The contemporaneous sources in 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, correspondence, and other documents—and often provide context
for one another. Many of these documents are copies preserved in Letterbook
1 (1832–1835), Letterbook 2 (1839–1843),
Revelation
Book 1 (1831–1835), Revelation
Book 2 (1832–1834), Minute Book
1 (1832–1837), Minute Book 2 (1838–circa 1839, 1842, 1844),
Patriarchal Blessing Book 1 (1834–circa 1868), Record of the
Twelve (February–August 1835), The Evening and the
Morning Star (1832–1834), and the Latter Day Saints’
Messenger and Advocate (1834–1837). These multiple-entry
documents also provide valuable contextual material for understanding
JS’s papers and the general history of the early
church.
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, blessings, and
revelations compose the majority of the documents in this volume. To
preserve letters, minutes of church meetings, and blessings, 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. Minute Book 2, inscribed in 1838 (likely from
an earlier compilation), preserves copies of minutes of church meetings
held in , Ohio, and , the first dating to
June 1830. The Record of the Twelve, meanwhile, provides
minutes of the earliest meetings of the Twelve Apostles in 1835, as well
as minutes of conferences they held in the eastern throughout summer
1835. In addition, in September 1835, church recorder began recording blessings given by and JS into Patriarchal
Blessing Book 1. The letterbook, the minute books, and the patriarchal
blessing book contain source texts for this volume and provide important
context for understanding JS and the early church.
Several of JS’s revelations are included in this volume and are
essential sources for understanding JS’s history from 1834 to 1835. The
revelations embody JS’s religious values, convey his sense of mission,
and outline his agenda for building Zion. 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 from this early period. Attempts to
officially compile the revelations began in early 1831 in Revelation
Book 1 and continued in 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 month, with taking over responsibilities as editor. The
Kirtland printing office later published an edited
reprint of the Independence issues of the Star
under the shortened title Evening and Morning Star, and
began publishing another newspaper, titled the Latter Day Saints’
Messenger and Advocate, in 1834. 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
April 1834 through September 1835. JS’s first
journal (1832–1834), for instance, records his efforts to
recruit members for the Camp of Israel expedition, while his second
journal (1835–1836) provides information about blessings he
gave to church leaders and his continuing efforts to regain church
members’ lands in , Missouri. Other
journals and diaries that are also indispensable in uncovering facts
about JS and the church during the period covered by this volume include
those by , , , , , , and . In addition,
missionaries serving in 1834 and 1835 sometimes wrote reports of their
missions that provide helpful information on the whereabouts of
individuals and the proselytizing efforts that occurred during these
years. Particularly helpful are the reports of , ,
Daniel Stephens, , , , and .
Correspondence and legal and
financial records were drawn upon when possible. Especially important to
this period is a series of letters
wrote from to his wife, , in ,
Missouri, explaining various initiatives that JS and church leaders were taking in Kirtland. The financial
accounts of Kirtland bishop
and , the
firm that oversaw the church’s printing efforts in Kirtland, also
provide helpful information. In addition, articles, editorials,
correspondence, and other materials published in The Evening and
the Morning Star and the Messenger and
Advocate provide a firmer understanding of many of the
events and details of the documents transcribed in this volume. Some of
the correspondence published in these two newspapers also appears as
featured texts in this volume. Regional and
newspapers—as well as newspapers and journals
published in larger cities such as , , and —provide important contextual coverage about JS
and the church. These contemporary newspaper accounts provide some
details not otherwise available and add a useful non-Mormon perspective.
, Ohio, newspaper editor lived close to the Mormon settlement in Kirtland
Township 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. Finally, local
and federal government records—particularly county tax, land deed,
court, probate, and census records—clarify complex transactions and
provide essential details on the financial state of JS and the church in
1834 and 1835.
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 John Corrill’s A Brief History of the Church
of Christ of Latter Day Saints and “The Book of
John Whitmer,” an attempt by the official church historian to
chronicle his own experiences, as well as those of JS and the church. JS’s multi-volume manuscript history, in which JS’s scribes attempted to
incorporate JS’s memory, institutional documents, and private papers and
collections into a documentary history of JS and the church, also
supplies invaluable information. For more information on these
historical manuscripts, see the Histories series of The
Joseph Smith Papers. Finally, later reminiscences by church
members such as , , , , , and provide information
essential to understanding the documents featured in this volume.