Introduction to the Financial Records Series
The
Financial Records series of the Joseph Smith Papers is an
online-only series featuring financial records created over the
course of Joseph Smith’s life. The series
contains nearly two thousand financial documents that represent
transactions made by Smith or at his direction, that were received
by Smith, or that were created by appointed representing Smith or . The
documents represent a wide array of genres, ranging from and created specifically
for stores and banks to and
created in connection with Smith’s personal
finances. Many documents in the series are related to land
transactions, such as the , , and promissory notes used to track the purchase,
ownership, and sale of land. While two thousand documents may seem
impressive on its face, that number belies the actual extent of the
series, as many large record books, containing from fifty to four
hundred pages of text, are represented as single documents. These
include ten record books with over one hundred pages, four of which
contain between three hundred and four hundred pages. The majority
of these substantial record books are related to Joseph Smith’s
business endeavors in , Illinois, with several created to track land
transactions or donations in connection with his
position as for the church.
The Financial Records series covers documents created
from 1827 to 1849, the majority of which date between 1834 and 1844.
The bulk of these documents originated in
and , but nearly all periods and major locations of
Smith’s life have some point of
connection within the series. Determining an appropriate end date
for the series was not a simple task. Joseph Smith was murdered on
27 June 1844, but his financial documentary record continued after
his death. Smith was not replaced as church trustee until 12 August
1844, when
and filed their appointment as new trustees
with ,
Illinois. To establish a clear end to the series,
the editors set 12 August 1844 as the cutoff for financial records.
Documents created after 12 August 1844 have largely been omitted
from the series, with a few exceptions, including posthumous
financial records related to the settlement of Smith’s estate.
The Financial Records series was originally included in
the Joseph Smith Papers in the broader Legal, Business, and
Financial Records series. In 2019, this larger series was divided
into two distinct series: the Legal Records series and the Financial
Records series. While there is natural overlap between the two, the
Legal Records series has focused closely on legal cases and court
records, including financial documents only when relevant to cases
or lawsuits. The
Financial Records series does not include legal considerations of
or the civil suits brought against Smith, with the exception of his
petition for bankruptcy in 1842, which has no surviving internal
court records. The Financial Records series published content on the
Joseph Smith Papers website from 2020 to 2026. The Financial Records
series was completed online in 2026 as the rest of the Joseph Smith
Papers website was also being completed.
Records in this series are organized by state or
territory, and then into groups of records, sometimes reflective of
a specific business, organization, or financial endeavor and other
times arranged into larger categories of land transactions or
personal transactions. Brief historical introductions accompany
these categories and record groups, explaining the types of
documents, the record production, and the historical context behind
their creation. Some groups of records are small, such as the surviving documents for the Camp of Israel expedition in
1834. Other categories are much larger; for example, the Illinois land transactions collection contains nearly one
thousand distinct documents.
Nineteenth-century financial documents present readers
with many challenges. They can be foreign and inaccessible to modern
readers as the record keeping can be unclear and utilize archaic
practices and terms. Often these documents were written quickly and
with less attention to detail, making them difficult to read.
Another common challenge is the use of dittos, or marks used to
indicate the use of a repeated word, number, or phrase. To aid in
legibility the series has comprehensively supplied dittoed content.
To further increase legibility, the series silently standardizes
monetary values—for American currency, editors have added a decimal
point and zeroes to clarify dollars and cents, and for British
currency, editors have used dashes between pounds, shillings, and
pence. All the changes to standardize and clarify the financial
texts and make them more readable are laid out in the Editorial Method for Financial Records. Additionally, as
financial records have a clear connection to the sometimes obscure
material culture of the nineteenth century, the series has a glossary of
definitions to aid readers in identifying objects,
textiles, or terms that are archaic or might be unclear.
