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Notes Receivable from Rigdon, Smith & Co., 22 May 1837

Source Note

Rigdon, Smith & Co., Notes Receivable, , Geauga Co., OH, to JS, , Geauga Co., OH, 22 May 1837; handwriting of ; two pages; JS Collection, CHL. Includes docket.
One leaf, measuring 10 × 7⅞ inches (25 × 20 cm). The paper is purple-gray, with two vertical ledger lines inscribed in graphite on the right side of the recto. The top, bottom, and right edges of the recto have the square cut of manufactured paper; the left edge was torn. The left side of the recto was folded inward, and then the leaf was trifolded and docketed. There is marked soiling and soot at the folds. Exposure to the elements has turned large segments of the leaf a creamy yellow.
The provenance of this document is unknown; however, given the pattern of extant documents from the , Ohio, era in possession of the Church History Library, this document was probably bundled and stored with other loose Kirtland financial material and was likely in continuous institutional custody.

Historical Introduction

By September 1836, JS and formed a mercantile partnership, Rigdon, Smith & Co., which began operating a dry goods store in , Ohio, about six miles south of , Ohio. Goods for the store were purchased, often in bulk, from wholesale merchants in . Several church members and other residents in the Kirtland area had accounts in the store ledger, indicating they purchased goods on credit with the promise of later payment.
Although the extant store ledger shows consistent business from September 1836 to March 1837, the period from April to May 1837 shows a significant decrease in mercantile activity, with no new purchases recorded after 19 May. The store may have experienced economic pressure resulting from the national financial panic of May 1837 or from outstanding debts. The store may also have faced reduced business caused by opposition to JS and the . wrote to JS on 3 May that the Chester store was being watched, possibly by the same people threatening JS’s life in April 1837. Such opposition could have affected business at the Chester store, since church members appear to have been the majority of the store’s customers.
JS was absent from in spring 1837 because of threats of violence, but he likely returned in mid-May, and he made at least two trips to the mercantile store in between 19 and 24 May. On 22 May, JS charged several hundred dollars’ worth of household goods, tools, fabric, and books to his account and removed them from the store. He also gathered twenty-seven promissory notes from the Chester store, as recorded on the list featured here. These notes had been given to JS and the other store owners to pay for purchased goods, and JS likely took them from the store with the intention of collecting on the notes. Since these promissory notes were used to pay the store owners, they were categorized as “receivable,” meaning that the store owners could collect the promised payments. Because the notes were payable to the store owners, the owners could treat them as assets. At least eighteen of the twenty-two individuals identified in the list of promissory notes were members of the church. Only four of the individuals named in the list are included in the extant store ledger, indicating they had accounts with the store and had purchased goods on credit. The other eighteen individuals may have had accounts in a nonextant ledger book, or they may have paid for goods with a promissory note to begin with, rather than purchasing on store credit.
The majority of store accounts in the extant ledger were settled in late May. The settling of accounts, along with the lack of purchases after 19 May and JS’s removal of goods and promissory notes, suggests that the store closed at the end of May. Accounts remaining unpaid after May were settled in late June and July by promissory notes paid to and . The fact that none of these payments involved JS may indicate that in removing the goods and notes from the store in late May 1837 he dissolved the partnership of Rigdon, Smith & Co. and took all or part of what was owed him as an investor and partner in the firm.
The list of notes is in the handwriting of , who may have been a clerk at the store.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Rigdon, Smith & Co., Store Ledger, Sept. 1836–May 1837, p. [i]; “Mormonism in Ohio,” Aurora (New Lisbon, OH), 19 Jan. 1837, [3]. This was one of a few stores opened in the Kirtland area between 1835 and 1836. Reynolds Cahoon, Jared Carter, and Hyrum Smith started a store, sometimes referred to as the “Committee Store,” under the mercantile firm of Cahoon, Carter & Co. in June 1835. John F. Boynton and Lyman Johnson began their own dry goods store by 1837. (Advertisement, Northern Times, 9 Oct. 1835, [4]; Pratt, Account Book and Autobiography, Oct. 1836–Jan. 1837; Cowdery, Docket Book, 86, 98, 219, 224.)

