, Letter, , MO, to “My dearly beloved brethren & sisters in the Lord” [ and other church members, including JS], [, OH], 8 Apr. 1831. Featured version copied [between ca. 27 Nov. 1832 and ca. Jan. 1833] in JS Letterbook 1, pp. 10–12; handwriting of ; JS Collection, CHL. For more complete source information, see the source note for JS Letterbook 1.
Historical Introduction
This document is the second extant letter wrote to his associates from . Cowdery had been unaware of the pending move of both JS and the church from to Ohio when he wrote an earlier letter to newly members in Ohio in January 1831. At the time he wrote this second letter, however, he knew that the church had relocated and that JS resided in , Ohio. According to the letter presented here, Cowdery had received a letter a few days earlier informing him of the recent events in Ohio.
Though ’s letter opens with a general salutation to the “beloved brethren & sisters in the Lord,” it was evidently addressed to specifically. , one of Cowdery’s missionary companions in , listed Whitney as the recipient when he drafted the table of contents for JS’s Letterbook 1, and the letter itself states the intent to send the missionaries’ letters to “brothren Whitney.” Cowdery’s comment in the letter that the group felt entitled to free postage strongly suggests that their letters were routed through Whitney even though they were intended for a larger audience, including JS. Whitney was the postmaster of , and his franking privilege allowed him to send and receive an unlimited number of letters weighing less than half an ounce without charge. Because postal rates were calculated according to the distance the letter traveled, the missionaries in Missouri would have been charged twenty-five cents for every letter they received from the Kirtland area, a sum roughly equivalent to one-third of the average daily wages of an agricultural laborer.
Since ’s letter of 29 January, the missionaries had encountered difficulties with government officials in their attempts to preach to the American Indians. Federal Indian agent Richard W. Cummins sent a letter on 15 February to his superior, General , who was serving as superintendent of Indian affairs in , alerting him to the presence of the Mormon missionaries. Cummins told Clark that the men “act very strange” and claim “they are sent by God and must preach.” Cummins explained further: “They have a new Revelation with them, as there Guide in teaching the Indians, which they say was shown to one of their Sects in a miraculous way, and that an from Heaven appeared to one of their Men and two others of their Sect. . . . I have refused to let them stay or, go among the Indians unless they first obtain permission from you or, some of the officers of the Genl Government.” Cummins threatened the missionaries with imprisonment if they continued their preaching, according to , a member of the missionary party. In his summary of the confrontation with the Indian agent, Whitmer wrote that after the missionaries had commenced their preaching to the “delewares, and the tribe of Shawneyes . . . to our sorow there came a man whose name was Cumons and told us the he was a man under authorithy he told us that he would aprehend us up to the garoson.”
In an effort to obtain a permit to preach to the Indians, wrote to on 14 February 1831, a letter that presumably took to deliver in person on a journey to the East, which included a stop in . However, Clark was absent from his St. Louis post at the time Pratt arrived, and there is no indication that Clark responded to Cowdery’s letter. Nevertheless, Cowdery’s 8 April letter suggests that the missionaries expected a favorable resolution to their conflict with Cummins through Pratt’s efforts to obtain a permit from Clark.
Whitney had held the office of postmaster since 29 December 1826. The Kirtland Mills post office was located in his store. (U.S. Post Office Department, Records of Appointment of Postmasters, reel 4, vol. 6, p. 176; List of Post-Offices in the United States, 59; Table of the Post Offices in the United States, 216.)
U.S. Post Office Department. Records of Appointment of Postmasters, Oct. 1789–1832. National Archives Microfilm Publications, microcopy M1131, reel 4. Washington DC: National Archives, 1980.
List of Post-offices in the United States with the Names of the Post-masters of the Counties and States. . . . Washington DC: Way and Gideon, 1828.
Table of the Post Offices in the United States, Arranged by States and Counties; as They Were October 1, 1830; with a Supplement, Stating the Offices Established between the 1st October, 1830, and the First of April, 1831. Washington DC: Duff Green, 1831.
While postage could be paid by the sender, the payment of postage was often the responsibility of the recipient of a letter, and thus many pieces of mail went unclaimed because the recipient either did not or could not pay the postage. (An Act to Reduce into One the Several Acts Establishing and Regulating the Post-Office Department [3 Mar. 1825], in Post-Office Laws, Instructions and Forms, pp. 15–16, sec. 27; John, Spreading the News, 121–124.)
Post-Office Laws, Instructions and Forms, Published for the Regulation of the Post-Office. Washington DC: Way and Gideon, 1828.
John, Richard R. Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995.
An Act to Reduce into One the Several Acts Establishing and Regulating the Post-Office Department [3 Mar. 1825], in Post-Office Laws, Instructions and Forms, pp. 8–9, sec. 12; Wright, Industrial Evolution of the United States, 217; Margo, Wages and Labor Markets in the United States, 67, table 3A.5.
Post-Office Laws, Instructions and Forms, Published for the Regulation of the Post-Office. Washington DC: Way and Gideon, 1828.
Wright, Carroll D. The Industrial Evolution of the United States. Meadville, PA: Flood and Vincent, Chautauqua-Century Press, 1895.