Nineteenth-Century Economic Context
During Joseph Smith’s early
life, the United States experienced what scholars have termed the
“market revolution” as the American economy was shaped by the
introduction of industrial capitalism on a large scale. The basics
of farming were altered by modes of capitalist production as land
shifted in value and household industries became monetized. While
Smith and most of his contemporaries largely remained dependent on
agricultural work, even occasionally relying on subsistence farming,
the growing market economy changed how their land and labor were
valued.
Unable at times to afford land, Smith and his family worked as wage
laborers and farmhands on fields owned by others. The market
revolution and industrial capitalism reshaped the United States and
created economic networks of trade and goods across the
country.
However, because boom and bust cycles of inflation and
depression in the capitalist system were not yet well understood or
well established, economic networks faced moments of imbalance and
crisis. Smith lived through several
large-scale financial panics, with some of the most severe occurring
in 1819, 1837, and 1839. These panics had devastating effects on
both national and local economies. President Andrew Jackson’s dissolution of the national bank and
preference for state and local banks contributed to market
fragility, economic insecurity, and imbalance in the late 1830s. The
panic of 1837 had a particularly significant impact on Smith and the
Latter-day Saint community of , Ohio, as the local bank they had established
failed, land values depreciated dramatically, and the community
divided over Smith’s leadership. The panics of the late 1830s
plunged the nation into an economic depression that lasted into the
1840s.
Extensions of credit and speculation on land and goods
contributed significantly to these financial panics as debts mounted
and ran short; however, economic growth in the
nineteenth century was often tied to debt. A person opening a store
typically bought goods on credit and hoped that the sales would
allow them to recoup the cost of the initial goods. Purchasing land
was also largely done on credit, with the buyer promising payment
later. For many Americans, especially those outside of the wealthy
elite, debt of this nature was a necessity.
Thus, when Joseph Smith and other church
leaders worked to build communities for the Latter-day Saints in
and , land was purchased on
credit, with repayment extended over the course of several years.
Building a in also necessitated going into debt—there were no
other sufficient means available. The Saints sacrificed much and
worked diligently, but on their own, they did not have the funds
necessary to construct the temple. The debts of the would prove especially long lasting as
responsibility for them shifted from the individuals appointed as a
to Joseph Smith personally.
In addition to the normal necessities of debt for
growth, the Latter-day Saints faced extenuating circumstances in
which lands and goods were taken or lost, adding to their burden of
debt and difficult financial situation. These included significant
financial losses in Missouri as the Saints there were driven first
from , then from
and counties, and
finally from the state, leaving behind land, crops, livestock, and
all they could not carry with them. The struggles of Saints in
amid the financial panic of 1837 compounded these losses. Debts were
called in and land values plummeted. Expelled from Missouri and
desperately searching for a place for the Saints to gather safely,
Joseph Smith and the other members
of the contracted with land
speculator and his partners
and to purchase approximately four hundred acres
of land in , Illinois, promising to pay the substantial sum
of $110,000 over the course of twenty years. This was
a significant burden of debt, which by 1841 was placed solely on the
shoulders of Joseph Smith. He worked for years to settle and repay
these debts, but he was unable to completely resolve them before his
untimely death in 1844.
The following sections provide broad overviews of Joseph Smith’s financial
documentary record for each of the geographic areas in which he
lived. The date ranges reflect the timeframe of the documents
included in each geographic section and not the period of time Smith
lived in each place.
New York and Pennsylvania Records,
1825–1833
The few known and surviving financial documents we have
for Joseph Smith’s years in and are relatively typical of a
man of his position, working primarily as a farmhand. For example,
Smith bought a horse and contracted to purchase a home and land from
his father-in-law, requiring loaned funds to make payments. However, there
are two outliers in the documents from this time. The earlier one is
an 1825 agreement Joseph Smith and his father signed with and others to search for lost or buried
treasure.
Smith later stated that assisting with Stowell’s search for treasure
“was never a very profitable job to him, as he only got fourteen
dollars a month for it.” He also
stated that after a month of digging for the treasure “without
success,” he finally persuaded Stowell “to cease digging after
it.” The second document is a January
1830 agreement between Smith and related to
the Book of Mormon. Harris had funded the
printing of the Book of Mormon, and this agreement gave Harris
“equal privilege” to sell copies of the Book of Mormon until he had
been reimbursed for the value of his property mortgaged to printer
.
