Footnotes
The page numbers on pages 19–71, 86–90, and 122–125 are in the handwriting of Willard Richards; on pages 72–85, 91–121, 126–167, and 171–477, in the handwriting of William Clayton; and on pages 168–170, in the handwriting of Erastus Derby. There are two pages numbered 453. Pages 476–477 constitute the last leaf of lined paper. The headers generally consist of a year or a month and year. The headers inscribed on pages 26–27, 29–71, 88–95, 119, and 121–126 are in the handwriting of Richards; the headers inscribed on pages 28, 72–87, 96–118, 120, 127–167, and 172–215 are in the handwriting of Clayton; pages 168–171, which were inscribed by Derby, have no headers. A few other pages are missing headers.
For example, page 135 points the reader to page 164, which begins by noting the continuation from page 135.
This serialized history drew on the journals herein, beginning with the 4 July 1855 issue of the Deseret News and with the 3 January 1857 issue of the LDS Millennial Star.
Most of these now-erased graphite inscriptions are recoverable with bright white light and magnification. Pages 209–215, which were not erased, represent the state of the journal entries generally when they were used for drafting the “History of Joseph Smith.”
Tithing and Donation Record, 1844–1846, CHL; Trustee-in-trust, Index and Accounts, 1841–1847, CHL.
Trustee-in-Trust. Index and Accounts, 1841–1847. CHL.
Historian’s Office, “Inventory. Historian’s Office. 4th April 1855,” [1]; Historian’s Office, “Inventory. Historians Office. G. S. L. City April 1.1857,” [1]; Historian’s Office, “Historian’s Office Inventory G. S. L. City March 19. 1858,” [1]; Historian’s Office, “Historian’s Office Catalogue Book March 1858,” [11], Historian’s Office, Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904, CHL.
Historian’s Office. Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904. CHL. CR 100 130.
Emmeline B. Wells, “Salt Lake Stake Relief Society Conference,” Women’s Exponent, 1 July 1880, 9:22.
Woman’s Exponent. Salt Lake City. 1872–1914.
“Inventory of President Joseph Fielding Smith’s Safe,” 23 May 1970, First Presidency, General Administration Files, CHL.
“Inventory of President Joseph Fielding Smith’s Safe,” 23 May 1970. First Presidency, General Administration Files, 1921–1972. CHL.
Letter of transfer, Salt Lake City, UT, 8 Jan. 2010, CHL.
Letter of Transfer, Salt Lake City, UT, 8 Jan. 2010. CHL.
| Date | Manuscript Page | Page in JSP, J2 |
| December 1841 | 26, 31, 33, 36, 39, 43–44 | 10–21 |
| Dec. 1841 | 36 | 16 |
| 11–13 Dec. 1841 | 33 | 14–15 |
| 13 Dec. 1841 | 26, 33 | 10–11, 15–16 |
| 14 Dec. 1841 | 26 | 11 |
| 15–16 Dec. 1841 | 31 | 13–14 |
| 17 Dec. 1841 | 26 | 11 |
| 22 Dec. 1841 | 36 | 16–17 |
| 24–28 Dec. 1841 | 39 | 17–19 |
| 29–31 Dec. 1841 | 43–44 | 19–21 |
| January 1842 | 31, 43–44, 48, 56–60, 66–67 | 14, 21–32, 36–38 |
| 1 Jan. 1842 | 44 | 21 |
| 4 Jan. 1842 | 48 | 23–24 |
| 5 Jan. 1842 | 31, 44 | 14, 21 |
| 6 Jan. 1842 | 57 | 25–26 |
| 12–16 Jan. 1842 | 48 | 24 |
| 15 Jan. 1842 | 58 | 26–27 |
| 16 Jan. 1842 | 48, 58 | 24, 27 |
| 17 Jan. 1842 | 43, 56, 58 | 20–21, 24–25, 27 |
| 18–22 Jan. 1842 | 58 | 27–30 |
| 23 Jan. 1842 | 59, 66 | 30, 36–37 |
| 24 Jan. 1842 | 59 | 30 |
| 25 Jan. 1842 | 59, 66 | 30, 37 |
| 26–27 Jan. 1842 | 59 | 30–31 |
| 28 Jan. 1842 | 59, 67 | 31, 38 |
| 29–31 Jan. 1842 | 60 | 31–32 |
| February–July 1842 | 60–61, 88–95, 122–128 | 32–36, 38–80 |
