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Trustee-in-Trust Ledger A, December 1841–May 1845

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Trustee-in-Trust Ledger A, December 1841–May 1845

Source Note

Trustee-in-Trust, Ledger, [, Hancock Co., IL], Dec. 1841–May 1845; inscribed [ca. Oct. 1842–7 Aug. 1845]; handwriting of , , , , and unidentified scribe; 380 pages; Trustee-in-Trust Ledgers, 1841–1846, CHL.
The distribution of tithing goods and funds was inscribed in a large commercially produced blank ledger measuring 14½ × 10¼ × 1¾–2 inches (37 × 26 × 4–5 cm). The paper was printed in ledger style with thirty-nine or forty blue horizontal lines, one red horizontal double line at the top, and seven columns demarcated by two red vertical lines on the left side of the page and two red vertical double lines and two red vertical single lines on the right side of the page. The pages measure 14 × 9¾ inches (36 × 25 cm). The text block was formed with twenty-seven gatherings of eight leaves, for a total of 216 leaves, or 432 pages. There are three flyleaves in the front of the volume and three flyleaves in the back of the volume. The leaf edges are stained green. Marbled papers with a blue body and veins of white, red, and yellow are glued to the inside covers of the pasteboards and to the exterior page of each gathering of flyleaves. The exterior endpapers are joined to the pasteboards with a strip of brown cloth. The text block is bound in a ledger style to the boards. The spine was constructed with four false raised bands demarcating five panels. The boards and spine are covered in suede with additional burgundy leather strips over the top and bottom of the book. The suede was blind tooled on the outside covers, the raised bands of the spine, and the turned-in edges on the inside cover. The additional leather strips, which also cover the first and fifth panels of the spine, are embossed with dual lines along the borders. The spine is further embossed with the word “LEDGER” in the second panel. “Temple Committee Book A” was inscribed in ink on the spine, with “Nauvoo 1841–1845” inscribed below. A red and white archival label was later affixed to the fourth panel, obscuring most of the word “Nauvoo.”
The first twelve leaves of the text block serve as an index for the volume and include pre-printed alphabetical tabs. The final front flyleaf was repurposed as the first index page; one horizontal double line, thirty-five horizontal single lines, and 3 vertical double lines were hand drawn on the recto, and forty horizontal single lines and one vertical double line were hand drawn on the verso. The verso of the flyleaf contains one entry beginning with “A,” and the page with the “AB” tab contains one entry beginning with “B.” The index pages are unpaginated. Pagination begins on the first page following the end of the index and there is consistent pagination throughout the entirety of the volume from page 1 to the final page, 408. The first section of the volume following the index comprises invoices for goods given to the Nauvoo temple committee, as well as the names of those credited with working on the Nauvoo . On pages 200 to 208, the ledger contains accounts for an unidentified store, possibly the store run by the . From page 214 to page 359, the ledger includes accounts for individuals working for the trustee-in-trust office or doing business with the . Several pages were left blank in the volume. These include pages 1–2, 4, 6, 188–189, 245, 271, 281, 283, 289, 344–345, 349–351, 356–357, 394–399, 401, 403, and 406–407. Pages 381 to 393 contain only a heading for temple committee accounts and the remainder of the page is blank, suggesting that Clayton intended to use it to inscribe accounts with the Temple Committee but finished using the volume before reaching these pages.
Several clerks inscribed information in this volume from 1842 to 1845, including , , , , and possibly an unidentified scribe. The work was apparently reviewed and revised as demonstrated by mathematical corrections, canceled content, and clerical notes about errors. Check marks were inscribed following the monetary amounts at the bottom of several pages as reviewed and corrected the values, but those have not been reproduced in the transcript. A final review and settlement of the accounts occurred on 7 August 1845, when outstanding accounts were settled with the trustee-in-trusts, at that time and .
In Nauvoo, Trustee-in-Trust Ledger A was in the possession of the trustee-in-trust’s office, which also functioned as the tithing office, and was apparently one of two tithing record books that inventoried and delivered to in 1847. It is unknown when Trustee Ledger A was transferred to the Historian’s Office. The Clayton inventory, archival labels, and archival markings suggest continuous institutional custody.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Whitney and Miller were appointed trustees for the church on 12 August 1844 and served in that capacity until January 1846. (Newel K. Whitney and George Miller, Appointment as Trustees, 12 Aug. 1844, Nauvoo Trustees Papers, 1844–1848, CHL; Richards, Journal, 9 Aug. 1844; George Miller and Newel K. Whitney, Certificate of Election, 24 Jan. 1846, Hancock Co., IL, Bonds and Mortgages, 1840–1904, vol. 2, p. 144, microfilm 954,776, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL; Young, Journal, 24 Jan. 1846.

