Introduction to Documents, Volume 4: April 1834–September 1835
Joseph Smith Documents from April 1834 through
September 1835
On 2 May 1835, Joseph Smith stood before a “grand
council” of church leaders and “moved that [they] never give up the
struggle for , even until Death. or until Zion is
Redeemed.” Those in attendance unanimously supported Smith’s
resolution “with apparent deep feeling.” The expulsion of
the Saints from , Missouri, in
late 1833 had
disrupted the church’s efforts to build the city of Zion in
preparation for the second coming of Jesus Christ. Between April 1834 and September 1835, the time
period covered by this volume of The Joseph Smith
Papers, the redemption of Zion—or the reclaiming of
church members’ lands in Jackson County—was a paramount concern for
Smith and other church leaders.
Many of
the ninety-three documents in this volume touch in some way on the
redemption of Zion. They highlight the great importance that Joseph Smith and others placed on
returning the Saints to their lands and reveal connections between
this endeavor and other simultaneous efforts, such as the
construction of the , or temple, in , Ohio. Other documents highlight the development
of new leadership positions in the church—which created a more
complex administrative structure—and demonstrate the importance that
Joseph Smith placed on providing blessings to the new leaders and
those who sacrificed time and money to help redeem Zion. Still other
documents show the great efforts that Joseph Smith and other church
leaders made to publish a compilation of Smith’s revelations, called the Doctrine
and Covenants, in 1835. Some
documents indicate discord that existed in Joseph Smith’s life,
particularly in relation to individuals both inside and outside the
church who criticized his leadership and religious teachings.
Together the documents provide insights into the development of the
church and into characteristics of Joseph Smith as a husband,
father, and leader of a growing religious movement.
During
the time period of this volume, Joseph Smith made
his home in , where he had been living since September 1832. Aside
from an expedition to between May and July 1834 and
brief trips to and
to other locations in , Smith spent most of his time
between April 1834 and
September 1835 in Kirtland. After a rapid influx of church
members in 1834 and 1835,
Kirtland was home to around one thousand Latter-day Saints. The
other major concentration of Saints was in , Missouri, where
most of the approximately one thousand Saints driven from had fled. Church members also lived in branches
scattered across much of the northeastern and . After a months-long preaching effort in the
eastern United States in 1835, , one of the
church’s bishops, noted that he had traveled “about two thousand
miles” and “visited about twenty five churches whose aggregate
number is about seven hundred.”
To help
administer the church outside of , Joseph Smith
corresponded frequently with church members, especially those in
. In 1834 and
1835, much of his correspondence dealt with how to redeem
Zion. After citizens
forced church members from the county in early November 1833,
revelations instructed Joseph Smith and the church on how to regain
their land. A December 1833
revelation outlined a plan for the redemption of Zion
through a parable of a lord who had lost his vineyard to his
enemies. The lord instructed a servant to recruit “wariors” who
would “break down the walls of mine enemies th[r]ow down their tower
and scatte[r] their
watchmen.” In January 1834, church leaders sent copies of this
revelation to Missouri governor and
circulated the revelation among church members.
In late February
1834, and arrived in , having been sent by the Saints “to counsel with President Smith and the Church at
Kirtland, and take some measures for the relief or restoration of
the people thus plundered and driven from their homes.” On 24 February 1834, the two reported
to the Kirtland high council on the situation in Missouri, asking
“when, how and by what means Zion was to be redeemed from our
enemies.” Joseph Smith then declared his intention of “going to Zion
to assist in redeeming it.” The council nominated him as the
“Commander in Chief of the Armies of Israel,” and he subsequently
called for volunteers to go with him. A
revelation dictated by Smith the same day provides some
clarification on the purpose of the expedition. The revelation
declared Smith to be the servant mentioned in the parable of the
lord of the vineyard and instructed him and others to recruit up to
five hundred men to go to Zion. They were told to reclaim the lands
purchased in and the
vicinity and to provide protection against any “enemies” who sought
to drive the Saints from the “goodly land.” Joseph Smith was to lead
the expedition “like as Moses led the children of Israel,” and God’s
presence and angels would go before them.
