JS, Letter, , Geauga Co., OH, to , , Clay Co., MO, 5 Dec. 1833. Retained copy, [ca. 5 Dec. 1833], in JS Letterbook 1, pp. 65–70; handwriting of ; JS Collection, CHL. For more complete source information, see the source note for JS Letterbook 1.
Historical Introduction
JS wrote this 5 December 1833 letter in response to the heartrending and sometimes conflicting reports he received about the violence against church members in , Missouri, that took place in early November 1833. The inconsistent reports were only the latest frustration for JS, who continued to agonize over the fate of friends and followers in , whose efforts to build a “” had stalled in the summer of 1833 because of persecution.
Following armed conflict on 4 November 1833, antagonistic residents and militia of forced members of the to vacate their properties and flee to , Missouri, and elsewhere over the next few weeks. In the midst of the violence, and left , Missouri, for , Ohio, on 6 November 1833 to report to JS on recent hostilities. While traveling from Independence to Boonville, Missouri, on the on board the steamboat Charleston, Hyde wrote at least two letters to newspaper editors in informing them of the violent events in : on 8 November he wrote to the editor of the Boonville Herald, and the following day he wrote to the editor of the Missouri Republican. Upon arriving in on 25 November, Hyde and Gould informed JS of “the melencholly intelegen [intelligence] of the riot in .”
On 6 November 1833, the same day that and left , began writing a letter to JS to inform him of the recent events in . The next day he completed his letter and reported that mobs had begun to force church members to leave their homes in Jackson County—information that Hyde and Gould may not have known. Although Phelps’s original letter no longer exists, according to the letter featured here, Phelps’s missive arrived in before 5 December 1833. The most complete known version of Phelps’s letter was published by in the December 1833 issue of The Evening and the Morning Star. The letter from JS featured here discusses information that appears to have been conveyed only through Phelps’s original letter—information that Cowdery, perhaps waiting for confirmation of the Mormon evacuation from Jackson County, did not include in the published version.
Some of the information conveyed in ’s letter apparently conflicted with the report sent to the editor of the Missouri Republican, to which JS by this time had access. Perhaps because the information he received was inconsistent, and possibly in an effort to document the violence against his followers, JS wrote this 5 December letter urging church leaders in to “collect every particular concerning the Mob from the begining and send us a correct statement of fact as they transpired.” Until then, he wrote, “it is difficult for us to advise.” Even without clarification, JS told the church leaders that if they had not yet been driven out they should fight to stay on their lands as long as they could: “You should maintain the ground as Long as there is a man Left. . . . it was right in the sight of God that you contend for it to the last.”
copied this 5 December letter into JS’s letterbook and concluded by inscribing “” on the final line, indicating that the original letter was most likely addressed to Edward Partridge. It is clear, however, that this letter was intended for church leaders in generally. Unfortunately, the original letter is no longer extant, and it is unknown if Partridge or any other church leader in Missouri ever received this correspondence.
Even though JS’s letter requested clarification and accurate information from church leaders in , , who was then in , was able to quickly respond to some of JS’s concerns. Hyde wrote another letter to , the editor of The Evening and the Morning Star, which corrected parts of his earlier missive to the editors of the Boonville Herald. Oliver Cowdery published Hyde’s second letter in the same December issue of the Star that published ’s 6–7 November letter and an extract of Hyde’s letter to the Boonville Herald. It is not known precisely when or why Hyde wrote his corrective letter, though he may have done so at the behest of JS or to alleviate JS’s concerns, expressed in the letter featured here, about the inconsistent information he had heard about events in Missouri. By 10 December 1833, JS received correspondence from Missouri that provided more information about the persecution and expulsion of church members in that place. Given that Hyde arrived in Kirtland in late November and that the first Kirtland issue of the Star was prepared for printing no sooner than 18 December, Hyde would have had sufficient time to consult these letters from Missouri that arrived in Kirtland by 10 December, consider his previous statements, and prepare an amended account for publication in the Star.
It is unknown whether a complete copy of Hyde’s published letter to the editor of the Boonville Herald still exists. However, Oliver Cowdery included at least a partial copy of the letter in The Evening and the Morning Star. (“The Outrage in Jackson County, Missouri,” The Evening and the Morning Star, Dec. 1833, 118; see also “Civil War in Jackson County!,” Missouri Republican [St. Louis], 12 Nov. 1833, [3].)
