Letter from Robert D. Foster, 24 December 1839
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Source Note
, Letter, , to JS, , Philadelphia Co., PA, 24 Dec. 1839. Featured version copied [between Apr. and June 1840] in JS Letterbook 2, pp. 119–122; handwriting of ; JS Collection, CHL. For more complete source information, see the source note for JS Letterbook 2.
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Historical Introduction
On 24 December 1839, wrote a letter from to JS, who was then visiting the in and surrounding areas. Though Foster was traveling with the church’s delegation to the federal government, he was not an official member of that group. Instead, he had been asked to accompany , who was recovering from malaria. Foster wrote in a later reminiscence that after JS and left for Philadelphia, Foster remained in Washington in order “to take care of Mr. Rigdon; and also to wait upon every preacher in the city.” In this letter, Foster briefly updated JS on Rigdon’s health and described his own proselytizing efforts, including an encounter with Reverend George G. Cookman, a prominent Methodist minister in the city.JS received the letter a few days after sent it and responded on 30 December. Foster’s original letter is not extant. copied the version featured here into JS Letterbook 2 sometime between April and June 1840.
Footnotes
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2
Historical Introduction to Letter of Introduction from Sidney Rigdon, 9 Nov. 1839; Historian’s Office, JS History, Draft Notes, 31 Oct.–3 Nov. 1839, 66.
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3
Robert D. Foster, “A Testimony of the Past,” True Latter Day Saints’ Herald, 15 Apr. 1875, 227.
Saints’ Herald. Independence, MO. 1860–.
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4
The English-born Cookman immigrated to the United States in 1825 and in 1838 moved to Washington DC, where he led the congregation at Wesley Chapel. Seven days after Foster wrote this letter, the United States Senate appointed Cookman as its chaplain, a position he held until he perished at sea in March 1841. (Ridgaway, Life of the Rev. Alfred Cookman, 19–20, 31, 63, 65, 72–76, 81; Journal of the Senate of the United States, 26th Cong., 1st Sess., 31 Dec. 1839, 68.)
Ridgaway, Henry B. The Life of the Rev. Alfred Cookman; with Some Account of His Father, the Rev. George Grimston Cookman. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1873.
Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, Being the First Session of the Twenty-Sixth Congress, Begun and Held at the City of Washington, December 2, 1839, and in the Sixty-Fourth Year of the Independence of the Said United States. Washington DC: Blair and Rives, 1839.
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6
Coray, Autobiographical Sketch, 17, 19.
Coray, Howard. Autobiographical Sketch, after 1883. Howard Coray, Papers, ca. 1840–1941. Photocopy. CHL. MS 2043, fd. 1.
