JS, History, 1838–1856, vol. F-1, created 9 Apr.–7 June 1856 and 20 Aug. 1856–6 Nov. 1856; handwriting of and Jonathan Grimshaw; 304 pages, plus 10 pages of addenda; CHL. This is the final volume of a six-volume manuscript history of the church. This sixth volume covers the period from 1 May to 8 Aug. 1844; the remaining five volumes, labeled A-1 through E-1, go through 30 Apr. 1844.
Historical Introduction
History, 1838-1856, volume F-1, constitutes the last of six volumes documenting the life of Joseph Smith and the early years of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The series is also known as the Manuscript History of the Church and was originally published serially from 1842 to 1846 and 1851 to 1858 as the “History of Joseph Smith” in the Times and Seasons and Deseret News. This volume contains JS’s history from 1 May 1844 to the events following his 27 June 1844 death, and it was compiled in Utah Territory in 1856.
The material recorded in volume F-1 was initially compiled under the direction of church historian , who was JS’s cousin, and also assistant church historian . Smith collaborated with in collecting material for the volume and creating a set of draft notes, which Smith dictated to Bullock and other clerks. Woodruff gathered additional material concerning the death of Joseph Smith as a supplement to George A. Smith’s work recording that event. Jonathan Grimshaw and , members of the Historian’s Office staff, transcribed the draft notes into the volume along with the text of designated documents.
According to the Historian’s Office journal, Jonathan Grimshaw initiated work on the text of volume F-1 on 9 April 1856, soon after Robert L. Campbell had completed work on volume E-1. (Historian’s Office, Journal, 5 and 9 Apr. 1856.) Grimshaw’s scribal work begins with an entry for 1 May 1844. Unlike previous volumes in which the numbering had run consecutively to page 2028, Grimshaw began anew with page 1. He transcribed 150 pages by June 1856, and his last entry was for 23 June 1844. Though more of his writing does not appear in the volume, he continued to work in the office until 2 August, before leaving for the East that same month. (Historian’s Office, Journal, 2 and 10 Aug. 1856.)
assumed the role of scribe on 20 August 1856. (Historian’s Office, Journal, 20 Aug. 1856.) He incorporated ’s draft notes for the period 24–29 June 1844 on pages 151–189, providing an account of JS’s death and its immediate aftermath. He next transcribed a related extract from ’s 1854 History of Illinois on pages 190–204. Pages 205–227 were left blank.
provided the notes for the final portion of the text. This account begins with an entry for 22 June 1844 and continues the record through 8 August 1844, ending on page 304. (The volume also included ten pages of addenda.) The last specific entry in the Historian’s Office journal that captures at work on the history is for 6 November 1856. A 2 February 1857 Wilford Woodruff letter to indicates that on 30 January 1857, the “presidency sat and heard the history read up to the organization of the church in , 8th. day of August 1844.” (Historian’s Office, Journal, 6 Nov. 1856; Wilford Woodruff, Great Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, to George A. Smith, 2 Feb. 1857, Historian’s Office, Letterpress Copybooks, vol. 1, p. 410; see also Wilford Woodruff, Great Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, to Amasa Lyman and Charles C. Rich, 28 Feb. 1857, Historian’s Office, Letterpress Copybooks, vol. 1, pp. 430–431.)
The pages of volume F-1 contain a record of the final weeks of JS’s life and the events of the ensuing days. The narrative commences with and arriving at , Illinois, on 1 May 1844 from their lumber-harvesting mission in the “” of Wisconsin Territory. As the late spring and summer of 1844 unfold, events intensify, especially those surrounding the suppression of the Nauvoo Expositor in mid-June. Legal action over the Expositor leads to a charge of riot, and subsequently JS is charged with treason and is incarcerated at the jail in , Illinois. The narrative of volume F-1 concludes with an account of the special church conference convened on 8 August 1844 to consider who should assume the leadership of the church.
<July 24> my position forbids that I should be a partisan on either side of your unhappy controversy. I may, for aught I know, have stern duties to perform in relation to both parties. This, however, will depend on which side may be the aggressor. Thus far, since the death of the Smiths, your people have behaved well; much better than could have been expected under the circumstances, and much better than the opposite party. I anxiously hope that they may have the grace to continue in the same line of conduct. An unresisting, passive, peaceable, but defensive course on your parts, will do much to disarm prejudices in the surrounding country. That such prejudices do exist in the minds of the people you know as well as I, though you may not be fully aware of their extent, or the ferocity which they engender. If I speak of those prejudices, and the causes of them, I do not wish you to misunderstand me, as some of you did, on a former occasion, and suppose that I am speaking my own opinions and feelings. I say now, once for all, that I have nothing to do with those prejudices, further than as a practical man, they obtrude themselves on my consideration, as presenting obstacles to me in the discharge of my official duty. The more prejudice and bad feeling which is got<ten> up against your people, whether by their own imprudence, or the malice of their enemies, the more difficult it is for me to do any thing effectually to protect either party according to law. There are, I am informed, some few inflammatory and hot blooded individuals amongst you, who by their imprudence and rashness, continue to give cause for those prejudices, and of course, by so doing, continue to involve you all in a common danger; I speak of the danger of a mob.
“I am also informed that most of you entertain the opinion, that there has been a great and universal reaction in the public mind since the death of the Smiths. [HC 7:203] On this subject I desire to tell you the naked truth. I am aware, that you scarcely ever hear the truth as to public sentiment abroad from those who visit you in your . The complaisance of such persons, and their desire to please, will induce them to omit the statement of disagreeable truths, and to say such things only as are pleasing and complimentary. You are bound, as men of sense, to receive all such statements with a great deal of allowance. On my part, without desiring to please any of you, or to conciliate your favor, but certainly without any design to insult your misfortunes, and in a pure spirit of friendly concern for the peace and safety of all who repose under the shade of our political fig tree, I desire to state to you frankly, candidly and thoroughly, what I do know on this subject. The naked truth then is, that most well informed persons condemn in the most unqualified manner the mode in which the Smiths were put to death, but nine out of every ten of such, accompany the expression of their dis-approbation by a manifestation of their pleasure that they are dead. The disapproval is most usally cold and without feeling. It is a disapproval which appears to be called for, on their part by decency, by a respect for the laws, and a horror of mobs, but does not flow warm from the heart. [p. 279]