The
contemporaneous sources used for this volume’s annotation range from
personal writings to institutional records to published books. The
featured texts found herein comprise a significant collection of
contemporary sources—including JS
revelations, minutes, JS correspondence, and other
documents—that often inform one another. Many of these documents have
been preserved in Letterbook 1 (1832–1835), Revelation
Book 2 (1832–1834),
Letterbook 2 (1839–1843), Minute Book 1 (1832–1837), and The Evening and the
Morning Star (1833–1834). These multiple-entry documents also provide
valuable contextual material for understanding JS’s papers and the
history of the early church in general. For more information on the
source texts presented in this volume, see their respective source
notes. Many journals,
diaries, histories, reminiscences, and autobiographies of various
figures in early Mormon history are also helpful in understanding the
period covered in this volume.
Minutes, letters, and revelations
compose the majority of the documents in this volume. To preserve
letters and minutes of church meetings, official church historians and
clerks often copied texts from loose sheets into more permanent record
books. Beginning in 1832, for instance,
clerks copied surviving letters, some dating as early as 1829, into Letterbook
1. In late
1832, began
compiling minutes of meetings held in into Minute Book
1. Both Letterbook 1 and Minute Book 1 contain source texts
for this volume and provide important context for understanding JS and the early church.
The revelations embodied JS’s religious values, conveyed his sense of mission, and
outlined his agenda for building . Most of his early
initiatives grew out of the revelations. JS and his associates made
painstaking efforts to record, preserve, publish, and disseminate his
revelations and their content throughout his life. Early loose
manuscripts and manuscript revelation books, early church periodicals
and other newspapers, and the church’s published compilations of the
revelations all preserve revelation texts of this early period. Attempts
to officially compile the revelations began in early 1831 in Revelation
Book 1 and continued in early 1832, when leaders in , Ohio,
began copying revelations into Revelation
Book 2.
Later in 1832, , the church
printer in , and others began to set
type for the first published book of revelations, to be called the Book of
Commandments. Phelps also published some two dozen revelations in the church’s first
newspaper, The Evening and the Morning Star, a monthly
newspaper printed in from
June 1832 to July
1833. Phelps had printed the first five sheets (160 pages) of
the projected contents of the Book of Commandments and may have been
working on the last when, in July 1833,
opponents destroyed the Independence . A
few printed sheets of the Book of Commandments were saved and bound, but
the edition was never finished. A was established in in December 1833, and printing of the
interrupted Star continued there beginning that same
month, with taking over
responsibilities as editor. The Kirtland printing office also later
published an edited reprint of the Independence issues of the
Star under the shortened title Evening and
Morning Star. A second effort to publish a compilation of
the revelations, titled the Doctrine and Covenants, was completed in
Kirtland in 1835. For more information on
the revelations, see the Revelations and Translations series of
The Joseph Smith Papers.
A variety of other contemporary
records helps contextualize the featured texts. Several journals and
diaries, for instance, were invaluable in annotating the documents of
February 1833 through
March 1834. JS’s first journal
(1832–1834) documents his
frequent travels, intelligence from and about , and his
ongoing conflict with . Other
journals and daily diaries that are indispensable in uncovering facts
about JS and the church in the period covered by this volume include
those of early church members , , , , , , , and .
Correspondence and legal records
were drawn upon when possible. Articles, editorials, correspondence, and
other materials published in The Evening and the Morning
Star provide a firmer understanding of many of the events
and details of the documents featured in this volume. Some of the
letters that were published in The Evening and the Morning
Star also appear as source texts in this volume. Regional
and newspapers as well as newspapers and published
journals from larger cities such as , , and likewise provide
contextual coverage about JS and the church. These
contemporary newspaper accounts provide some details not otherwise
available and a useful non-Mormon perspective. ,
Ohio, newspaper editor lived close to the
Mormon settlement in
and saw some of his family members join the new church. He compiled his
observations and much written material into his 1834 publication, Mormonism Unvailed. Though
Howe was clearly antagonistic toward the church, his firsthand
experiences and observations provide information not otherwise
available. In addition, local and federal government records,
particularly county tax, land deed, court, probate, and census records,
clarify complex transactions and provide essential details for the
whereabouts of individuals. These records are particularly helpful in
unfolding the purchase of the Kirtland property known as the
.
Sometimes, the only sources for a
specific event in this volume’s period are personal recollections,
reminiscences, and autobiographies written years after the fact. Notable
among these are histories that have proven valuable in understanding the
conflicts, particularly ’s
A Brief History of the Church of Christ of Latter
Day Saints and ’s “A History, of the Persecution, of the Church of Jesus
Christ, of Latter Day Saints in Missouri.” These histories and
further contextual information about them can be found in the second
volume of the Histories series of The Joseph Smith
Papers.
’s published
autobiography likewise contains important material concerning the church
in Missouri in 1833 and
1834.
Other reminiscent accounts are
helpful in understanding church members’ early drive to build the in . These
sources include accounts by ,
, , , and . Lastly, the 1844–1845
autobiography dictated by JS’s mother, , and a new cache of transcriptions made by
LaJean Purcell Carruth of ’s shorthand
records of Utah-era discourses supply essential context for the
documents featured in this volume.