The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, MO, June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland, OH, Dec. 1833–Sept. 1834.
threaten our distruction and we know not how soon they may be permitted to follow the examples of the Missourians but our trust is in God and we are determined by his grace assisting us to maintain the cause and hold out faithful to the end that we may be crowned with crowns of and enter into that rest that is prepared for the children of God, we are now distributing the tipe and calculate to commence setting to day and issue a paper the Last of this week or beginning of next, we wrote to some time since and also sent by for the names of the subscribe[r]s for the star which we have not yet received and until we receive them the most of the brethren will be deprived of them and when you receive this if you have not sent them I wish you to attend to it immediately as much inconvenience will attend a delay, We expect shortly to publish a political paper weekly in favour the present administration, the influential men of that party have offered a liberal patronage to us and we hope to succeed for thereby we can shew the public the purity of our intention in supporting the government under which we live— We Learn by that the brethren have surrendered their arms to the enemy and are fleeing across the if that is the case it is not meet that they should recommence hostilities with them but if not you should maintain the ground as Long as there is a man Left. as the spot of ground upon which you were located is the place appointed of the Lord for your and it was right in the sight of God that you [p. 69]
Four months earlier, in August, JS wrote, “We are no safer here in Kirtland then you are in Zion the cloud is gethering arou[nd] us with great fury and all pharohs host or in other words all hell and the com[bined] pow[e]rs of Earth are Marsheling their forces to overthrow us.” On 21 January 1834, Oliver Cowdery wrote, “Our enemies have threatened us, but thank the Lord we are yet on earth. They came out on the 8th about 12 oclock at night, a little west & fired cannon, we suppose to alarm us, but no one was frightened, but all prepared to defend ourselves if they made a sally upon our houses.” (Letter to Church Leaders in Jackson Co., MO, 18 Aug. 1833; Oliver Cowdery, Kirtland, OH, to William W. Phelps and John Whitmer, Clay Co., MO, 21 Jan. 1834, in Cowdery, Letterbook, 22.)
Cowdery, Oliver. Letterbook, 1833–1838. Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.
On 11 September 1833, church leaders in Kirtland decided to buy a new press and type to continue printing The Evening and the Morning Star, and the following month Cowdery traveled to New York to make the purchases. On 6 December 1833, Cowdery and others began to typeset the first Kirtland issue of the Star. Nearly two weeks later, on 18 December 1833, “the Elders assembled togeth[er] in the printing office and then proceded to bow down before the Lord and dedicate the printing press and all that pertains therunto to God . . . and then proceded to take the first proof sheet of the star edited by Bro Oliv[er].” (Minutes, 11 Sept. 1833; Frederick G. Williams, Kirtland, OH, to “Dear Brethren,” 10 Oct. 1833, in JS Letterbook 1, p. 58; JS, Journal, 4–6 and 18 Dec. 1833.)
Oliver Cowdery initially made this request in an August 1833 letter to church leaders in Independence the day after he arrived in Kirtland. In early October, Frederick G. Williams reminded William W. Phelps that “Oliver has writen to you for the names and residences of the subscribers for the Star and if you have not sent them we wish you to send them immediately that there may be no delay in the papers going to subscribers as soon as they can be printed.” Unbeknownst to JS, church leaders in Missouri mailed the list of the Star’s subscribers two days before he wrote the letter featured here. Oliver Cowdery later recorded in a January 1834 letter to Missouri, “We received the names of our former subscribers a few days since, which was mailed on the 3d of last month.” In the January 1834 issue of the Star, Cowdery noted, “We forwarded the last number to those whose names were on the Mail Book of W. W. Phelps & CO. at Missouri.” (Letter to Church Leaders in Jackson Co., MO, 10 Aug. 1833; Frederick G. Williams, Kirtland, OH, to “Dear Brethren,” 10 Oct. 1833, in JS Letterbook 1, p. 58; Oliver Cowdery, Kirtland, OH, to John Whitmer, 1 Jan. 1834, in Cowdery, Letterbook, 14; Notice, The Evening and the Morning Star, Jan. 1834, 128.)
Cowdery, Oliver. Letterbook, 1833–1838. Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.
The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, MO, June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland, OH, Dec. 1833–Sept. 1834.
The Church of Christ apparently intended to print a newspaper to curry favor with the Democratic Party. Whether the paper was to address local, state, or national politics is unknown. It is also not known which influential Democrats had offered church members patronage. In August 1833, JS told church leaders in Missouri that “we think it would be wise in yo[u] to try to git influence by offering to print a paper in favor of the goverment.” On 29 November 1833, Oliver Cowdery wrote a letter from Kirtland, saying, “We shall print the Democrat in this place, as circumstances render it impossible to print it elsewhere We shall draw a Prospectus soon.” Circumstances, however, prevented the church from publishing a political newspaper until 1835, when the Northern Times was first printed. (Letter to Church Leaders in Jackson Co., MO, 18 Aug. 1833; Oliver Cowdery, Kirtland, OH, to Horace Kingsbury, Painesville, OH, 29 Nov. 1833, in Cowdery, Letterbook, 10; Crawley, Descriptive Bibliography, 1:51–53.)
Cowdery, Oliver. Letterbook, 1833–1838. Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.
Crawley, Peter. A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church. 3 vols. Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1997–2012.