companies for store goods. Besides these financial difficulties, some of the firm’s members, especially Phelps and Gilbert in , were accused of manifesting a covetous spirit toward the firm’s property for which they were responsible. Church leaders in chastised Gilbert for refusing to provide goods to some of the “poor brethren that are pure in heart” in Jackson County, warning that this “uneasy covetous disposition” would result in “poverty shame, and disgrace” if it were not corrected. JS also reprimanded Phelps for referring to “my press” and “my types” when talking about the Missouri printing operation. “Where, our brethren ask, did you get them, & how came they to be ‘yours?’” JS inquired, adding, “You know, that it is, We, not I, and all things are the Lord’s, and he opened the hearts of his church to furnish these things, or we should not have been privileged with using them.” According to the 23 April 1834 revelation featured here, such covetous attitudes effectively broke the covenant and bond that members were required to take upon joining the firm.In the midst of these concerns, JS was making plans in April 1834 to lead an expedition to to help the Saints who had been driven from reclaim their lands. However, JS believed that without financial help, he would be unable to travel to Missouri. This concern may have been connected to the indebtedness of the United Firm since it appears that all firm members shared its debts equally. These financial issues troubled JS as early as January 1834, when he and other firm members petitioned the Lord to provide the “means sufficient to discharge every debt that the Firm owes.” In March, he instructed several church members in to try to raise $2,000 “for the relief of the brethren in ,” but by 7 April, the necessary funds were still lacking. JS may have been concerned that the firm’s indebtedness needed to be settled before he could leave .Facing such problems, members of the branch of the United Firm met on 10 April 1834 and decided “that the firm should be desolvd and each one” receive a , or property, to manage. This 23 April revelation provided firm members in Kirtland with these stewardships and declared that all things were God’s and that the members of the firm needed to manage their stewardships wisely. The property granted in the stewardships came from the holdings of , , and ; much of it had been their own personal property or had been purchased with funds from the sale of their personal property. Despite the earlier decision to dissolve the firm, the revelation directed that it instead be reorganized and that the and branches be separated. The revelation called for the establishment of two treasuries in Ohio. One treasury was to house “sacred things” that were to be published and the “avails,” or profits, from the sale of those publications. Members of the firm were to deposit money gained from the management of their individual stewardships into a second treasury and then draw on these funds to carry out their stewardships. In addition, the revelation authorized members of the firm “this once” to use their stewardships as collateral for obtaining loans to pay their existing creditors.Five days after this revelation, another revelation provided more instructions for “the division and settlement of the United Firm” and declared the branch of the firm “free from the Firm of Zion.” However, there is no evidence that firm members followed the instructions to establish treasuries and mortgage their stewardships. Instead, it appears that after an initial period in which members of the firm executed deeds for the stewardships, no other action was taken. It may be that the expedition to —which resulted in JS’s absence from Kirtland from early May to late July 1834—distracted church leaders from implementing the instructions immediately. Alternatively, leaders may have decided to transfer much of the responsibility for the church’s temporal endeavors to other administrative bodies, such as the Kirtland . Whatever the case, the United Firm effectively ceased to exist soon after this revelation was dictated.The revelation may have been dictated at a council held on 23 April, which was attended by JS, , , , , and , all members of the United Firm in . The original inscription of the revelation has not been located. copied the featured version of the revelation from the original into a notebook of revelations that was keeping in Kirtland. Probably after Pratt had made his copy, Hyde copied the revelation into Revelation Book 2 on 18 August 1834 and included the subtitle “appointing to each member of the united firm their Stewardship.” The revelation was later published in the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, replacing the names of the members of the United Firm with pseudonyms and calling the firm the “United Order.”
Footnotes
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1
Revelation, 26 Apr. 1832 [D&C 82:11–12]; Revelation, 1 Mar. 1832 [D&C 78:3].
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2
Minutes, 26–27 Apr. 1832; Revelation, 12 Nov. 1831 [D&C 70:3–5]; Staker, Hearken, O Ye People, 217, 229–230; Minutes, 30 Apr. 1832. The six men were JS, Sidney Rigdon, Oliver Cowdery, John Whitmer, William W. Phelps, and Martin Harris.