| August 1842 | 128–135, 164–167, 179–184 | 80–99, 115–124 |
| 3–15 Aug. 1842 | 128–135 | 80–92 |
| 16 Aug. 1842 | 135, 164–165 | 93–96 |
| 17–21 Aug. 1842 | 165–167 | 96–99 |
| Copied Correspondence | 168–178 | 100–114 |
| 23–31 Aug. 1842 | 179–184 | 115–124 |
| September–December 1842 | 184–215 | 124–183 |
Footnotes
One of Richards’s entries records that he was ill “& did not take notes.” Other entries, such as those dictated by JS to William Clayton while in hiding, are clearly copies of previously inscribed notes. (JS, Journal, 17 June 1842; 16 and 23 Aug. 1842.)
Clayton, History of the Nauvoo Temple, 16; Brigham Young et al., “Baptism for the Dead,” Times and Seasons, 15 Dec. 1841, 3:626.
Clayton, William. History of the Nauvoo Temple, ca. 1845. CHL. MS 3365.
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
Clayton, History of the Nauvoo Temple, 18; Clayton, Journal, 10 Feb. 1843.
Clayton, William. History of the Nauvoo Temple, ca. 1845. CHL. MS 3365.
Clayton, William. Journals, 1842–1845. CHL.
JS, Kirtland, OH, to William W. Phelps, [Independence, MO], 27 Nov. 1832, in JS Letterbook 1, pp. 1–2 [D&C 85:1–2, 5]; 2 Chronicles 17:9; 34:14; Nehemiah 9:3.
JS Letterbook 1 / Smith, Joseph. “Letter Book A,” 1832–1835. Joseph Smith Collection. CHL. MS 155, box 2, fd. 1.
See also the entry for 29 June 1842, in which Richards transferred “this Journal” to his assistant William Clayton.
Pages 207–209, for example, contain such inscriptions. Willard Richards’s entry for 10 March 1842 also indicates contemporaneous inscription.
JS, Journal, 29 June 1842.
Brigham Young et al., “Baptism for the Dead,” Times and Seasons, 15 Dec. 1841, 3:626.
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
JS, Journal, 8 Aug. 1842; see also Appendix 1.
JS, Journal, 21 Dec. 1842.
JS met with Hyrum Smith and some members of the Quorum of the Twelve to decide on a course of action for this bankruptcy proceeding the month before. (JS, Journal, 7 Nov. 1842.)
The judgment grew out of a case involving the purchase of a steamboat two years earlier. At a public auction in Quincy, Illinois, on 10 September 1840, Captain Robert E. Lee, acting as agent for the United States, sold two keelboats and the steamboat Des Moines to Mormon businessman Peter Haws for $4,866.38, due in eight months. The promissory note was signed by Peter Haws, Henry W. Miller, George Miller, JS, and Hyrum Smith—the last four men apparently standing as sureties for Haws’s payment. The steamboat, renamed Nauvoo, was wrecked later that fall and rendered useless as a source of income, resulting in Haws’s inability to pay his note when it came due 10 May 1841. As one of the signers of Haws’s promissory note, JS bore at least partial responsibility for payment. Responsibility for collection on behalf of the United States eventually passed to Justin Butterfield, United States attorney for the District of Illinois. On 11 June 1842, a default judgment was entered against JS and three other signers of the promissory note for the amount of the note, $4,866.38, plus damages and court costs, for a total of $5,212.49 ¾. Convinced that JS had the means to pay the United States for the steamboat and that the other signers of the promissory note did not, Butterfield apparently opposed discharging of JS’s debts in bankruptcy until he had some assurance that the debt owed the United States would be paid. (Oaks and Bentley, “Joseph Smith and Legal Process,” 735–765.)