Almost
immediately after the dictation of this revelation, eight men,
including Joseph Smith, traveled to and , seeking recruits and
donations for the expedition and telling those who were interested
to meet “in Reddy for Zion the first of May.” As
Joseph Smith and the others made these preparations, church members
in were taking their own steps to try to regain
their property,
though without success. They petitioned President Andrew Jackson and Governor to provide military forces to protect the Saints
and escort them back to their lands. secretary of
war , replying on behalf of Jackson,
declared that the federal government could not use military force to
uphold state laws unless the governor requested such
assistance.
According to attorney general Robert Wells, initially showed some inclination to call up the
state militia to protect the Saints. In February 1834, Dunklin ordered a militia to guard Mormon
witnesses who wanted to testify before a grand jury
about the deprivations they had suffered. At that time, he also told state militia
officer that some
church members might “seek the opportunity . . . to return in safety
to their late homes in Jackson County” under the militia’s guard. If
so, Dunklin stated that Atchison and the militia were to comply with
their requests. Perhaps because of the stiff opposition
still existing in Jackson County, few
Saints sought this protection, and by
April 1834, Dunklin told Missouri church leaders that
“the laws, both civil and Military, seem deficient in affording your
society proper protection.” Church members still held out hope,
however, that Dunklin would provide a military force to escort them
back to their lands at a later date.
On 5 May 1834, Joseph Smith began his march from
to with about one
hundred men, far fewer than the five hundred specified by the revelation. The group joined an advance
contingent in , Ohio, on 6
May and was supplemented in June by forces recruited by
and from . They gained other recruits as they traveled
west; the group eventually numbered more than two hundred men,
around twelve women, and about ten children. The expedition, called
the and later Zion’s
Camp, was organized
into companies of twelve, each led by a captain. The camp was funded
by money consecrated by the camp’s members and donations from other
church members. The goals of
the camp were clear: the group was to march to Missouri and wait for
to muster a portion
of the state militia, which would then escort the Saints back into
. After the
militia was discharged, the volunteers were to remain in Missouri,
protect the Saints from any future attacks, and help plant crops.
They were also to carry “a small supply of money” with which to
purchase food "till grain [could] be raised.” Meanwhile, church members
elsewhere were counseled to migrate to Missouri to strengthen the
church there. Under no circumstances were church members to initiate
violence, but those going to Missouri were told to carry “sufficient
weapons to defend yourselves in case of an attack.”
The Camp
of Israel traveled through , , and before arriving in
in June
1834.
Its march alarmed many residents of Missouri, who believed the group
was coming to retake its
property “by force of arms.” Western Missouri
citizens mobilized and threatened that much blood would be shed if
the camp came into Jackson County. The camp’s approach also led a contingent
of citizens from Jackson County—with ’s blessing—to begin negotiations with church
leaders in Missouri to resolve issues regarding the Saints’
lands. Dunklin’s desire to finish these negotiations
before calling out the state militia, coupled with the uproar caused
by the camp’s approach, led to a reconsideration of the camp’s
intentions.
On 22 June 1834, a revelation authorized the camp to disband. The revelation
stated that the church must “wait for a little season for the
redemption of Zion,” in part because church members outside of
Missouri had not sufficiently heeded the call to support the Camp of
Israel or to purchase lands and move to Missouri. The revelation
also declared that Zion would not be redeemed until the elders of
the church were “endowed with power from on high” and until God’s
people had been “taught more perfectly, and have experience and know
more perfectly concerning their duty.” In accordance with these
instructions, Joseph Smith began to disband the
Camp of Israel, a process hastened by an outbreak of cholera among
the group.
Some saw the outbreak as God’s punishment for discord that existed
in the camp; others believed it occurred because some camp members
complained about not being able to exact revenge on the citizens of
Jackson County. By
the time the outbreak ceased, thirteen camp members had died, along
with two other Missouri Saints.
