For more information on this practice, see Historical Introduction to Pay Order to Edward Partridge for William Smith, 21 Feb. 1838; and Revelation, 9 Feb. 1831 [D&C 42:30–39].

De Witt, Missouri, was located about seventy miles southeast of Far West, Missouri, and almost half of its town lots were purchased by church members George M. Hinkle and John Murdock in June 1838. Shortly thereafter, Latter-day Saints began to gather there. The Saints in De Witt numbered about 430 by October 1838, when they were attacked by vigilantes and forced to leave. John Mills and around thirty other Canadian families arrived in Missouri in late September 1838, when tension and violence between the Saints and their fellow Missourians was growing. (Murdock, Autobiography, 37, 40–41; John Murdock, Affidavit, Adams Co., IL, 10 Jan. 1840, Record Group 233, Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, National Archives, Washington DC; Baugh, “Call to Arms,” 144–145, 151–163; Berrett, Sacred Places, 4:508; “De Witt, Missouri,” in Garr et al., Encyclopedia of Latter-day Saint History, 294; Brown et al., Historical Atlas of Mormonism, 46.)

Murdock, John. Autobiography, ca. 1859–1867. John Murdock, Journal and Autobiography, ca. 1830–1867. CHL. MS 1194, fd. 4.

Record Group 233, Records of the U.S. House of Representatives / Petitions and Memorials, Resolutions of State Legislatures, and Related Documents Which Were Referred to the Committee on Judiciary during the 27th Congress. Committee on the Judiciary, Petitions and Memorials, 1813–1968. Record Group 233, Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1789–2015. National Archives, Washington DC. The LDS records cited herein are housed in National Archives boxes 40 and 41 of Library of Congress boxes 139–144 in HR27A-G10.1.

Baugh, Alexander L. “A Call to Arms: The 1838 Mormon Defense of Northern Missouri.” PhD diss., Brigham Young University, 1996. Also available as A Call to Arms: The 1838 Mormon Defense of Northern Missouri, Dissertations in Latter-day Saint History (Provo, UT: Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History; BYU Studies, 2000).

Berrett, LaMar C., ed. Sacred Places: A Comprehensive Guide to Early LDS Historical Sites. 6 vols. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1999–2007.

Encyclopedia of Latter-day Saint History. Edited by Arnold K. Garr, Donald Q. Cannon, and Richard O. Cowan. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2000.

Brown, S. Kent, Donald Q. Cannon, and Richard H. Jackson, eds. Historical Atlas of Mormonism. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994.

Situated near the confluence of the Grand and Missouri rivers, De Witt was a significant port town in upper Missouri. (Turner and Clark, Twentieth Century History of Carroll County Missouri, 1:97.)

Turner, S. K., and S. A. Clark. Twentieth Century History of Carroll County, Missouri. 2 vols. Indianapolis, IN: B. F. Bowen, 1911.

After vigilantes attacked Latter-day Saints in De Witt, Missouri, JS helped them evacuate to Far West, Missouri. Troubles followed them to Far West. In late October 1838, escalating violence culminated in Governor Lilburn W. Boggs sending about 1,800 troops to lay siege to the town. (“Joseph Smith Documents from February 1838 through August 1839.”)

The federal government offered public lands—known as “Congress lands”—for purchase through land patents. The system was reformed in 1820 to make Congress lands more affordable. In the early nineteenth century, there were many land disputes in Missouri because of contested ownership between federal and state land offices and private speculators. Many members of the church who sought to purchase property in Missouri were disappointed when they were expelled from the state without financial recourse or when they realized the deeds to their lands were contested. Hyrum Smith sought specifically to collect duplicates of Missouri land records to submit to Congress to support the church’s petition for redress. In this case, it appears that John Mills purchased the improvements on land from an individual who had not yet purchased the land from the government. Mills was then forced from the land and the improvements before he could apply for and obtain a land patent. (Aron, American Confluence, 192–193; Historical Introduction to Letter from Hyrum Smith, 2 Jan. 1840; Letter to Hyrum Smith and Nauvoo High Council, 5 Dec. 1839; for information on land patents, see Application for Land Patent, 22 June 1836.)

Aron, Stephen. American Confluence: The Missouri Frontier from Borderland to Border State. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006.

In 1839, Bishop Vinson Knight purchased about sixteen thousand acres in the “Half-Breed Tract” in Iowa Territory on behalf of the church. These lands were then sold to individual members of the church settling in Lee County, Iowa Territory. (JS, Journal, 2 July 1839; Lee Co., IA, Land Records, 1836–1961, vol. 2, pp. 3–4, 4–5, 5–6, 13–15, 15–16, 26 June 1839, microfilm 959,239, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL.)

See Luke 16:19–26. No sermon has been identified wherein JS explicitly likened those living in Iowa Territory to the rich man and those in Nauvoo to the poor man. John Mills here may have been referencing one of the many times JS spoke disparagingly about settling in Iowa Territory. For example, five months prior to this letter, JS stated, “I would’nt buy property in the Iowa. I consider it stooping to accept it as a gift.” Speaking further of the “Half-Breed Tract” in Iowa Territory, JS added, “every man there who is not 1/2 breed had better come away. . . . I wish we could swap some of our 1/2 breeds here for the 1/2 breeds who lives there.” (Discourse, 6 Apr. 1843–B.)