Ohio Records, 1832–1844
While Joseph Smith’s financial
documentary record grew steadily as he directed church affairs in
in the early 1830s, it did not expand significantly
until 1836 as he started businesses, purchased land, and worked to
build the city of as a gathering place for the Latter-day Saints.
Joseph and moved to
in February 1831. In his first year in Ohio, Smith worked to
organize and direct the administration of church finances. He
appointed first and second as bishops for
the church, tasking them with management of the church’s financial
affairs. In
1831 and 1832, Smith dictated revelations directing a small group of
selected men to jointly organize literary and mercantile
establishments for the church in Ohio and . This organization, known as the , established church stores to provide goods
to church members, especially those who were impoverished, and
printing offices to print Smith’s revelations as well as church
periodicals. By early 1834,
however, the firm was in financial trouble, and Smith and others
involved decided to dissolve it in April of that year. The assets
were divided among individuals involved in the firm. The Missouri
store and printing office had been lost when the Saints were driven
from in 1833. In
, Whitney resumed control over his Kirtland
store, which had been part of the United Firm, and the printing
office was given to and as a
stewardship. The
printing office changed hands several times in the following years
but appears to have been retained as a church business.
A December 1832 revelation commanded the Saints in to construct a , or
. A
for the temple, composed of , , and , was
appointed in May 1833 and began raising funds for the
construction. The committee initially
attempted to raise funds through , or
promised donations, from church members.
When that proved insufficient, the committee established a store
under the name of to
support the construction efforts and raise funds. Through much work and sacrifice, the
was completed and dedicated in March
1836. While specific construction costs are not
well documented, the debts amassed in connection with the Cahoon,
Carter & Co. store to fund the construction and completion of
the temple, what termed “merchant debt,”
proved long lasting. A
portion of this debt, owed to the mercantile firm of , resulted in the mortgage of the Kirtland temple in
July 1837. Other unpaid mercantile debts were eventually
included in Joseph Smith’s 1842 petition for
bankruptcy.
After the dedication of the , Joseph Smith’s focus expanded to
building up the city of and making it a safe and stable gathering place
for the Latter-day Saints. To support growth, Smith considered a
variety of means to strengthen the economy of the Kirtland
community. He encouraged the Saints to buy land, build homes, and
start businesses with the anticipation of prosperity and economic
success. In fall 1836, Joseph Smith undertook several business
ventures, all of which dramatically affected his documentary record.
Among these ventures was a store, , that he started with partner in nearby , Ohio. Smith also bought large
amounts of land in and around Kirtland. Some of this land was
intended for the hundreds of Saints coming to Kirtland between 1835
and 1837. But the land also
functioned as financial security for another business Smith and
other church leaders were organizing—a community bank. By late
September or early October 1836, after returning from a trip that
included spending time in the financial center of ,
Smith and other church leaders decided to establish a bank in
Kirtland, the .
All these endeavors relied on credit. Smith lacked the capital to
purchase most of the land he contracted to buy. In some instances he
mortgaged the lands he purchased, promising repayment over several
years. Goods
for the store,
as well as other stores, were purchased from wholesale merchants in
on
credit, with terms of repayment ranging from three to six
months. The
bank was funded by stockholders and backed by
lands purchased on credit. This extension of
substantial credit was commonplace for this period. The United
States experienced significant borrowing and rising debts in 1836;
however, the bubble of anticipated growth and prosperity envisioned
in 1836 burst in 1837. The financial panic of
1837 impacted the entire nation. The panic led to bank
closures, declining land values, and a general economic downturn. It
caused creditors to prematurely demand repayment and left
individuals throughout the country unable to meet the debts they had
amassed under the assumption of continued economic success. While
some debts were settled between individuals, most issues regarding
the repayment of unpaid debts were litigated through courts in the
nineteenth century. Smith was involved in what was for him an
unprecedented number of civil suits in summer and fall 1837, as
earlier debts for the Kirtland stores, land transactions, and other
ventures remained unpaid and creditors pursued litigation for
repayment. Unable to meet required payments,
Smith lost much of the land he had contracted to buy. The
Rigdon, Smith & Co. store in Chester closed in May 1837, but
accounts were still being settled into the summer.