With the
redemption of Zion deferred, Joseph Smith
returned to and focused on fulfilling the directives
outlined in the June 1834
revelation. The endowment of power promised in the
revelation was to be administered in the that was then being constructed in
Kirtland. In winter 1834–1835, church leaders also began an
Elders School, replacing the original , as well
as a grammar school. In these schools, individuals were instructed
in both spiritual and secular matters in preparation for a large
missionary effort that occurred in spring and summer 1835.
In
addition to addressing the directives of the June 1834
revelation, Joseph Smith and
other church leaders began an effort to publish his revelations. In
September 1834, Joseph Smith,
, , and were appointed as a committee to compile a book
containing items from “the bible, book of mormon, and the
revelations which have been given to the church up to this
date.”
Although the final format of the book, called the Doctrine and
Covenants, did not include excerpts from the Bible or the Book of
Mormon, the book was necessary in part because the
printing of another compilation of Smith’s revelations—the Book of
Commandments—had been interrupted in July 1833 when a mob in , Missouri, destroyed the church’s printing
office.
By February 1835, when the
committee composed a preface to the Doctrine and Covenants, the
plan for the book’s contents had changed; the committee decided to
publish only Joseph Smith’s revelations and seven theological
lectures on faith given at the Elders School. In August 1835, a general assembly of the
church approved the contents of the book, which, in the words of
, would teach
the Saints “their duty.”
The preface of the volume similarly states that the book would
provide the world with “the faith and principles” of the
church. The Doctrine and
Covenants was available for purchase by
September 1835.
Despite
the importance placed on printing the Doctrine
and Covenants and constructing the , funding these projects proved
difficult, and in the months covered in this volume, Joseph Smith and the church faced
severe financial problems. A March
1832
revelation had mandated the creation of the as an administrative body responsible for
coordinating the church’s mercantile and publishing endeavors so
that profits gained from one effort could be used to fund another
and so that those in the firm could be compensated for their work in
the church. Any funds remaining were to go into the church’s
storehouse to help the poor. In reality, though, Joseph Smith and other
members of the firm faced substantial debt as a result of the
church’s printing endeavors and their efforts to stock the church
in and . The
expulsion of the Saints from
exacerbated matters, as it meant that the church no longer possessed
the and storehouse there but still owed money on some of the
goods. Purchasing land in for the House of the Lord was also costly, and
, the bishop in
Kirtland and a member of the United Firm, assumed the debt on that
land in accordance with instructions given in a June 1833
revelation. This made Whitney responsible for two
payments of $1,500 each in 1834
and 1835. Along with
charges for new equipment for a in Kirtland and the cost of materials to
construct the House of the Lord, these debts placed the United Firm
in financial turmoil by April
1834. Accordingly, members of
the firm decided that it “should be desolvd,” and an April 1834
revelation reorganized the firm, allocating specific
properties as to members of the firm in
Kirtland.
Although profits from managing the stewardships and from publishing
church materials were to be placed in a treasury to benefit the
firm, it appears that the firm effectively ceased to function after
this time.
Because
of these financial struggles, Joseph Smith
expressed much gratitude whenever church members donated or loaned
money to him or the church. In November
1834, for example, a group of Saints from , New
York, loaned him $430.
The following day, he and
expressed thanks to God “for the relief which the Lord had lately
sent” and covenanted with God to “give a tenth, to be bestowed upon
the poor in his church, or as he shall command” of any funds they
obtained after their debts were paid off.
Fund-raising efforts were similarly important, and in spring and summer
1835, various individuals were assigned to collect
donations for the church. and were to obtain funds for the construction of
the ; and
were to solicit donations
to help impoverished church members in ; and the newly called Twelve Apostles were
assigned to petition the Saints for funds for temple construction,
the redemption of Zion, and the publication of the Doctrine
and Covenants.
Joseph Smith sent his own letter to church members, stating that the church needed
“all the means or money” members could provide so the church could
publish the Doctrine and Covenants and his revision of the Bible—a
project which he had completed in 1833
and that involved revising, clarifying, and augmenting the text of
the King James Bible. The need for money was so great that when failed to follow through with a covenant he
had made to provide a loan to the church, Bosley’s church membership
was revoked.