    Nauvoo Trustees Papers, 1844–1848. CHL.

    Richards, Willard. Journals, 1836–1853. Willard Richards, Papers, 1821–1854. CHL. MS 1490, boxes 1–2.

    U.S. and Canada Record Collection. FHL.

    Young, Brigham. Journals, 1832–1877. Brigham Young Office Files, 1832–1878. CHL. CR 1234 1, boxes 71–73.

  2. [2]

    William Clayton, Inventory, 17 Mar. 1847, Newel K. Whitney Papers, BYU.

    Whitney, Newel K. Papers, 1825–1906. BYU.

Historical Introduction

In December 1841, JS reassigned responsibility for tithing donations from the to , whom he appointed as temple recorder for the . In February 1842, joined Richards in the recorder’s office, also called the tithing office. In summer 1842 as Richards prepared for an extended trip to the eastern United States, he transferred his responsibilities as temple recorder to Clayton. In September 1842, JS officially appointed Clayton as the church’s temple recorder in Richards’s place.
As temple recorders, and later were responsible for receiving donated goods and funds, recording them, and distributing them. Each step in the process of collecting and distributing tithing was tracked and carefully recorded. Richards started recording the distribution of tithing donations in a record book he titled “Index To The Book of the Law of the Lord And Accounts Current with The Temple Committee & Store Nauvoo, December, 1841.” This book is published on the Joseph Smith Papers website as the Trustee-in-Trust Account Book. Many of the distributions Richards recorded were goods given to the to help fund temple construction. When these goods were delivered to the temple committee, Richards and Clayton sent invoices itemizing the goods to accompany the distribution. In addition to inscribing the loose copies of the invoices given to the temple committee, the clerks also recorded copies of twenty-six of these invoices in the Trustee-in-Trust Account Book.
In October 1842, began running out of space in the Trustee-in-Trust Account Book and started a new record book for recording the distribution of goods. This record book, featured here, is known as Trustee-in-Trust Ledger A and picked up where the Trustee Account Book left off. Clayton and his clerk rerecorded the twenty-six invoices to the that had been copied into the Trustee-in-Trust Account Book in the Trustee Ledger and then recorded an additional five invoices for goods given to the temple committee. The final invoice—invoice 31—transitioned from a single invoice to a running account that tracked goods given to the temple committee.
The move to the larger Trustee Ledger A allowed and to give more space to the accounts for various individuals that had first been inscribed in the Trustee Account Book. These ledger-style accounts initially made up the majority of the volume. Some of the individuals with accounts in the Trustee Ledger include those working as clerks in the tithing office, such as , , and . JS was also included and the ledger records payments he received in his position as church trustee. Other individuals and organizations with accounts in the ledger had done work for the trustee (such as and ), received donations from the (such as the ), or transacted business with the church (such as ). In all these instances, the accounts in the ledger enumerate the tithing goods or credit received as payment. Because had a cash-poor economy, like many areas of the United States in the 1840s, payment for work or purchases was made in the form of goods or bartering rather than money. This included individuals being granted tithing credit for a debt or a pay order.
While invoices and accounts were the earliest inscribed content in the Trustee Ledger, accounts tracking labor on the soon filled the volume. Men who worked on the temple were given a receipt for the labor they had performed. They then submitted that receipt to the tithing office for it to be recorded in records. These accounts were initially recorded alongside the invoices given to the temple committee but soon required many more pages and were transferred from page 63 to later in the volume. Rather than using blank pages elsewhere in the book, and recorded temple committee accounts for labor on the temple from 1844 through 1845 on the blank portions of pages that had earlier contained only individual accounts. So, for example, page 256 contains both ’s account recorded in February and March 1842 as well as temple committee accounts of labor receipts for April 1845.
Pages in the ledger generally include a page number and a heading identifying the individual or organization at the top of the page. Entries include the date, the donated money or goods, the name of the donor, and the monetary value assigned to the donation. Each invoice to the has a subheading identifying the invoice number and a line at the bottom indicating when the invoice was delivered. Ditto marks were used frequently in this volume, especially when large amounts of information are repeated, such as in the temple committee accounts for labor receipts. There dittos make up the majority of the page and the only new information provided is the names of those working on the . This ledger was created in tandem with other trustee records, including the Book of the Law of the Lord, and most pages include a column on the right side of the page, between donated goods and their monetary value, containing page numbers that correspond to the pages in the Book of the Law of the Lord where these donations are recorded. In some instances, the pages listed from the Book of the Law of the Lord are incorrect. These have not been corrected in the transcript.
Clerks and inscribed the volume from October 1842 to August 1845, with assistance from and . Whitehead’s work was overseen and reviewed by Clayton. Clayton made frequent corrections when Whitehead introduced mathematical mistakes, often using a knife to erase the errors and writing the corrected amount over the previous amount. Due to the feathering created by the knife erasure, it has not been possible in every instance to identify the handwriting of the clerk making corrections. Most of these corrections were likely made by Clayton, but other clerks may have reviewed or referenced the ledger as well. The volume was used by the office clerks until 7 August 1845, when accounts were settled or transferred to other record books, such as those kept by the . This volume extends past the period when JS was replaced as a trustee in August 1844, but these entries were not removed from the transcript. Additionally, Trustee-in-Trust Ledger B has not been included as it contains entries from June 1845 to September 1846.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    JS, Journal, 11, 13 Dec. 1841; 13 Dec. 1841; “To Whom It May Concern,” Times and Seasons, 15 Dec. 1841, 3:638.