The
ultimately failed for multiple reasons, including the lack of a
state charter and insufficient funding, as well as external
opposition and a lack of support from the Latter-day Saint
community.
Joseph Smith and , the two elected officers of the bank,
stepped down between June and July 1837. They were replaced by and
. Under the leadership of Williams and
Parrish, the bank issued additional bank notes, resulting in further
depreciation of the circulating notes and the failure of the
institution. By August 1837, Smith warned the public that the bank
had failed and that notes for the Safety Society should not be
circulated or accepted.
Amid these financial challenges, a group of dissenters
emerged questioning Joseph Smith’s
leadership. These dissenters were particularly critical of Smith’s
financial involvement in and the failure of the bank. Many felt
Smith had tried to dictate their financial decisions and resented
him for it. Others believed he had profited while they had lost.
Dissenters included several apostles and prominent church leaders,
such as , , ,
, and . For a
short time, was one of the
most outspoken critics, writing a scathing letter condemning Smith
in May 1837. While Pratt softened and ultimately asked
forgiveness of Smith, several other dissenters increased their
opposition and ultimately were excommunicated in December 1837. This intense
division in the community led to threats of violence and to
arson, when the church’s printing press, which had been sold at
auction to repay debts, was destroyed by fire.
By January 1838 Kirtland was no longer safe for Joseph Smith or his
family, and he and left Kirtland the night
of 12 January. They waited for a
short time to reunite with their families and then began the weeks
of travel that would take them to .
Missouri Records, 1836–1839
Joseph Smith’s financial ties to
are not a prominent part of his surviving
documentary record. This is partially a result of the geographically
divided nature of the church from 1831 to 1838, with church
communities established in both Missouri and .
When Latter-day Saints first settled in , Missouri,
Bishop was given oversight
regarding church finances there and purchased and held land as an
agent for the church. As the church in Missouri grew, Partridge
remained its primary financial agent and retained the financial
records rather than giving them to church clerks. He continued to
manage church financial affairs even after Smith and his family
moved to Missouri. Another reason for the paucity of sources was the
destruction of Latter-day Saint records due to persecution and the
targeted destruction of land records in Missouri. A further reason
that Missouri appears minimally in Smith’s financial papers is the
short time he lived there, only from March 1838 to April 1839.
Smith’s earliest financial ties to
were in connection with the United Firm,
discussed earlier. However, beyond announcing revelations regarding
the firm, Smith appears to have had little direct involvement with
the business affairs of the Missouri branch of the mercantile and
printing firms. The 1834 dissolution of the United Firm also had
little effect on the Missouri Saints, as they had lost their store
and printing office the previous year when they were forced out of
. Although
Smith had no direct financial ties to the losses the Saints
experienced because of their expulsion from Jackson County, he was
deeply concerned by it and desired to return the Saints to their
homes and lands. In February 1834, he dictated a revelation that
directed him to recruit up to five hundred men to go to Missouri,
help the Saints reclaim their lost property, and provide protection
to church members against their “enemies.”
Known as the , and later Zion’s Camp,
this expedition proved unsuccessful at reclaiming property in
Jackson County but became a defining moment that Smith and others
who would become prominent church leaders later recalled as a time
of trial and dedication.
In summer 1836, Joseph Smith
directed , who was then living in
, to act as an agent and submit applications for
land patents in order to allow Smith to purchase land from the
United States government. In June, two applications were made in
Smith’s name to purchase around 478 acres of land in what became
, Missouri.