Although records are unclear as to how much money the church
received from donations, the church continued to build the House of
the Lord and published the Doctrine and Covenants in 1835. The ability to proceed on these
projects, however, probably had more to do with loans and goods
received on credit than it did with donations.
Meanwhile, the governing bodies of the church continued to develop.
Joseph Smith had established the
high council in February 1834 “for the purpose of settleing important
difficulties which might arise in the church, which could not be
settled by the Church, or the bishop’s council to the satisfaction
of the parties.” The high council also functioned as an
administrative body that dealt with church business. The
presidency of the high priesthood—Joseph Smith, , and —served as the presidency of the Kirtland high
council. After
the Camp of Israel was disbanded in , church leaders also
organized a high council for the Saints in in July 1834.
, , and were appointed as the presidency of the
Missouri high council, with David Whitmer designated as “the
President of the Church in Zion.” According to Smith, organizing the
Missouri high council “had accomplished the great work which the
Lord had laid before him” and God could then make known his will “on
all importent occasions in the building up of Zion.”
The high
council’s authority to govern the administrative and disciplinary
affairs of the Saints in was made explicitly
clear in summer
1835 after , , , and ten high counselors left Missouri to proselytize,
“assist in gathering up the strength of the Lord’s house,” and
receive an endowment of power in . Although these
departures left the Saints in
essentially leaderless, attempts by other church officers in
Missouri to regulate Zion’s affairs were denounced by the church
presidency in Kirtland. “The elders in Zion or in her immediate
region have no authority, nor right to medelle [meddle] with her
[Zion’s]
affairs,” a June 1835
letter stated. Two
months later, the presidency again declared that church members were
to “let the high counsel which is appointed of God and ordained for
that purpose, make and regulate all the affairs of Zion,” even if
most high counselors were absent. As Phelps told his
wife, , “The
three Presidents of Zion act for her good, whether in Zion,
Kirtland, or , and have a right to
assist in regulating the affairs of her stakes.”
Additional changes to church organization came in December 1834 when was appointed as
of the church, responsible for giving blessings
to his family and “the fatherless” and “securing the blessings of
the Lord unto them and their posterity.” That
same month, , , and Joseph Smith Sr. were appointed to the
, with Cowdery designated as the first assistant
president. After the presidency of
the high council came to in 1834 and
1835,
its members sometimes convened with the presidency of the high
priesthood, forming a “high council of the Presidency.”
New
priesthood offices, specifically those of and , were also established
in 1835. In February, Joseph Smith
convened a meeting of the participants of the Camp of Israel,
stating that God had shown him in a vision that it was time for
“those who went to Zion, with a determination to lay down their
lives, if necessary,” to “be ordained to the ministry and go forth
to prune the vineyard for the last time.” Following direction first
given in a June 1829
revelation, Joseph Smith then asked the three witnesses
of the Book of Mormon—, , and —“to choose
twelve men from the church as Apostles to go to all nations, kindred
toungs and people.” Eight of the designated apostles had
participated in the Camp of Israel expedition. After being called and , the Twelve Apostles were assigned to hold
conferences throughout the eastern
and in summer 1835. Smith and the presidency of
the high priesthood also began appointing other individuals to the
office of seventy; these men were also given the responsibility of
preaching. All of the seventies appointed at this time had gone to
with the Camp of Israel.
With
these new offices in place, Joseph Smith
provided instruction about how they fit into the larger church
administration. In a February 1835
meeting, he told the Twelve Apostles that they were a “traveling
high council, who are to preside over all the churches of the Saints
among the Gentiles, where there is no presidency established.” Sometime in spring 1835, a more
comprehensive “Instruction on Priesthood” was prepared by
Smith, probably with the assistance of ; it was later included in the 1835 edition of the Doctrine
and Covenants. Drawing heavily on a November 1831
revelation, this instruction outlined the different
responsibilities of the presidency of the high priesthood, the
Twelve Apostles, the Seventy, the high councils in and , bishops, high
priests, elders, priests, teachers, and deacons. It explained that
there were “two divisions” of the priesthood: the Melchizedek and
the Aaronic, the latter of which included the Levitical priesthood.
