This item is reproduced by permission of
Chicago
History Museum, Chicago, Illinois.
Footnotes
See Joseph Smith III, Plano, IL, to Albert D. Hagan, Chicago, IL, 22 Oct. 1880, microfilm, Chicago Historical Society, Collection of Mormon Materials, 1836–1886, CHL. In this letter to Hagan, Joseph Smith III discussed a piece of correspondence from his father to his mother that he found after his mother’s death and that he wanted to donate to the Chicago Historical Society. Although he did not identify the item as this 6 June letter, the JS and Emma Smith correspondence held at the Chicago Historical Society, together with subsequent correspondence between Smith and Hagan, suggests that the 6 June 1832 letter is the only possible letter to which he could be referring. An old typescript made by the Chicago Historical Society makes the same identification. (Joseph Smith III, Lamoni, IA, to Albert D. Hagan, Chicago, IL, 12 June 1885, microfilm, Chicago Historical Society, Collection of Mormon Materials, 1836–1886, CHL; JS, Greenville, IN, to Emma Smith, Kirtland, OH, 6 June 1832, typescript, Chicago Historical Society, Collection of Mormon Materials, 1836–1886, CHL.)
Chicago Historical Society, Collection of Mormon Materials, 1836–1886. Microfilm. CHL. MS 8136.
A note on an old transcript of the letter locates the source as “Autograph Letters vol. 16, pp. 33–36.” The recto pages of the letter still bear the visible marks of the now-erased graphite inscriptions of page numbers “33” and “35.” Volume 16 of the Autograph Letters collection at the Chicago History Museum is no longer extant. However, volumes 5 and 21 of that collection, which are still intact, provide examples of how loose documents were attached to a scrapbook. (JS, Greenville, IN, to Emma Smith, Kirtland, OH, 6 June 1832, typescript, Chicago Historical Society, Collection of Mormon Materials, 1836–1886, CHL.)
Chicago Historical Society, Collection of Mormon Materials, 1836–1886. Microfilm. CHL. MS 8136.
Footnotes
JS History, vol. A-1, 214. Mr. Porter’s brother was the doctor who took care of Whitney’s leg. Three Porter men (all apparently brothers) were in Greenville at this time: Daniel, James, and Julius. One source states that Daniel was a tavern keeper and postmaster and that James was a doctor. This same source explains that, at some point (no date is given), Julius succeeded his brother as tavern keeper and postmaster. Another source says that Daniel was a physician, not a tavern keeper. According to William Newnham Blaney, who visited Porter’s public house during the winter of 1822–1823, the tavern “was without exception the most clean and comfortable I had ever been in since I crossed the Alleghenies.” (1840 U.S. Census, Greenville, Floyd Co., IN, 299; History of the Ohio Falls Cities, 2:295–296; Wilson, “Pioneer Towns of Martin County,” 296; “Clan C,” 621.)
Census (U.S.) / U.S. Bureau of the Census. Population Schedules. Microfilm. FHL.
History of the Ohio Falls Cities and Their Counties, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches. Vol. 2. Cleveland: L. A. Williams, 1882.
Wilson, George R., ed. “Hindostan, Greenwich, and Mt. Pleasant. The Pioneer Towns of Martin County.—Memoirs of Thomas Jefferson Brooks.” Indiana Magazine of History 16 (Dec. 1920): 285–302.
JS History, vol. A-1, 215.
JS departed with Whitney a few days after writing the letter, and by the end of the month they were back in Kirtland. In 1842, Rigdon recalled that JS and Whitney reached Kirtland “about 4 weeks after I arrived,” which was 26 May 1832. (JS History, vol. A-1, 215–216; Sidney Rigdon, Statement, ca. 1842, Historian’s Office, JS History Documents, ca. 1839–1856, CHL; Cahoon, Diary, 26 May 1832.)
Historian’s Office. Joseph Smith History Documents, 1839–1860. CHL. CR 100 396.
Cahoon, Reynolds. Diaries, 1831–1832. CHL. MS 1115.
Indiana Gazetteer, 79.
The Indiana Gazetteer, or Topographical Dictionary of the State of Indiana. 3rd ed. Indianapolis, IN: E. Chamberlain, 1850.
See John 14:26; 15:26.
Mary Smith, the daughter of Hyrum and Jerusha T. Barden Smith, was almost three years old. In his journal, Hyrum Smith wrote, “I was Calt to view a Seine which Brougt unto me Sorrow and mourning Mary was Calt from time to a ternity on the 29th Day of May She Expired in mine arms Such a Day I never Before experience.” (Hyrum Smith Family Bible; Hyrum Smith, Diary and Account Book, 29 May 1832.)
Hyrum Smith Family Bible, 1834. In Hyrum Smith, Papers, ca. 1832–1844. BYU.
Smith, Hyrum. Diary and Account Book, Nov. 1831–Feb. 1835. Hyrum Smith, Papers, ca. 1832–1844. BYU.
All three children born to JS and Emma Smith to this point had died, as had Joseph Murdock Smith, one of the twins they had adopted.
Elizabeth Ann Smith Whitney apparently wrote this letter after hearing news of her husband’s broken leg and his need to recuperate before traveling further. This news was relayed to the Saints in Kirtland by Sidney Rigdon, who arrived there 26 May. (Cahoon, Diary, 26 May 1832.)
Cahoon, Reynolds. Diaries, 1831–1832. CHL. MS 1115.
See Acts 20:24.
See Song of Solomon 5:16.
A January 1832 revelation commanded McLellin to travel and preach. McLellin departed on his mission but soon questioned whether he had been called by God or by man. On 25 February he decided to “cease proclaiming”until he could satisfy his mind on the matter. After working for some time as a shopkeeper, McLellin returned to the community of Mormons in Hiram, where he soon met and courted Emeline Miller, whom he married on 26 April. (Revelation, 25 Jan. 1832–A [D&C 75:6–12]; McLellin, Journal, 25 Feb. 1832; William E. McLellin, Independence, MO, to “Beloved Relatives,” Carthage, TN, 4 Aug. 1832, photocopy, CHL.)
McLellin, William E. Journal, Apr.–June 1836. William E. McLellin, Papers, 1831–1836, 1877–1878. CHL. MS 13538, box 1, fd. 6. Also available as Jan Shipps and John W. Welch, eds., The Journals of William E. McLellin, 1831–1836 (Provo, UT: BYU Studies; Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994).
McLellin, William E. Letter, Independence, MO, to “Beloved Relatives,” Carthage, TN, 4 Aug. 1832. Photocopy. CHL. MS 617.
Miller was a niece of John and Alice (Elsa) Jacobs Johnson; her parents moved with the Johnsons from Vermont to Hiram, Ohio, in 1818. JS and Emma Smith apparently knew Miller from their residing with the Johnsons in Hiram in 1831 and 1832. (Staker, Hearken, O Ye People, 263–264, 319.)
Staker, Mark L. Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith’s Ohio Revelations. Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2009.
The following month, JS wrote to William W. Phelps that the Saints who traveled from Portage County, Ohio, to Missouri in the summer of 1832 had departed “under this displeasure of heaven”—in part because they had “receive[d] Wm McLelin into there fellowship & communion on any other conditions, then the filling his mission to the South countries according to the commandment of Jesus Christ.” (Letter to William W. Phelps, 31 July 1832.)