  2. [2]

    Clayton, Diary, 10 Feb. 1842; Clayton, History of the Nauvoo Temple, 18.

    Clayton, William. Diary, Vol. 1, 1840–1842. BYU.

    Clayton, William. History of the Nauvoo Temple, ca. 1845. CHL. MS 3365.

  3. [3]

    JS, “To the Eastern Churches,” Times and Seasons, 1 June 1842, 3:814; JS, Journal, 29 June 1842; Clayton, History of the Nauvoo Temple, 30.

    Clayton, William. History of the Nauvoo Temple, ca. 1845. CHL. MS 3365.

  4. [4]

    Clayton, History of the Nauvoo Temple, 30–31.

    Clayton, William. History of the Nauvoo Temple, ca. 1845. CHL. MS 3365.

  5. [5]

    Introduction to the Trustee Records.

  6. [6]

    Invoices 1 through 26 were recorded in the Trustee-in-Trust Account Book; see pages 28–57.

  7. [7]

    Trustee-in-Trust, Ledger A, 7–82. Two incomplete loose copies of “Invoice No 31” are extant and in the records of the Nauvoo temple committee. (Invoice, Trustee-in-Trust to Nauvoo Temple Committee, 24 Nov. 1842–8 Feb. 1843; Invoice, Trustee-in-Trust to Nauvoo Temple Committee, 24 Nov. 1842–25 July 1843.)

  8. [8]

    See Trustee-in-Trust, Account Book, 64–69. Notations in these entries in the Trustee Account Book read “Carried to Ledger” and “To Ledger [page] 300.”

  9. [9]

    Trustee-in-Trust, Ledger A, 214–219, 274–279, 290–299.

  10. [10]

    Trustee-in-Trust, Ledger A, 240–249, 360–363.

  11. [11]

    Trustee-in-Trust, Ledger A, 284–287, 316–317, 400.

  12. [12]

    See, for example, William Blackhurst’s account in Trustee-in-Trust, Ledger A, 348.