The presidency of the Melchizedek priesthood, or high priesthood,
had “the right of presidency” and held “power and authority over all
the offices in the church.” Bishops served as presidents of the and were
responsible for “administering all temporal things” and for
“sit[ting] in
judgment upon transgressors.” The Twelve Apostles were “special
witnesses of the name of Christ, in all the world” and operated
“under the direction of the presidency of the church,” while the
Seventy were “especial witnesses unto the Gentiles and in all the
world” and acted “under the direction of the twelve.” Although the
presidency of the high priesthood directed the Twelve and the Twelve
directed the Seventy, all of these offices, as well as the standing
high councils in and Missouri, were “equal in authority” to
each other.
Joseph Smith provided additional
direction at a May 1835 “grand
council” of the church. The Twelve Apostles, he stated, did not have
the “right to go into Zion or any of its ” where a high council was functioning “and there
undertake to regulate the affairs thereof.” Instead, they were “to
go abroad and regulate all matters relative to the different
branches of the Church.” High councils, on the other hand, did not
have authority over “the churches abroad.” Smith also emphasized the
authority of the Twelve over the Seventy, stating that the Seventy
were “not to attend the conferences of the Twelve unless they are
called upon or requested to by the Twelve.” These
directives, together with the Instruction on Priesthood, provided
guidance on how offices in the church related to each other,
something that was necessary as church leadership became more
defined and more complex.
Along
with giving new instruction on priesthood offices, Joseph Smith and others made
efforts to clarify the source of their authority to govern the
church. During 1834 and
1835, Joseph Smith—likely working with those appointed as
the committee to compile the Doctrine
and Covenants—elaborated and expanded some of the content
of his earlier revelations.
For example, an 1830 revelation, which had been previously published in the 1833
Book of
Commandments, contained lengthy additions when it was
included in the Doctrine and
Covenants. As explained in the expanded revelation, John
the Baptist had ordained Smith and to the “first priesthood,” and Peter,
James, and John had ordained Smith and Cowdery “to be apostles and
especial witnesses” of Jesus Christ. Peter, James, and John, the
revelation continued, also gave Smith and Cowdery authority to “bear
the keys” of their “ministry.” In September
1835, Cowdery referred to similar events when he recorded
expanded versions of several blessings Joseph Smith had originally
given to church leaders in December 1833. Cowdery noted that John
the Baptist had ordained him and Smith “unto the lesser or Aaronic
priesthood” in May 1829, after
which, he stated, they “received the high and holy priesthood.” He
further explained that God had “delivered to” Joseph Smith “the keys
of the kingdom, that is, of authority and spiritual blessings upon
the Church,” much like the New Testament
recorded Jesus Christ giving Peter the “keys of the kingdom of
heaven,” or the authority to establish the kingdom of God on
earth.
Although references to Smith holding keys had been present in
earlier revelations, records in 1834 and 1835 were more explicit as
to how Smith had obtained those keys.
During
this time, additional instructions and guidance were also provided
to church members through blessings given by Joseph Smith and others. In February 1835, the presidency of the
high priesthood, , and began blessing the newly called apostles
and seventies, perhaps in partial fulfillment of a promise made in a
June 1834
revelation. The revelation told those who had participated
in the Camp of Israel expedition that they would receive “a great
endowment and blessing” for their service. Although the “great endowment” was not to
be administered until the
was completed, individuals who had been
called as apostles or seventies were given ordination blessings.
These blessings promised them great success in preaching, while also
forecasting difficulties they would encounter in their
ministry. The Camp of Israel
participants who were not called as apostles or seventies also
received blessings, sometimes referred to as “Zion blessings.” Like ordination
blessings, these blessings imparted great promises and warnings to
the recipients.
The
practice of providing formal blessings extended to other church
members as well. , as patriarch of
the church, began giving blessings to his family members, including
Joseph and , and to others in the
church.
pronounced a blessing upon Joseph Smith, and Smith provided
blessings to church leaders. Those who worked on
or donated to the were also blessed for their
service.
Many of
the blessings given in this period were recorded in official church
records. entered the
ordination blessings of the apostles and the seventies into Minute Book
1.
