Footnotes
Historian’s Office, Journal, 7 June 1853; Wilford Woodruff, Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, to George A. Smith, 30 Aug. 1856, in Historian’s Office, Letterpress Copybooks, vol. 1, p. 364.
Historian’s Office. Journal, 1844–1997. CHL. CR 100 1.
Historian’s Office. Letterpress Copybooks, 1854–1879, 1885–1886. CHL. CR 100 38.
Bitton and Arrington, Mormons and Their Historians, 48–55.
Bitton, David, and Leonard J. Arrington. Mormons and Their Historians. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1988.
“Letters to and from the Prophet,” ca. 1904, [4], Historian’s Office, Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904, CHL. The JS Collection includes five letters that Orson Hyde wrote in 1844. The circa 1904 inventory does not specify whether the letter received from Orson Hyde is this one, dated 26 April 1844, or the one dated 25 April 1844. The letters were docketed and processed similarly, so the inventory may be referring to both letters. (See Letter from Orson Hyde, 25 Apr. 1844.)
Historian’s Office. Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904. CHL. CR 100 130.
See the full bibliographic entry for JS Collection, 1827–1844, in the CHL catalog.
Footnotes
See Letter from Orson Hyde, 25 Apr. 1844; and Memorial to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, ca. 24–26 Mar. 1844; see also Letter from Orson Hyde, 30 Apr. 1844; Orson Hyde, Washington DC, to “Dear Brethren,” Nauvoo, IL, 9 June 1844; and Orson Hyde, Washington DC, to “Dear Brethren,” Nauvoo, IL, 11 June 1844, JS Collection, CHL.
Council of Fifty, “Record,” 11 and 19 Mar. 1844; “List of Letters,” Nauvoo Neighbor, 17 Jan. 1844, [3]. As a postmaster, Rigdon was entitled to franking privileges, meaning he could receive mail for free.
Nauvoo Neighbor. Nauvoo, IL. 1843–1845.
Hyde was apparently relying on John C. Frémont’s Report on an Exploration of the Country Lying between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains, a copy of which he reported later in the letter having received from Douglas, for some of his measurements. According to Frémont, the longitude of the mouth of the Sweetwater River was 107°45′27″ W, while the latitude of his camp near South Pass was 42°27′15″ N. (Frémont, Report on an Exploration, 56–57, 99.)
Frémont, John C. Report on an Exploration of the Country Lying between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains, on the Line of the Kanzas and Great Platte Rivers. Washington DC: U.S. Senate, 1843.
Although local settlers had organized a provisional government, it had not been recognized by either Great Britain or the United States. (See Etulain, Lincoln and Oregon Country Politics in the Civil War Era, 6–8.)
Etulain, Richard W. Lincoln and Oregon Country Politics in the Civil War Era. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2013.
In 1818 Great Britain and the United States signed a treaty authorizing a joint occupation of the vast “northwest coast of America.” The two nations renegotiated the agreement in 1827, adding a clause stipulating that if either party wanted to end the terms of the agreement, it must notify the other party twelve months in advance. On 8 January 1844, Semple introduced a resolution in the United States Senate to advise the president to inform the British government that the United States wished to end the agreement made in 1827 so that the United States could institute its laws and a territorial government in the area. The Senate debated this resolution over the next several months. On 21 March 1844, the Senate failed to pass Semple’s resolution by a vote of eighteen to twenty-eight. In General Smith’s Views, a pamphlet containing JS’s presidential platform, JS argued that the United States should claim the entire Oregon territory. (Convention with Great Britain [20 Oct. 1818], Public Statutes at Large, vol. 8, p. 249, art. 3; Convention with Great Britain [6 Aug. 1827], Public Statutes at Large, vol. 8, p. 360, art. 2; Congressional Globe, 28th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 121, 306–308, 312–315, 321–322, 353–355, 369–373, 406–407, 411–414, 417–418 [1844]; General Smith’s Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States, ca. 26 Jan.–7 Feb. 1844.)
The Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America, from the Organization of the Government in 1789, to March 3, 1845. . . . Edited by Richard Peters. 8 vols. Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1846–1867.
The Congressional Globe, Containing Sketches of the Debates and Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth Congress. Vol. 8. Washington DC: Blair and Rives, 1840.
John C. Frémont, Report on an Exploration of the Country Lying between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains, on the Line of the Kanzas and Great Platte Rivers (Washington DC: United States Senate, 1843). Frémont’s report was submitted to the Senate on 2 March 1843, and one thousand copies were ordered to be printed. (Journal of the Senate of the United States, 27th Cong., 3rd Sess., 2 Mar. 1843, 273.)
Frémont, John C. Report on an Exploration of the Country Lying between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains, on the Line of the Kanzas and Great Platte Rivers. Washington DC: U.S. Senate, 1843.
Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, Being the Third Session of the Twenty-Seventh Congress, Begun and Held at the City of Washington, December 5, 1842, and in the Sixty-Seventh Year of the Independence of the Said United States. Washington DC: Thomas Allen, 1842.
Frémont married Jessie Benton, daughter of Missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton, in 1841. (Chaffin, Pathfinder, 91.)
Chaffin, Tom. Pathfinder: John Charles Frémont and the Course of American Empire. New York: Hill and Wang, 2002.