While delays in the General Land Office in meant
that Smith did not receive the deeds for this land until September
1838, he appears to have begun making this land available to
Latter-day Saints in the area in summer 1836.
By September 1837, Joseph Smith provided his brother with a power of attorney allowing him to sell
or transfer this Missouri land to new owners.
Joseph Smith and his family moved
from to , Missouri, in early 1838, arriving in
March. There are a few surviving
documents that illuminate Smith’s personal finances in the short
time he lived in Far West. He rented a tavern from beginning in May 1838,
using it as a home for his family. By June, Smith, with the help of
, had purchased ’s home for his
family’s use but retained the Musick tavern, offering it to his
parents and extended family after they arrived in Far West.
Escalating tensions in led to Joseph Smith and
other church leaders being arrested on 31 October 1838 and
imprisoned from November 1838 to April 1839. During Joseph
Smith’s six-month imprisonment, and the Smith
children along with their fellow Saints were forced to flee
Missouri. The financial losses the Smiths suffered as a result were
significant, and the collective losses of the Latter-day Saints were
far greater. Smith sought to obtain redress for
the losses suffered by the Saints in Missouri and encouraged all
affected members to create and file redress petitions enumerating
their financial losses. Smith and other
church leaders made multiple attempts to obtain financial redress,
but the federal government proved as unwilling as the state of
Missouri to provide any compensation for the significant losses
endured by church members in Missouri.
Iowa Territory Records, 1839–1844
Iowa records constitute a small portion of Joseph Smith’s financial papers and
consist entirely of documents detailing land transactions: deeds,
bonds, and other financial agreements. After being forced to leave
, many Latter-day Saints settled temporarily in
and . In April 1839, church leaders began to take
steps to purchase land for the Saints to settle on permanently. In
Iowa Territory, designated land agents for the church—including , , and —surveyed land and approached land speculator to make arrangements for purchasing
land. Much of the
land Galland offered the Saints was in southeastern Iowa Territory
in an area known at the time as the “” because the United States Congress had
set aside the land for the children of American Indian mothers and
white fathers.
In May and June 1839, and purchased thousands of acres of land from on behalf of the church. Over time, Latter-day
Saints gathered and built communities in Iowa Territory, primarily
in ,
situated across the Mississippi River from . These
communities included ,
, and . Occasionally, church members sold land in Iowa
Territory to Joseph Smith, which resulted in
Smith holding land in various areas of Iowa Territory. Property
disputes in Iowa ultimately clouded most of the Saints’ land titles
there, rendering them worthless. In April 1843, Smith advised the
Saints not to settle in Iowa Territory and encouraged the Saints
already living there to relocate to Illinois.
Illinois Records, 1839–1849
When the Latter-day Saints gathered in in 1839, it was as refugees from . Desperate for a place of safety and permanence,
the First Presidency and designated land agents began purchasing
land for the Saints in Illinois and . Soon the
church held hundreds of acres in , in and around what became . Throughout
their time in Illinois, Smith and other
church leaders continued to make significant land purchases in
Hancock County and the surrounding region. Joseph Smith took on a
much greater role in managing and selling church property than he
had previously in communities in and Missouri.
The number of land transactions in led to a veritable explosion of financial
documents for Joseph Smith. To help manage this
increased workload, Smith came to rely on a number of clerks and
agents, including , , and , who
indexed properties, conducted financial transactions, and oversaw
church assets. Perhaps his most significant agent and clerk during
the Nauvoo period was , whom
he hired in February 1842. Clayton, a British convert, was a
trained clerk and brought to Smith’s office a level of organization
and professionalization that it had previously lacked. Under Joseph
Smith’s direction, Clayton took over most of the work managing the
land held by the church. He reorganized land records and started a
new record book to track the church’s property; he also arranged
land sales and drafted deeds, bonds, promissory notes, and other
financial instruments that accompanied land transactions. Clayton
additionally tracked and organized repayment of the creditors from
whom Smith had purchased land and carried out additional land
purchases.
