This volume is made possible by the help and generosity of numerous people and institutions. We are particularly grateful to the administrators and officials of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, which sponsors the project, and to the management and staff of the Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, where the documents presented in this volume are located. We are grateful to the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University for its generous support of this project. We particularly wish to thank M. Gerald Bradford and J. Spencer Fluhman, past and current executive directors of the Maxwell Institute.
We also express deep appreciation to the Larry H. and Gail Miller Family Foundation for its continued support of the project. The foundation’s generosity and encouragement have enabled us to meet an ambitious production schedule while adhering to the highest scholarly standards. In particular, we express sincere gratitude to Gail Miller. Her continued devotion to this work has made this and all other volumes of The Joseph Smith Papers possible.
The Joseph Smith Papers Project relies on the skills and dedication of employees and volunteers in the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and on independent scholars and editors. Those who have assisted us include Mason K. Allred, Anne Berbert, Christy Best, Jeffrey G. Cannon, Joseph F. Darowski, Kay Darowski, Brett D. Dowdle, David W. Grua, Andrew H. Hedges, Christian K. Heimburger, Sharalyn D. Howcroft, Richard L. Jensen, Shannon Kelly Jorgensen, Elizabeth A. Kuehn, Chris McAfee, Sharon E. Nielsen, Jay A. Parry, Katie Smith, Emiline Twitchell, and Jessica Neilson Whitlock. We especially thank Stephanie Steed, whose assistance with transcriptions and source checking was indispensable to this volume. She also created the first draft of the Comparison of Characters chart, and Angela M. Thompson provided valuable assistance in completing it. We are also grateful to Carolyn Call of the Joseph Smith Papers, who assisted in typesetting the volume, and to Margaret A. Hogan, who carefully proofread it.
We express our thanks to Glenn N. Rowe and Brandon Metcalf, Church History Department, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for their diligent assistance with documents; to Zackary R. Baker, Chad S. Barker, Jeff Carter, and Jason Loscher for their assistance with multispectral imaging; to Welden C. Andersen, who photographed many of the textual images; to Charles M. Baird, who processed and edited the images; and to Richard E. Turley Jr. for his assistance, support, and friendship. We also thank Kiersten Olson for administrative assistance and Ben Ellis Godfrey and Debra Xavier Abercrombie for their efforts in marketing the project and the volume.
We are indebted to the following scholars, who reviewed earlier drafts of all or parts of this volume: Kevin L. Barney, Samuel Morris Brown, Marc Coenen, John Gee, Brent Lee Metcalfe, Kerry Muhlestein, and Michael D. Rhodes. Their expertise and insights improved the quality of our work. While we found helpful their careful eye and thoughtful review, any errors are the sole responsibility of the editors.
We also thank the management and staff at Deseret Book for the professional help and advice they provided regarding the printing, distribution, and marketing of this volume. We especially appreciate the contributions of Sheri L. Dew, Laurel Christensen Day, Elizabeth Wagner, Amy Durham, Richard Erickson, Dave Kimball, Chelsea Oldroyd, and Derk Koldewyn.
Finally, we acknowledge with gratitude the contribution of our families to the completion of this volume. Their love and support make our work possible.