  13. [13]

    This likely led to the inscription of “Temple Committee Book A” on the spine of the volume. Some have mistaken this as an indication that this record book belonged to the Nauvoo temple committee; however, these are not temple committee records but rather accounts between the trustee-in-trust office and the Nauvoo temple committee.

  14. [14]

    See, for example, Trustee-in-Trust, Ledger A, 310–311.

  15. [15]

    Trustee-in-Trust, Ledger A, 279, 282.

Dr.
1842 $ cts
M[ar]ch 22nd. Brought over 1,619.47¾ <​1,601.55¾​>
[22nd.] To 1 Willow Basket <​To ​> 87 0.50
[22nd.] [To] 1 Pair Pantaloons <​[To ]​> 96 4.50
[22nd.] [To] 1 Bushel Basket <​[To ]​> 86 0.87½
[22nd.] [To] 1 Bed Quilt <​[To ]​> 79 7.00
<​0.25​> [22nd.] [To] Cash <​0.25 ​> 24.50 24.25
[22nd.] [To Cash] 102 50.00
26 [To] Account of credited on Law of the Lord. 103 16.00
28 [To] 95 lbs Flour @ $0.02 103 1.90
[28] [To] Cash Sundry individuals p[e]r hand 103 250.00
24 [To] 35½ bu[shels] of Oats @ $0.25 pr bu— 104 8.87½
1,983.62¾
$1,965.45¾
April 2nd. [To] 2 Butter Tubs 104 <​105​> 1.75
[2nd.] [To] 2 Water Pails @ $0.62½ ea[ch]— [] 104 <​105​> 1.25
[2nd.] [To] 6 Palm Hats @ $0.37½ ea— [] 104 <​105​> 2.25
[2nd.] [To] 5 Paint Brushes @ $0.37½ ea [] 104 <​105​> 1.87½
[2nd.] [To] 3 Sythe Snathes @ $1.00 ea [] 104 <​105​> 3.00
15 [To] 3 Pork Barrels @ $1.50 ea 99 4.50
[15] [To] 1 White Hat 107 3.50
16 [To] 12 bushels of Meal @ $0.31¼ pr bu 3.75
[16] [To] 110 lbs of Flour @ $0.02 pr lb [] 2.20
14 [To] Cash pr hand from sundry persons 60.50
20 [To] Cash Draft on Butchers & Drovers Bank 181.75
[20] [To] 1/2 lb of Bitters pr 0.37½
21 [To] Cash pr 20.00
23 [To Cash] pr hand 12.50
Invoice given April 23rd. 1842 299.20
20 To Cash 110 5.00
Decr. [To Cash] pr hand from Sundries— 112 62.50
April 23 [To Cash] pr hand 112 22.50
25 [To] 3½ bu of Meal @ $0.31¼— 113 1.09
[25] [To] Cash— 113 5.00
28 [To] 1 Vest pr Thatcher— 107 1.50
May 3rd. [To] 1 Doz[en] Bobbins of Thread & H[annah] B. Fordham 114 0.50
6 [To] 4 Straw Hats @ $0.25 ea 116 1.00
[6] [To 1 Straw Hats] @ 0.30 116 0.30
$99.39
[p. 202]
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Document Information

Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Trustee-in-Trust Ledger A, December 1841–May 1845
ID #
18450
Total Pages
419
Print Volume Location
Handwriting on This Page
  • William Clayton
  • Unidentified

Footnotes

  1. new scribe logo

    Insertion in unidentified handwriting.

  2. [59]

    In the Book of the Law of the Lord, Morris was credited ten dollars on his tithing per a “store account.” The store is not identified but may have been the store run by the Nauvoo temple committee, referred to in the trustee records as the “Temple Store.” (Book of the Law of the Lord, Book A, 103; see also, for example, Trustee-in-Trust Ledger A, Dec. 1841–May 1845, 214, 217.)

  3. new scribe logo

    Canceled amount in unidentified handwriting.

  4. [60]

    Bitters are plant-based substances composed of herbs or barks and typically consumed with alcohol. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries they were popularly used for medicinal purposes or flavoring. (Oxford English Dictionary, “bitter,” accessed 25 July 2025, oed.com.)

    Oxford English Dictionary. https://www.oed.com.

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