Oaks, Dallin H., and Joseph I. Bentley. “Joseph Smith and Legal Process: In the Wake of the Steamboat Nauvoo.” Brigham Young University Law Review, no. 3 (1976): 735–782.
At this point in the text, William Clayton shifts the focus of his narrative from JS’s federal bankruptcy negotiations to the contemplated habeas corpus hearing to free JS from extradition to Missouri on the charge that he was an accessory in the shooting of former Missouri governor Lilburn W. Boggs. Legal ethics of the period allowed Butterfield to represent the government’s interest in the matter of JS’s bankruptcy while simultaneously representing JS in the matter of extradition.
By this arrangement, the high council proposed to obtain a bond to cover the amount JS owed the United States, to be paid “in four equal annual instalments with interest” and “to secure the payment of the said Bond, by a mortgage” of Illinois real estate “worth double the amount of the said debt.” (Henry G. Sherwood et al., Springfield, IL, to Justin Butterfield, Springfield, IL, 16 Dec. 1842, microfilm, Records of the Solicitor of the Treasury, copy at CHL.)
Records of the Solicitor of the Treasury / National Archives Reference Service Report, 23 Sept. 1964. “Record Group 206, Records of the Solicitor of the Treasury, and Record Group 46, Records of the United States Senate: Records Relating to the Mormons in Illinois, 1839–1848 (Records Dated 1840–1852), Including Memorials of Mormons to Congress, 1840–1844, Some of Which Relate to Outrages Committed against the Mormons in Missouri, 1831–1839.” Microfilm. Washington DC: National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, 1964. Copy in Records Related to Church Interaction with Federal Government, 1840–1852, CHL.
Hyrum Smith’s discharge probably means he was considered insolvent, while JS was believed to have assets sufficient to pay the debt owed the United States.
Butterfield sent the proposal to Charles B. Penrose, United States solicitor of the Treasury, on 17 December 1842. In January 1843, Penrose directed Butterfield to reject the Mormon proposal, but in a counteroffer he authorized Butterfield to discharge JS of his debts in bankruptcy “if the parties will make a liberal Cash payment in hand, say one third of the debt, and secure the remainder” through the mortgage they proposed to Butterfield, to be paid in three annual, “equal instalments.” Apparently Butterfield did not receive Penrose’s counteroffer, and JS died before the matter could be resolved. (Justin Butterfield, Springfield, IL, to Charles B. Penrose, 17 Dec. 1842, microfilm, Records of the Solicitor of the Treasury, copy at CHL; Charles B. Penrose to Justin Butterfield, Chicago, IL, 11 Jan. 1843, microfilm, Records of the Solicitor of the Treasury, copy at CHL; Oaks and Bentley, “Joseph Smith and Legal Process,” 763–766.)
Records of the Solicitor of the Treasury / National Archives Reference Service Report, 23 Sept. 1964. “Record Group 206, Records of the Solicitor of the Treasury, and Record Group 46, Records of the United States Senate: Records Relating to the Mormons in Illinois, 1839–1848 (Records Dated 1840–1852), Including Memorials of Mormons to Congress, 1840–1844, Some of Which Relate to Outrages Committed against the Mormons in Missouri, 1831–1839.” Microfilm. Washington DC: National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, 1964. Copy in Records Related to Church Interaction with Federal Government, 1840–1852, CHL.
Oaks, Dallin H., and Joseph I. Bentley. “Joseph Smith and Legal Process: In the Wake of the Steamboat Nauvoo.” Brigham Young University Law Review, no. 3 (1976): 735–782.
TEXT: Inscription is surrounded by a hand-drawn representation of a seal. “L.S” is an abbreviation of locus sigilli, Latin for “location of the seal.”