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Letter to Church Leaders in Jackson County, Missouri, 18 August 1833

Source Note

JS, Letter, , Geauga Co., OH, to , , , , , and , , Jackson Co., MO, 18 Aug. 1833; sent copy; handwriting and signature of JS; three pages; JS Collection, CHL. Includes address, postal markings, docket, and redactions.
Bifolium measuring 11 × 8⅞ inches (28 × 23 cm). The document was trifolded twice in letter style, addressed, and sealed with a red adhesive wafer. The letter was later refolded for filing. A docket in the handwriting of reads: “Letter from | J. Smith Jun | Aug. 1833”. The second leaf has two holes in the paper and is therefore missing text. The letter has undergone conservation at the folds, which has distorted some of the text.
This letter, along with other papers that belonged to , was in the Partridge family’s possession until at least the mid-1880s, sometime after which it came into the possession of the Church Historian’s Office.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    See Partridge, Genealogical Record, 1, 18–22; see also Whitney, “Aaronic Priesthood,” 5–6; and the full bibliographic entry for the Edward Partridge Papers in the CHL catalog.

    Partridge, Edward, Jr. Genealogical Record. 1878. CHL. MS 1271.

    Whitney, Orson F. “The Aaronic Priesthood.” Contributor, Apr. 1885, 241–250.

Historical Introduction

In early August, JS dictated two revelations concerning church members in . The first of these, dated 2 August 1833, that a be built in . The second revelation, which JS dictated on 6 August, instructed the entire church that in the event that “men will smite you or your familles,” members were to “bear it patiently.” When arrived in , Ohio, on 9 August 1833, he gave JS a firsthand account of the hostilities against church members in , Missouri. Nine days later, on 18 August, JS personally wrote this lengthy letter of comfort and encouragement to his beleaguered brethren in Missouri. After learning of the violence in Jackson County from Cowdery, JS wrote in the 18 August letter that “we have had the word of the Lord” and then provided information that was not included in his prior revelations: “You shall [be] deliverd from you[r] dainger and shall again flurish in spite of hell.” Perhaps thinking of a revelation dictated over two years earlier that commanded to establish a press in , JS also wrote in the letter that though the mob in Independence had razed the , another “must be built.” JS added, “We shall get a press immediately in this place and print th[e] Star,” referring to the early Mormon newspaper, “until you can obtain deliverence and git up again.” Not only the printing office but also the legally purchased land and ’s in Jackson County remained vital: “It is the will of the Lord that the Store shud [should] be kept and that not one foot of land perchased should be given to the enimies of God.” JS again consoled the members of the church in Missouri by telling them that “the harder the persicution the greater the gifts of God upon his chirch.”
Following the July violence in , word of the events spread quickly through local and regional newspapers. On 2 August 1833, the Western Monitor in Fayette, Missouri, published the 20 July minutes kept by the Jackson County citizens and their selected committee who on 20 July destroyed ’s and tarred and feathered and . A newspaper, the Missouri Republican, published a similar piece seven days later, applauding the Jackson County residents’ initiative. The article in the Republican spread rapidly throughout the nation; it was republished in as early as 21 August. Within eight days of ’s arrival in on 9 August, at least two local newspapers, the Painesville Telegraph and the Chardon Spectator, published reports of the events in Missouri. JS wrote in the following letter that “since the inteligence of the Calamity of has reached the ears of the wicked,” he and the rest of the church members in Kirtland were under the necessity of watching their homes by night “to keep off the Mob[b]ers.”
JS further explained, “We are no safer here in then you are in .” He referred, for instance, to threats from the activities of . During the months following his June 1833 excommunication, Hurlbut delivered anti-Mormon lectures near Kirtland, as well as in , Pennsylvania, where he had previously proselytized for the church. Soon thereafter Hurlbut began soliciting funds to finance a trip east to gather information concerning a manuscript that he said JS had plagiarized to write the Book of Mormon, 1830. JS wrote in the letter featured here that because of Hurlbut, “we are suffering great persicution . . . to spite us he is lieing in a wonderful manner and the peapl [people] are running after him and giveing him mony to b[r]ake down mormanism.”
Shortly after writing this 18 August missive, JS sent and to with the letter and other important documents, including the revised plat of the . The two men left no later than 4 September and arrived in Independence during the latter part of that month. In the letter featured here, JS directed church members in to “make a show as if to” prepare to leave and “wait patiently until the Lord come[s] and resto[res] unto us all things.” He also offered hope in this letter by noting that church leaders in would “w[a]it the Comand of God to do whatever he ple[a]se and if he shall say go up to and defend thy Brotheren by the sword we fly.” In late October 1833, church leaders in “declared publicly . . . that we as a people should defend our lands and houses.” On 21 October, “the mob, or at least some of the leaders began to move.” Violence soon began again, and by mid-November most church members had fled north from Jackson County into .