, who was designated the
recorder of the church in September
1835,
began entering blessings given by Joseph Smith and
into a newly
purchased book used for recording patriarchal blessings. Cowdery’s
appointment and the recording of these blessings illustrate Joseph
Smith’s continued efforts to keep records in the church. Although
Smith had periodically kept a journal and had composed a history of some of the founding events of the church in
1832, his
own record keeping and that of the church as a whole, including the
work of church historian , had been
sporadic at best. He lamented to the Twelve Apostles in February 1835 that the church did not
have “every decision which has been given upon important items of
doctrine and duties since the rise of this church,” since if such a
record existed, it “would be of incalculable worth to the saints.”
He thus counseled the Twelve to keep a record of their decisions.
The Twelve responded by calling and as clerks and
assigning them to record the minutes of their meetings. Hyde and McLellin
accordingly kept a record of the Twelve’s meetings in , held in preparation for their mission to the
eastern and ; they also kept minutes of the conferences
the Twelve held on their mission in spring and summer 1835.
Also
during this time period, began an
attempt in the Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and
Advocate, the church newspaper that replaced The
Evening and the Morning Star, to provide “a full history
of the rise of this church” by publishing a series of letters he
exchanged with on the
subject. As
part of this effort, Joseph Smith
provided information to Cowdery about the early years of his
life. By fall 1835, the
Messenger and Advocate had published Cowdery’s
account of Smith’s early history prior to his obtaining the gold
plates associated with the Book of
Mormon. Cowdery began another effort around
December 1834 to compile a history of Joseph Smith, but he ceased working on it
after a couple of entries. and Joseph Smith later continued Cowdery’s
work.
In part,
Joseph Smith and others may have
believed it was important to provide accounts of his life and the
early history of the church to combat ’s book,
Mormonism Unvailed, which was published in November 1834. Howe, who had earlier clashed
with church members while he was editor of the Painesville
Telegraph, stated that the book’s purpose was to
convince readers that Smith was an impostor. The book included
affidavits collected by from
people who claimed to have been acquainted with Joseph Smith and his
family when they lived in . These affidavits
attempted to denigrate “the moral characters of the Smith
family.”
Joseph Smith defended his and his family’s reputations, stating that
he had never “been guilty of wronging or injuring any man or society
of men,” although he was guilty of having in his youth “a light, and
too often, vain mind” and had fallen “into many vices and
follies.” However, Howe’s
book received a favorable review in ’s
Millennial Harbinger and was available for
purchase throughout , western , and .
Campbell, who was the leader of the Disciples of Christ, also
characterized Joseph Smith as an impostor and the Book of
Mormon as a fabrication.
Disputes
between Joseph Smith and others also led to
court cases during this era. In December
1833, threatened to kill
Joseph Smith, leading Smith to file a complaint against him. A hearing on
this complaint was held in April
1834 before the Court
of Common Pleas in , Ohio.
The court determined that Smith “had ground to fear” a physical
attack from Hurlbut and ordered Hurlbut to post a two-hundred-dollar
bond to keep the peace, a decision that Joseph Smith believed was an
answer to prayer. In
another case, Joseph Smith faced charges of assault and battery for
an altercation with his brother-in-law in April 1835, but he was eventually
cleared of the charges.
Joseph Smith also faced opposition
from within the church. After the Camp of Israel expedition was
disbanded, , a member
of the high council, charged Joseph Smith with engaging
in “criminal conduct” while leading the camp, including misusing
camp funds and property and abusing Sylvester’s character. A
series of councils in August 1834
cleared Joseph Smith of the accusations and reprimanded Sylvester
Smith for making them; Sylvester eventually recanted his statements
in the Messenger and Advocate. Joseph Smith declared afterward, “I have
succeeded in putting all gainsayers and enemies to flight unto the
present time and not withstanding the advisary Laid a plan which was
more subtle than all others, I now swim in good clean water with my head out!”
