Footnotes
Revelation, 24 Feb. 1834 [D&C 103:30–34, 40]; Minutes, 20 Feb. 1834; Revelation, 4 June 1833 [D&C 96:2].
Geauga Co., OH, Deed Records, 1795–1921, vol. 17, pp. 38–39, 359–360, 10 Apr. 1833, microfilm 20,237, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL.
U.S. and Canada Record Collection. FHL.
Minutes, 26–27 Apr. 1832; Revelation, 26 Apr. 1832 [D&C 82:11–12]; Geauga Co., OH, Deed Records, 1795–1921, vol. 17, pp. 360–361, 17 June 1833, microfilm 20,237, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL.
U.S. and Canada Record Collection. FHL.
Minutes, 17 Mar. 1834. According to the 1830 census, Roger Orton lived in Geneseo, and Edmund Bosley lived in Livonia, both in Livingston County, New York. Freeman Nickerson lived in Perrysburg, Cattaraugus County, New York, and Isaac McWithy resided in Bennington, Genesee County, New York. (1830 U.S. Census, Geneseo, Livingston Co., NY, 14; 1830 U.S. Census, Livonia, Livingston Co., NY, 65[A]; 1830 U.S. Census, Perrysburg, Cattaraugus Co., NY, 224; 1830 U.S. Census, Bennington, Genesee Co., NY, 136.)
Census (U.S.) / U.S. Bureau of the Census. Population Schedules. Microfilm. FHL.
The letter from Hyde is not extant.
The store was so named to distinguish it from Whitney’s red store. (Staker, Hearken, O Ye People, 214n32.)
Staker, Mark L. Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith’s Ohio Revelations. Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2009.
JS, Journal, 7–9 Apr. 1834. The “translating room,” located in the southeast corner on the second floor of Whitney’s store in Kirtland, was where JS had worked on his translation of the Bible and was also used for administrative purposes. (Staker, Hearken, O Ye People, 251.)
Staker, Mark L. Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith’s Ohio Revelations. Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2009.
It is unclear what debts or other monetary obligations JS had that would have prevented him from going to Missouri. The indebtedness that concerned him was likely connected with the debts of other members of the United Firm. Since firm members apparently bonded themselves in accordance with instructions in an April 1832 revelation, they may have each held responsibility for the firm’s collective debts. (Revelation, 26 Apr. 1832 [D&C 82:15]; see also Minutes, 26–27 Apr. 1832; and Parkin, “Joseph Smith and the United Firm,” 37–39.)
Parkin, Max H. “Joseph Smith and the United Firm: The Growth and Decline of the Church’s First Master Plan of Business and Finance, Ohio and Missouri, 1832–1834.” BYU Studies 46, no. 3 (2007): 5–66.
Minutes, 18 Mar. 1833; Note, 15 Mar. 1833; Revelation, 26 Apr. 1832 [D&C 82:11]. It is unclear why Sidney Rigdon, also a counselor in the presidency of the high priesthood and a member of the firm, did not sign.
TEXT: Possibly “where”.
Similarly, on 11 January 1834, JS, Frederick G. Williams, Newel K. Whitney, John Johnson, Oliver Cowdery, and Orson Hyde prayed together “that the Lord would provide, in the order of his Providence, the bishop of this Church with means sufficient to discharge every debt that the Firm owes.” (JS, Journal, 11 Jan. 1834.)
In February 1834, Parley P. Pratt and Lyman Wight presented the plight of church members who had been expelled from Jackson County to the Kirtland high council. After this, JS declared “that he was going to Zion to assist in redeeming it” and “called for volunteers to go with him.” He and several others had spent much of the preceding month trying to recruit individuals to accompany him to Missouri. (Minutes, 24 Feb. 1834; see also JS, Journal, 26–28 Feb. and 4–6 Mar. 1834.)
A December 1833 revelation instructed the branches of the church to “buy Lands” in Missouri and “gather together upon them.” (Revelation, 16–17 Dec. 1833 [D&C 101:72–74].)
Under the Land Act of 1820, settlers could purchase a minimum of eighty acres of public land for as little as $1.25 per acre. In 1834, a considerable amount of public land still existed in Missouri. According to one history, by the end of 1830 the total acreage of public land sold “had reached nearly 1,700,000 acres; sales in the decade of the 1830’s put the total to just short of 7,000,000.” (An Act Making Further Provision for the Sale of Public Lands [24 Apr. 1820], Public Statutes at Large, 16th Cong., 1st Sess., chap. 51, p. 566, sec. 3; McCandless, History of Missouri, 43–44.)
The Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America, from the Organization of the Government in 1789, to March 3, 1845. . . . Edited by Richard Peters. 8 vols. Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1846–1867.
McCandless, Perry. A History of Missouri: Volume II, 1820 to 1860. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1972.
In late October and early November 1833, non-Mormon settlers organized and attacked the homes of church members, driving most of them from Jackson County. In February 1834, some church leaders in Missouri, guarded by a state militia, returned to Jackson County to testify against their assailants before a court of inquiry. However, state attorney general Robert W. Wells and circuit attorney Amos Rees told the Saints “that such was the excitement prevailing there; that it was doubtful whether any thing could be done to bring the mobbers to justice.” The expedition to Missouri was thus meant to provide security for church members to reoccupy their Jackson County lands in the face of this strong and pervasive opposition. (Parley P. Pratt et al., “‘The Mormons’ So Called,” The Evening and the Morning Star, Extra, Feb. 1834, [1]–[2]; “A History, of the Persecution,” Times and Seasons, Feb. 1840, 1:49; Letter from William W. Phelps, 27 Feb. 1834; Revelation, 24 Feb. 1834 [D&C 103:15–16, 22–25].)
The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, MO, June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland, OH, Dec. 1833–Sept. 1834.
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.