Footnotes

1. [1]

   Appeal and Minutes, 21 June 1833.

2. [2]

   Minutes, 23 June 1833.

3. [3]

   Letter to Church Leaders in Jackson Co., MO, 18 Aug. 1833.

4. [4]

   Winchester, Plain Facts, 6–7.

   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.

5. [5]

   Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, 278–287.

   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.

6. [6]

   Eber D. Howe, author of Mormonism Unvailed, in which many of Hurlbut’s affidavits were published, later explained that residents of northern Ohio particularly feared the potential political power of the Mormons and thus employed Hurlbut after his excommunication to gather evidence against the Book of Mormon and JS. Howe recalled, “In 1833 and 34 Grandison Newel[,] Orrin Clapp[,] Nathan Corning of Mentor and many leading citizens of Kirtland and Geuaga Co employed and defrayed the expenses of Doctor Philastus Hurlbut who had been a Mormon preacher and sent him to Palmyra NY and Penn to obtain affidavits showing the bad character of the Mormon Smith Family. . . . Hurlbut returned to Ohio and lectured about the county on the Origin of Mormonism and the Book of Mormon. . . . I published only a small part of the statements Hurlbut let me have. Among them was a Manuscript written by Solomon Spaulding which he called Conneaut Story. It was written on about two quires of paper and was a Romance of Indian wars along the shore of Lake Erie between various Tribes one of which he called Erie another Chicago. . . . I was not acquainted with Hurlbut untill he came to me to have his evidence published. He was good sized fine looking full of gab but illiterate and had lectured on many subjects.” (Eber D. Howe, Statement, 8 Apr. 1885, Collection of Manuscripts about Mormons, 1832–1954, Chicago History Museum.)

   Collection of Manuscripts about Mormons, 1832–1954. Chicago History Museum.

7. [7]

   Geauga Co., OH, Court of Common Pleas, Court Records, 1807–1904, Final Record Book P, pp. 431–432, 31 Mar. 1834, microfilm 20,278, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL. A warrant was issued, and a preliminary hearing was held on 13–15 January. The court ruled in JS’s favor and affirmed that he indeed “had reason to fear” Hurlbut’s actions. Hurlbut was ordered to “enter into a recognizance to keep the peace generally and especally towards” JS. The final judgment was rendered on 31 March 1834, and the court ordered Hurlbut to put up a bond of $200 that assured he would keep the peace for six months as well as pay the substantial court costs of $112.59. George A. Smith later said that Hurlbut had, during his lectures, “said he would wash his hands in Joseph Smith’s blood.” Many years later, James A. Briggs, a Kirtland resident and professed attorney of Hurlbut, claimed that “in the winter of 1833–’34, . . . Dr. Hurlbut . . . had the prophet, Joseph Smith, arrested on a warrant of a justice of the peace for assault and battery. He had an examination before two justices in the Old Methodist Church in Painesville. It lasted three days. Judge Benjamin Bissell was the attorney for Smith and I was the attorney for Dr. Hurlbut.” Briggs may have simply been mistaken in remembering JS as the defendant in the trial involving Hurlbut. Briggs’s account of a three-day trial coincides precisely with extant legal records of the initial hearing held on 13–15 January 1834 to determine Hurlbut’s liability for threats he had made against JS. However, while legal records place that hearing at Chardon, Ohio, Briggs’s reminiscence places, specifically and descriptively, the proceedings in the Methodist church in Painesville, Ohio. These major differences between Briggs’s memory and extant legal documents of JS’s trial against Hurlbut allow for the possibility that there may have been two separate trials, one in which JS was the defendant and stood accused by Hurlbut, and the one recorded in legal documents that list JS as the complainant and Hurlbut as the defendant. (George A. Smith, Discourse, 15 Nov. 1864, in George D. Watt, Discourse Shorthand Notes, 15 Nov. 1864, Pitman Shorthand Transcriptions, CHL; Staker, Hearken, O Ye People, 597; James A. Briggs, “The Spaulding Romance,” New-York Daily Tribune, 31 Jan. 1886, 3.)

   U.S. and Canada Record Collection. FHL.

   Pitman Shorthand Transcriptions, 1998–2013. CHL.

   Staker, Mark L. Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith’s Ohio Revelations. Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2009.

   New-York Daily Tribune. New York City. 1841–1924.

8. [8]

   Hyrum Smith, Diary, 5 Apr. 1833, [12]–[13].

   Smith, Hyrum. Diary, Mar.–Apr. 1839, Oct. 1840. CHL. MS 2945.

9. [9]

   Minutes, ca. 1 June 1833; Appeal and Minutes, 21 June 1833.

10. [10]

    Joseph Smith Sr., Lucy Mack Smith, Hyrum Smith, and members of Hyrum’s family all moved onto Williams’s land after their respective arrivals in Kirtland. Joseph Smith Sr. began living on Frederick G. Williams’s farm, as instructed by revelation, in February 1831, and his family joined him a few months later. Lucy Mack Smith remembered, “We moved onto a farm which was purchased by Joseph and the Church on this farm my family were all established with this arrangement that we were to cultivate the farm and the produce was to be applied to the suport [of] our families and the use of persons who were came to the place and had no acquaintances there.” Hyrum Smith explained in his diary that he moved onto Williams’s land on 10 April 1833. Because both Hyrum and Joseph Smith Sr. are named in this letter in relation to the farm, it is improbable that JS was referencing the other major Kirtland landholding, the Peter French farm, which had been purchased in early April 1833. On 17 June 1833, Newel K. Whitney & Co. was deeded the French farm from Joseph Coe, who had initially purchased the property as the church’s agent. By the time Hurlbut was excommunicated, therefore, Whitney would not have needed JS to explain to him, as he does in this letter, that the United Firm owned the French farm. This fact would have been well known by Whitney, who would have recently signed the deed that transferred ownership of the land to the firm. (Hyrum Smith, Diary, 10–12 Apr. 1833, [14]; Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1844–1845, bk. 12, [6]; Geauga Co., OH, Deed Records, 1795–1921, vol. 17, pp. 38–39, 359–360, 10 Apr. 1833; vol. 17, pp. 360–361, 17 June 1833, microfilm 20,237, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL.)

    Smith, Hyrum. Diary, Mar.–Apr. 1839, Oct. 1840. CHL. MS 2945.

    U.S. and Canada Record Collection. FHL.

11. [11]

    Frederick G. Williams later wrote that he had allowed JS and his family to use his farm and sell its produce without receiving any payment from JS and that the farm was deeded over to JS in 1834 without any remuneration. During the same period, JS had apparently borrowed hundreds of dollars from Williams to pay for farm implements and other miscellaneous items, but when a revelation directed the members of the United Firm to forgive all of their debts with one another, Williams dutifully canceled the notes owed him by JS. (Frederick G. Williams, Statement, no date, Frederick G. Williams, Papers, CHL; see also Frederick G. Williams, “Account on Farm,” no date, Frederick G. Williams, Papers, CHL.)

    Williams, Frederick G. Papers, 1834–1842. CHL. MS 782.

12. [12]

    “To the Public,” Painesville (OH) Telegraph, 31 Jan. 1834, [3].

    Painesville Telegraph. Painesville, OH. 1822–1986.

13. [13]

    Howe, Autobiography and Recollections, 45.

    Howe, Eber D. Autobiography and Recollections of a Pioneer Printer: Together with Sketches of the War of 1812 on the Niagara Frontier. Painesville, OH: Telegraph Steam Printing House, 1878.