Staker, Mark L. Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith’s Ohio Revelations. Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2009.
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3
Minutes, 30 Apr. 1832; “The Evening and the Morning Star,” The Evening and the Morning Star, June 1832, [8]; Minutes, 11 Sept. 1833.
The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, MO, June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland, OH, Dec. 1833–Sept. 1834.
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4
Revelation, 26 Apr. 1832 [D&C 82:11]; Revelation, 15 Mar. 1833 [D&C 92:1]; Revelation, 4 June 1833 [D&C 96:6–9].
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5
Revelation, 12 Nov. 1831 [D&C 70:5–8]; Revelation, 26 Apr. 1832 [D&C 82:17–18].
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6
Letter from John Whitmer, 29 July 1833; Letter from William W. Phelps, 6–7 Nov. 1833.
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7
In January 1834, for example, Oliver Cowdery reported that “we exerted every possible means to pay bro. Gilbert’s debts in N.Y.” (Oliver Cowdery, Kirtland, OH, to John Whitmer, 1 Jan. 1834, in Cowdery, Letterbook, 14–17.)
Cowdery, Oliver. Letterbook, 1833–1838. Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.
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8
Order from Newel K. Whitney, 18 Apr. 1834; Balance of Account, 23 Apr. 1834; “New York Account Book Sept. 1834,” Newel K. Whitney, Papers, BYU.
Whitney, Newel K. Papers, 1825–1906. BYU.
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9
Letter to Church Leaders in Jackson Co., MO, 21 Apr. 1833; Letter to Edward Partridge et al., 14 Jan. 1833.
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10
Letter to Edward Partridge et al., 30 Mar. 1834, underlining in original.
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11
When the United Firm was formed, its members were told to bind themselves together “by a bond & Covennant.” Phelps and Gilbert were given the responsibility of drafting a legal bond for the firm, giving firm members joint responsibility for the firm’s debts. (Revelation, 1 Mar. 1832 [D&C 78:11–12]; Revelation, 26 Apr. 1832 [D&C 82:11, 15]; Minutes, 26–27 Apr. 1832.)
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13
JS, Journal, 11 Jan. 1834.
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15
JS, Journal, 10 Apr. 1834.
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17
JS History, vol. A-1, 477, 527–528; Noble and Noble, Reminiscences, [6]–[7].
JS History / Smith, Joseph, et al. History, 1838–1856. Vols. A-1–F-1 (original), A-2–E-2 (fair copy). Historian’s Office, History of the Church, 1839–ca. 1882. CHL. CR 100 102, boxes 1–7. The history for the period after 5 Aug. 1838 was composed after the death of Joseph Smith.
Noble, Joseph B., and Mary Adeline Beman Noble. Reminiscences, ca. 1836. CHL. MS 1031, fd. 1.
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18
See, for example, Minutes, 24 Sept. 1834; and Minutes, 28 Nov. 1834.
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19
JS, Journal, 23 Apr. 1834.
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20
Max Parkin published an annotated version of Pratt’s copy of the revelation. (Parkin, “Joseph Smith and the United Firm,” 41–57.)
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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21
Revelation, 23 Apr. 1834, in Revelation Book 2, p. 100 [D&C 104].
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22
Revelation, 23 Apr. 1834, in Doctrine and Covenants 98, 1835 ed. [D&C 104]; see also Whittaker, “Substituted Names in the Published Revelations of Joseph Smith,” 103–112; “Substitute Words in the 1835 and 1844 Editions of the Doctrine and Covenants,”; and Parkin, “Joseph Smith and the United Firm,” 58–60. Even though the United Firm no longer existed in 1835, using pseudonyms was presumably a way to protect those who had been involved in the firm “from unnecessary scrutiny by a sometimes unfriendly public and peering creditors.” (Parkin, “Joseph Smith and the United Firm,” 58.)
Whittaker, David J. “Substituted Names in the Published Revelations of Joseph Smith.” BYU Studies 23 (Winter 1983): 103–11.
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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