Margo, Robert A. Wages and Labor Markets in the United States,1820–1860. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
Richard W. Cummins, Delaware and Shawnee Agency, to William Clark, [St. Louis, MO], 15 Feb. 1831, U.S. Office of Indian Affairs, Central Superintendency, Records, vol. 6, pp. 113–114.
U.S. Office of Indian Affairs, Central Superintendency. Records, 1807–1855. Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka. Also available at kansasmemory.org.
Oliver Cowdery, Independence, MO, to William Clark, [St. Louis, MO], 14 Feb. 1831, U.S. Office of Indian Affairs, Central Superintendency, Records, vol. 6, p. 103. At the time Pratt left, he was still unaware of the church’s move to Ohio. Pratt later described his journey: “Elders Cowdery, Whitmer, Peterson, myself, and F. G. Williams, who accompanied us from Kirtland, now assembled in Independence, Jackson County, Missouri, and came to the conclusion that one of our number had better return to the church in Ohio, and perhaps to head quarters in New York, in order to communicate with the Presidency, report ourselves, pay a visit to the numerous churches we had organized on our outward journey, and also to procure more books. For this laborious enterprise I was selected by the voice of my four brethren.” (Pratt, Autobiography, 61.)
U.S. Office of Indian Affairs, Central Superintendency. Records, 1807–1855. Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka. Also available at kansasmemory.org.
Pratt, Parley P. The Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, One of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Embracing His Life, Ministry and Travels, with Extracts, in Prose and Verse, from His Miscellaneous Writings. Edited by Parley P. Pratt Jr. New York: Russell Brothers, 1874.
See John Ruland, [St. Louis, MO], to John Henry Eaton, [Washington DC], 9 Jan. 1831, U.S. Office of Indian Affairs, Central Superintendency, Records, vol. 4, p. 198; and William Clark, St. Louis, MO, to John Henry Eaton, [Washington DC], 31 Mar. 1831, U.S. Office of Indian Affairs, Central Superintendency, Records, vol. 4, p. 207.
U.S. Office of Indian Affairs, Central Superintendency. Records, 1807–1855. Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka. Also available at kansasmemory.org.
<Let[ter] 7> Jackson Co Missouri April 8— 1832 1831
My dearly beloved brethren & sisters in the Lord we received your[s] dated March 1— on the 2 ult which was joyful news to our hearts for we had been long looking for letters from you with the hope that the news that we should <rieceive> woud give our friends who reside in this Land joy by confirming them in the belief that we are men of truth and the Lord God of hosts has not forsaken the earth but is in very deed about to redeem his ancien[t] covenant people & lead them with the fulness of the to springs yea fountains of living waters to his holy hill of & make them joyful in his house of prayer, For truly our Brethren we are men greatly wondered at and the Lord has given us some friends and also brethren while we are strangers in a strange land for yesterday we held a meeting and proclaimed the word of the Lord, and one sister thank the Lord obeyed the truth and at evening we held another meeting when another sister obeyed also and trust that the time is not far distant when more will follow for truly when we were assambled at the water while my natural feet stood upon an exceding large rock which had been rent in seams and fragments which was done when the God of heaven bowed his head when it was finished, I stood in spirit upon a rock that was broader then the heavens and in full assurence that the gospel was commited to me to proclaim the lord gave his spirit and sinners were pricke[d] in there hearts, I this day received heard from the deleware Nation of by the man who is employed by government a smith for that Nation he believes the truth and says he tha[n]ks God he does believe and also says that he shall shortly be which I pray God may be the case for truly my brethren he is a [p. 10]
This letter to Cowdery, likely the first communication informing him of the relocation of JS and other church members from New York to Ohio, is not extant.
Cowdery here referenced the Book of Mormon account of the prophecy of the destruction promised “at the time that he [Christ] shall yield up the ghost.” Book of Mormon prophet Samuel the Lamanite prophesied that great earthquakes at that time would result in “the rocks which is upon the face of this earth, which is both above the earth and beneath, which ye know at this time is solid, or the more part of it is one solid mass, shall be broken up; yea, they shall be rent in twain, and shall ever after be found in seams, and in cracks, and in broken fragments upon the face of the whole earth.” The fulfillment of this prophecy was also recorded in the Book of Mormon. (Book of Mormon, 1830 ed., 446–447, 471 [Helaman 14:21–22; 3 Nephi 8:18].)
According to Parley P. Pratt’s later account, three of the missionaries first lodged in the Delaware lands with “Mr. Pool . . . their blacksmith, employed by the government.” James Pool was employed “as a blacksmith for the Delaware, Shawnee, and Seneca tribes of Indians, from August, 1823, until November, 1838.” (Pratt, Autobiography, 57; Report, S. Rep. Com. no. 20, 37th Cong., 2nd Sess., p. 1, in Reports of the Committees of the Senate.)
Pratt, Parley P. The Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, One of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Embracing His Life, Ministry and Travels, with Extracts, in Prose and Verse, from His Miscellaneous Writings. Edited by Parley P. Pratt Jr. New York: Russell Brothers, 1874.
The Reports of the Committees of the Senate of the United States for the Second Session of the Thirty-Seventh Congress, 1861–’62. Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1862.