In December 1840, church leaders began to seek legal
incorporation for the church in . Their initial
attempt to obtain incorporation through the state legislature was
unsuccessful. This led the church to incorporate under a state
statute titled “An Act concerning Religious Societies,” which
simplified and standardized the process of incorporation for
religious organizations. This statute required any religious
organization seeking incorporation to file a certification of the
election or appointment of trustees with its county recorder, after
which the organization would be granted a default set of powers and
responsibilities.
On 30 January 1841, a special church conference elected Smith “sole trustee in-trust” for
the church. Notice of Smith’s election was filed with the recorder three
days later. After becoming
trustee, Smith sought to consolidate the church’s land holdings in
Illinois, ensuring the property was transferred from individual
agents to him as “trustee-in-trust.” For the remainder of his life,
Smith assumed oversight of and sole responsibility for the church’s
finances.
In 1840, Joseph Smith first
“spoke of the necessity of building a ‘House of the Lord’ in this
place.” The
plans for a temple in
were formalized in a January 1841 revelation, which directed the
Saints to build a temple as well as a boardinghouse or hotel, called
the . In
building the , church leaders had been instructed to rely primarily
on tithing and other donations. Men living in the city of Nauvoo had
agreed to give one day in ten to work on the temple, which became
known as labor tithing. Those
unable to work on the temple or living outside of Nauvoo were
encouraged to give either money or donated goods for their
tithing. By November 1841
the baptismal font was dedicated and began to be used for proxy as well as washing for healing. Work on the
temple was inconsistent and stalled at times as necessary resources
or workers were not always available. It was not until after Joseph
Smith’s death that the Nauvoo temple was finished and dedicated.
As part of his responsibilities as church trustee, Joseph Smith supervised the receipt
and use of tithing donations collected to fund the construction of
the . Before December 1841, these donations had been handled
by the with
minimal oversight by Smith. However, there were evidently problems
with the committee’s record keeping, and Smith decided to assume
responsibility for recording and distributing donations on 11
December 1841. Shortly thereafter, Smith appointed as temple recorder,
and Richards began making entries in a large record book that
functioned as Smith’s personal journal as well as a tithing record,
known as the Book of the Law of the Lord. As temple
recorder, Richards, and his successor, , established an
office and system that ensured goods being donated for the building
of the Nauvoo temple were properly recorded. This information was
first taken down in an office daybook before later being copied into
the Book of the Law of the Lord. The office also supervised the
distribution of these goods, recording them in invoices and a
ledger, known as Trustee Ledger A.
Aside from his responsibilities as church trustee, Joseph Smith also engaged in
several other business ventures in . In 1841, he constructed a two-story brick building to
house a dry goods , which opened for business in January 1842. The
store quickly became a location of civic and cultural importance in
the community, and a large room on the second floor served at times
as a school, courtroom, and meeting room for both civic and
religious groups. Although Smith spent some time in early January
manning the store counter personally, in general he relied on and other
clerks to manage the day-to-day operation of the store.
Smith also purchased two steamboats during his time in Illinois. In
September 1840, Smith and several partners purchased a steamboat
from the United States government that they named Nauvoo, after their recently established city.
Unfortunately, just a few weeks after its purchase, the steamboat
was severely damaged, resulting in significant financial losses.
Smith and his partners sold the boat, but their attempts to collect
payment were unsuccessful, leaving them responsible for repaying the
government. In May 1843, Smith purchased a
share in a small steamboat known as the Maid of
Iowa, which had recently been built by partners and . Eventually,
Smith, as trustee for the church, became the sole owner. The boat
was used for a variety of purposes, including as a ferry between
Nauvoo and , to carry
British Saints to Nauvoo from , and to ship freight. Although their efforts were
not as disastrous as they had been with the short-lived steamboat
Nauvoo, Smith and others struggled to turn a profit with the Maid of Iowa.