    Aurora. New Lisbon, OH. 1835–1837.

    Northern Times. Kirtland, OH. 1835–[1836?].

    Pratt, Orson. Account Book and Autobiography, 1833, 1836–1837. CHL.

    Cowdery, Oliver. Docket Book, June–Sept. 1837. Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.

  2. [2]

    These goods included items ranging from pocketknives and washboards to shoes, fabric, and books. Some of these goods were likely purchased wholesale from merchants in New York City and Buffalo, New York. Receipts and invoices for the mercantile firms of Rigdon, Smith & Co; Cahoon, Carter & Co.; and H. Smith & Co. document purchasing agents’ trips to Buffalo in June 1836 and New York City in October 1836 to obtain goods for the stores in Kirtland and Chester. (Buffalo and New York City Invoices, June and Oct. 1836, JS Office Papers, CHL.)

    JS Office Papers / Joseph Smith Office Papers, ca. 1835–1845. CHL. MS 21600.

  3. [3]

    Rigdon, Smith & Co., Store Ledger, Sept. 1836–May 1837, p. 79.

  4. [4]

    See Introduction to Part 5: 5 Oct. 1836–10 Apr. 1837; and “Joseph Smith Documents from October 1835 through January 1838.”

  5. [5]

    Historical Introduction to Letter from Newel K. Whitney, 20 Apr. 1837.

  6. [6]

    Letter from Emma Smith, 3 May 1837. Emma Smith, Newel K. Whitney, and Wilford Woodruff each mentioned unidentified enemies threatening JS’s life in April and May 1837. (See Letter from Newel K. Whitney, 20 Apr. 1837; Letter from Emma Smith, 25 Apr. 1837; and Woodruff, Journal, 13 Apr. 1837; see also Introduction to Part 6: 20 Apr.–14 Sept. 1837.)

    Woodruff, Wilford. Journals, 1833–1898. Wilford Woodruff, Journals and Papers, 1828–1898. CHL. MS 1352.

  7. [7]

    For more on JS’s absence from Kirtland, see Historical Introduction to Letter from Newel K. Whitney, 20 Apr. 1837. According to extant records, JS took out two bills of goods from the Chester store during this six-day period. One is dated 22 May, the same day he made the list of promissory notes, and the other includes three different dates: 19 May, 22 May, and 24 May. (“Bill of Goods Taken from the Chester Store,” 20 May 1837, JS Collection, CHL; “Bill of Goods Taken from the Chester Store,” 19–24 May 1837, JS Office Papers, CHL.)

  8. [8]

    Coffin, Progressive Exercises in Book Keeping, 60; “Receivable,” in Oxford English Dictionary, 8:231.

    Coffin, James H. Progressive Exercises in Book Keeping, by Single and Double Entry. Greenfield, MA: A. Phelps, 1836.

    Oxford English Dictionary. Compact ed. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971.

  9. [9]

    Three of the individuals named in the list have not been identified: E. Bevin, G. Kirkndall, and G. Coates. Samuel McBride may have been a relation of church member Reuben McBride, but no documentation indicates whether he too was a Mormon.

  10. [10]

    These were Sidney Rigdon, Samuel Smith, Alexander Badlam, and Edson Barney. (Rigdon, Smith & Co., Store Ledger, Sept. 1836–May 1837, pp. 5, 21, 31, 50.)

  11. [11]

    There is also a possibility that individuals buying goods from the store paid using promissory notes from other individuals. Promissory notes were negotiable and could be transferred from one person to another until paid. As specie and credible currency became scarcer in the Panic of 1837, and as skepticism increased toward the notes of the Kirtland Safety Society, promissory notes would have served as a replacement for other circulating mediums.

  12. [12]

    Rigdon, Smith & Co., Store Ledger, Sept. 1836–May 1837, pp. 31, 52, 56, 69.

Page [2]

List of notes taken from the Store by J. Smith Jr—
$763.68 [p. [2]]
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Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Notes Receivable from Rigdon, Smith & Co., 22 May 1837
ID #
2152
Total Pages
2
Print Volume Location
JSP, D5:382–385
Handwriting on This Page
  • Sylvester Smith

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