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Revelation, 2 Aug. 1833–A [D&C 97:10].

  2. [2]

    Revelation, 6 Aug. 1833 [D&C 98:23].

  3. [3]

    Letter to Church Leaders in Jackson Co., MO, 10 Aug. 1833.

  4. [4]

    Revelation, 20 July 1831 [D&C 57:11].

  5. [5]

    “Mormonism,” United States Telegraph (Washington DC), 21 Aug. 1833, [2]; JS History, vol. A-1, 330.

    United States Telegraph. Washington DC. 1826–1837.

  6. [6]

    “‘Regulating’ the Mormonites,” Missouri Republican (St. Louis), 9 Aug. 1833, [3].

    Daily Missouri Republican. St. Louis. 1822–1869.

  7. [7]

    “Mormonites in Missouri,” Daily National Intelligencer (Washington DC), 21 Aug. 1833, [2].

    Daily National Intelligencer. Washington DC. 1800–1869.

  8. [8]

    Report, Painesville (OH) Telegraph, 16 Aug. 1833, [3]; “Mormonites,” Chardon (OH) Spectator and Geauga Gazette, 17 Aug. 1833, [3]; see also Historical Introduction to Letter to Church Leaders in Jackson Co., MO, 10 Aug. 1833.

    Painesville Telegraph. Painesville, OH. 1822–1986.

    Chardon Spectator and Geauga Gazette. Chardon, OH. 1833–1835.

  9. [9]

    Appeal and Minutes, 21 June 1833; Minutes, 23 June 1833; JS, Journal, 28 Jan. 1834.

  10. [10]

    Winchester, Plain Facts, 5–9; “W. R. Hine’s Statement,” Naked Truths about Mormonism (Oakland, CA), Jan. 1888, 2.

    Winchester, Benjamin. Plain Facts, Shewing the Origin of the Spaulding Story, concerning the Manuscript Found, and Its Being Transformed into the Book of Mormon; with a Short History of Dr. P. Hulbert, the Author of the Said Story . . . Re-published by George J. Adams, Minister of the Gospel, Bedford, England. To Which Is Added, a Letter from Elder S. Rigdon, Also, One from Elder O. Hyde, on the Above Subject. Bedford, England: C. B. Merry, 1841.

    Naked Truths about Mormonism: Also a Journal for Important, Newly Apprehended Truths, and Miscellany. Oakland, CA. Jan. and Apr. 1888.

  11. [11]

    Winchester, Plain Facts, 8–11; see also Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, chap. 19.

    Winchester, Benjamin. Plain Facts, Shewing the Origin of the Spaulding Story, concerning the Manuscript Found, and Its Being Transformed into the Book of Mormon; with a Short History of Dr. P. Hulbert, the Author of the Said Story . . . Re-published by George J. Adams, Minister of the Gospel, Bedford, England. To Which Is Added, a Letter from Elder S. Rigdon, Also, One from Elder O. Hyde, on the Above Subject. Bedford, England: C. B. Merry, 1841.

    Howe, Eber D. Mormonism Unvailed: Or, A Faithful Account of That Singular Imposition and Delusion, from Its Rise to the Present Time. With Sketches of the Characters of Its Propagators, and a Full Detail of the Manner in Which the Famous Golden Bible Was Brought before the World. To Which Are Added, Inquiries into the Probability That the Historical Part of the Said Bible Was Written by One Solomon Spalding, More Than Twenty Years Ago, and by Him Intended to Have Been Published as a Romance. Painesville, OH: By the author, 1834.

  12. [12]

    Revised Plat of the City of Zion, ca. Early Aug. 1833.

  13. [13]

    See Letter to Vienna Jaques, 4 Sept. 1833; Knight, History, 439; Oliver Cowdery, Kirtland, OH, to John Whitmer, Missouri, 1 Jan. 1834, in Cowdery, Letterbook, 14–17; and “History of Orson Hyde,” 12, Historian’s Office, Histories of the Twelve, ca. 1856–1858, 1861, CHL.

    Knight, Newel. History. Private possession. Copy in CHL. MS 19156.

    Cowdery, Oliver. Letterbook, 1833–1838. Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.

    Historian’s Office. Histories of the Twelve, 1856–1858, 1861. CHL. CR 100 93.

  14. [14]

    Letter, 30 Oct. 1833.

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Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Letter to Church Leaders in Jackson County, Missouri, 18 August 1833
ID #
179
Total Pages
4
Print Volume Location
JSP, D3:258–269
Handwriting on This Page
  • Joseph Smith Jr.

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