In the
midst of these difficulties,
Joseph Smith and other church
leaders continued planning for a return to . The June 1834
revelation disbanding the camp had stated that the elders
would need to wait for “a little season” before Zion’s redemption
could occur. During that little season, Smith was to continue
gathering “young men and middle aged,” while the Saints were to
continue to purchase land in the area. Once the army was “very
great” and the church was strengthened, Zion could be redeemed. In accordance with these
instructions, Joseph Smith designated 11
September 1836 as the date of Zion’s redemption and church members made
preparations for their return at that time. In May 1835, participants of a council
held in designated the order by which church leaders
were to receive in Zion. In
August 1835, Smith and other
leaders told the Saints in to give Bishop “their names places
of residince &c.” so that they could locate each member “when
the Governor shall give directions for you to be set over on your
lands.” In September, Smith and the Kirtland high
council established a “war department” for the church and appointed
as “Capt of the Lords
host” and Joseph Smith as “ to stand at the head.” Their plan
was to bring a contingent of eight hundred to one thousand men to
Missouri in 1836, after which the
Saints would petition to
return them to their lands. “We go next season to live or dy in
Jackson County,” the Kirtland high council declared on 24 September 1835. Its members then
“covena[n]ted
to stru[g]gle for
this thing utill [until] death shall desolve this union.”
This
focus on the redemption of Zion is found throughout the ninety-three
documents in this volume, which chronicle Joseph Smith’s life during the
tumultuous period from April 1834 through September 1835. The documents
themselves come in a variety of formats. Many of them are minutes of
meetings that Joseph Smith attended, generally meetings of the high
council and the church presidency in . Most of these minutes were taken by clerks
appointed for that purpose. The minutes were later copied into Minute
Book 1, a record of meetings in Kirtland; Minute
Book 2, a volume containing minutes from church meetings
in ; and the Record of
the Twelve, a book of minutes of meetings held by the
Twelve Apostles in 1835. Correspondence
between Joseph Smith and church leaders, his wife , and his cousin also constitute
a large part of the volume. Some of these letters are in Joseph
Smith’s own hand, including one he wrote to Emma while in , Indiana, on the Camp of Israel expedition, but
most are in the handwriting of others, such as and
. Some letters are found in
Smith’s letterbooks or his journal, while others were published in
periodicals such as The Evening and the Morning Star
and the Messenger and Advocate. The volume features
seven revelations—instructions to Joseph Smith and the Saints in the
voice of Deity, accepted and followed by church members as from God. Like Smith’s letters, the
revelations come from a variety of sources, including personal
copies, copies made in two manuscript revelation books, and the
1835 edition of the Doctrine
and Covenants. Other documents include , financial records, transcripts of blessings
dictated by Joseph Smith, and a certificate attesting to Smith’s ability to translate the
Egyptian papyri that he purchased in summer 1835. The volume also
contains five appendixes, consisting of several documents for which
Joseph Smith’s authorship is uncertain. Two of these were included
in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants: a declaration on government and law and a statement conveying the church’s “Rules for
Marriage.”
The
documents in this volume were, for the most part, originally
produced either in , Ohio, or in various locations in , although some originated in , , and . A few of the documents also originated in other
locations in , such as and . Some documents report the transactions of
meetings held in Joseph Smith’s home in Kirtland,
while others provide accounts of meetings held in the Kirtland .
Other minutes describe meetings held in the unfinished .
The
documents in this volume provide insight into Joseph Smith’s development as a
church leader and illuminate the evolution of the church itself.
They indicate the depth of Joseph Smith’s commitment to build the
city of Zion in and highlight the distress that
church members’ expulsion from
caused the Saints—even those who were not directly affected. Such
distress made regaining lands in Jackson County one of Smith’s
utmost concerns in 1834 and
1835. “As the Lord God liveth the redemtion of Zion is
nigh at hand,” he wrote in July
1835, “and we shall live to see it.” These documents provide
a window into his and the Saints’ efforts to bring that redemption
to pass. They also highlight Joseph Smith’s endeavors to encourage
the church’s growth in and other areas and his attempts to provide a
more defined ecclesiastical leadership structure for the burgeoning
church. As such, these documents are essential for any serious study
of Joseph Smith or the church between April 1834 and September 1835.