In addition to his many business ventures, Joseph Smith held several
administrative roles in
and its government that included the creation and use of financial
records. In May 1842 Smith was elected mayor of Nauvoo, to replace
. As mayor, he was
an authorized and presided
over the Nauvoo mayor’s court and Nauvoo Municipal Court. For a
time, Smith served as editor of the church’s newspaper, the
Times and Seasons. He was a general in the , a member of the Nauvoo Masonic Lodge, and
the registrar for the city of Nauvoo. All these roles also had their
financial aspects. While they are largely not represented in the
Financial Records series, Smith’s involvement in Nauvoo city
finances was extensive. The entanglement of his personal
assets and debts with those of the church and city of Nauvoo
resulted in complex networks of repayment and ownership.
Debt and Bankruptcy, 1838–1844
One of the most pressing considerations Smith faced during this period was
the significant debt he carried for the church, much of it taken on
to prevent his friends and family from suffering due to unpaid
debts. When the United Firm was dissolved in 1834, some individuals
suffered greater financial losses than others. , who had taken
out loans and mortgages for the firm, bore the weight of that debt.
This moment appears to have been instructive for Joseph Smith. From
1834 on, Smith managed church finances in such a way as to ensure
that he and not others would bear the weight and responsibility of
unpaid church debts. Between October 1838 and 1839, Smith had
personally assumed responsibility for many of the debts of the period, including the costs associated with
building the Kirtland temple. Agent worked to resolve
church debts in and , but his death in
August 1841 left Smith largely unaware of what debts had been paid
or other settlements for repayment that had been reached.
Smith had also ensured that with the incorporation of the church, he
as trustee would be held responsible for the land payments owed to
and his partners as
part of the development of . Thus, by 1842, Smith was under considerable debt with
few options for repayment.
When Joseph Smith learned of a new
voluntary bankruptcy act passed by the United States Congress, he
likely saw it as an opportunity to relieve the significant debts he
owed. Under this new act, for the first time in American history, an
individual could apply for bankruptcy for personal or business
debts. This was a dramatic departure from earlier legislation, in
which bankruptcy was involuntary and dependent on creditors taking
the debtor to court. The act took effect in February 1842 and gained
widespread popularity. Tens of thousands of debtors across the
nation applied to have their debts forgiven. In alone, more than fifteen hundred applications
were filed over the course of the year. However, the
act caused chaos in the judicial system as judges, struggling to
interpret the legislation, provided inconsistent rulings, and the
act was repealed by Congress in March 1843.
Although it is unclear when he first learned about the
new bankruptcy act, Joseph Smith began
applying for bankruptcy in April 1842, with the help of , Illinois,
attorney . Smith’s
journal recounts that he met with Warren on 14 April and then spent
the next two days creating the required paperwork.
On 18 April, Smith, in company with his brothers and and
several other Latter-day Saints, traveled to , Illinois,
to file the necessary petitions and depositions for their respective
bankruptcy proceedings before the court clerk. The
first hearing in Smith’s bankruptcy proceedings was held on 6 June
1842.
Although the court records are no longer extant, it appears that no
objections were raised during the hearing and that his case
proceeded normally.
In July 1842, however, excommunicated Latter-day Saint
publicly accused
Smith of fraudulently transferring
land before filing for bankruptcy. This
accusation came to the attention of Illinois district attorney , who had begun
a lawsuit against Smith to recover an unpaid debt owed the United
States government for the steamboat Nauvoo,
purchased by Smith and several partners in September 1840.
Butterfield’s investigation of Bennett’s allegations led him to file
objections with the Illinois District Court, urging the court to
deny Smith’s application for bankruptcy. Although Smith tried to resolve the debt
to the federal government to allow his bankruptcy to be granted, he
was unable to reach an agreement to satisfy the Solicitor of the
Treasury, Charles B. Penrose. These and
other debts remained when Smith was killed on 27 June 1844. Eight
years went by before all the debts and lawsuits surrounding Smith’s
estate were settled and was
finally granted her dower rights to contested lands in 1851 and
1852.
That Joseph Smith spent much of his life
in debt was not a personal deficiency or a mark of his lack of
business acumen. Debt was an inescapable reality of financial
dealings in nineteenth-century America. There was never a time in
Smith’s leadership of the church when he was not in debt, not out of
mismanagement but out of sheer necessity and the reality of Smith
and the church’s lack of resources. Providing for impoverished
Saints, overcoming the expulsion of the Saints from , and building communities from nothing required
sizable expenditures, which were accomplished by purchasing land and
goods on credit and hoping to acquire the means to repay those
loans. This was how growth was funded in the nineteenth century.
However, Smith’s and the church’s debts were often inextricably
intertwined. Smith often made no clear distinctions between his
personal assets and debts and those of the church as he worked to
provide for both his family and fellow Latter-day Saints. This was
true in , when he held property as church president, and
became even more complicated in
once he was made the sole trustee for the incorporated church and
was responsible for overseeing the church’s assets and expenditures.
Documents presented in the Financial Series provide a richer and
more nuanced look at Joseph Smith’s finances and businesses,
indicating that he was not incompetent, as has been suggested, and
that he genuinely wanted to help the church and his followers
financially while also needing to take care of his family’s own
temporal needs.
Conclusion
Joseph Smith’s financial records
are a significant, but less studied, subset of his larger papers.
Some of the myriad reasons for the lack of engagement with Smith’s
financial papers are the challenges of accessibility and the
complexity of the documents. For many of the records included in the
Financial Records series this is the first time they have been made
digitally available with the benefit of a transcript and annotation
to clarify, explain, and contextualize the text. Far from more
straightforward letters or journals, financial records are created
in complex interactions sometimes with different genres of records
documenting distinct steps in the process over time. Land
transactions might start with a verbal discussion, become formalized
in a bond, including promissory notes promising payment, and result
in a deed after a delay of months or years. Contracts and payments
might be revised, voided, or confirmed with a receipt. The Financial
Records series has prioritized readability and worked to make these
at times unapproachable records more understandable and
relatable.
The records included in the Financial Records series
document Joseph Smith’s personal finances in
nearly every period of his life, from early endeavors as a young man
until his death. These records demonstrate times of economic and
financial turmoil as well as periods of growth. However, much of
Smith’s financial papers overlap with the financial records of the
institutional church. Joseph Smith’s personal assets and debts were
often complexly interwoven with the assets and debts of the church.
This is particularly true for the
period, when Smith served as trustee for the church, purchasing and
holding land for the church in his name, purchasing steamboats, and
undertaking other endeavors to benefit the Saints and build
communities for them to safely gather. This entanglement of Smith’s
personal finances with those of the church proved especially
challenging with the settlement of Smith’s estate after his death.
, Smith’s primary
financial clerk and agent, observed in his journal that while most
collective assets were held by the church, most of the debt
belonging to both Smith personally as well as to the church was
simply in Smith’s name. Clayton felt there were sufficient means to
repay the outstanding debts but also worried about disentangling the
situation if creditors became concerned.
It is also in the Nauvoo financial records that there
is something of a break in, or expansion of, the record. The tithing
office, or trustee’s office, under the direction of and carefully recorded
and tracked church finances, including tithing. Indeed, it is
through the Nauvoo financial records, especially tithing, that the
Financial Records series moves beyond documenting the financial
transactions of Joseph Smith alone and truly begins
to capture the financial involvement of hundreds of Latter-day
Saints throughout the
and United Kingdom. While Smith as trustee
and church president oversaw the temple recorder, clerks, and
tithing office, the tithing donations were the product of hundreds
of individuals—men, women, and even children. These were considered
sacred and salvific in their own right and were carefully recorded
for the benefit of the donors no matter how simple or small the
donation. The financial records in their aggregate document the
labor essential to building a Latter-day Saint community and are a
lasting testament of the lengths to which Joseph Smith, at dire
personal cost, sacrificed his own financial security to provide
temporally for the Latter-day Saints.