Letter to Father Bigler, 27 May 1839
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Source Note
JS and , Letter, , Hancock Co., IL, to Father Bigler, , Adams Co., IL, 27 May 1839. Featured version copied [between 27 May and 30 Oct. 1839] in JS Letterbook 2, p. 13; 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 27 May 1839, JS and wrote a letter addressed to “Father Biggler”—likely a member of the Bigler family in , Illinois—asking him to loan money to the . Knight had recently been appointed a , an assignment that involved overseeing church financial matters. JS and Knight were also members of a committee appointed to select and purchase land for the church. The church had recently bought land in and was planning to purchase land in . Struggling to obtain the necessary funds for these purchases, JS and Knight requested that Bigler loan the church five or six hundred dollars.copied the letter into JS Letterbook 2 sometime between 27 May and 30 October 1839. At the bottom of the letter, Mulholland identified the recipient as “Mr John Biggler, Ill.,” but there is no evidence of a John Biggler residing in or Quincy at the time of this letter. The 1844 rough draft notes of JS’s manuscript history repeat the name John in connection with this 1839 letter and include a margin notation reading “Letter to J. Bigler.” When the letter was copied into the manuscript history in spring 1845, scribe changed the name to , suggesting that someone with firsthand knowledge of the original 1839 letter or of the Bigler family informed Bullock that Bigler’s forename was Mark.was the patriarch of the Bigler family living in in 1839. The Biglers joined the church in in 1837, and in March 1838 Mark and Susanna Ogden Bigler’s oldest son, Jacob Bigler, traveled to , Missouri, to purchase land. During this trip, he became acquainted with JS. The majority of the Bigler family moved to Far West by fall 1838, but they left in February 1839 to escape the conflict in , settling soon after in Quincy. Mark Bigler, who remained in Harrison County, Virginia (later West Virginia), to settle business, joined his family in Quincy in spring 1839. Although it is unclear whether JS knew Mark Bigler, Jacob Bigler helped JS and his family move from Quincy to in May 1839.JS and likely wrote the letter in JS’s home at , Illinois. The original letter is not extant, and it is unknown who acted as scribe; JS may have dictated the letter to Knight. The letter was given to , who traveled to as part of his assignment to collect money from church members. It is not known whether or another member of the Bigler family loaned funds in response to JS’s letter.
Footnotes
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2
Agreement with George W. Robinson, 30 Apr. 1839. During the 4–5 May general conference, church members approved a resolution to purchase land in Iowa Territory, but no extant documents indicate that this purchase had taken place by 27 May. According to extant records, the church’s earliest purchase of land there was made by church agent Oliver Granger on 29 May 1839. (Minutes, 4–5 May 1839; Lee Co., IA, Land Records, 1836–1961, vol. 1, pp. 507–508, 29 May 1839, microfilm 959,238, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL.)
U.S. and Canada Record Collection. FHL.
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3
Mulholland may have copied the letter the day it was composed.
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5
JS History, vol. C-1, 946; Historian’s Office, Journal, 3 May 1845, 1:38. For information on the creation of JS’s manuscript history, see Historical Introduction to History Drafts, 1838–ca. 1841.
Historian’s Office. Journal, 1844–1997. CHL. CR 100 1.
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6
Bigler, Autobiographical Sketch, 1; Bathsheba Bigler Smith, Autobiography, 2–3, 6.
Bigler, Jacob G. Autobiographical Sketch, 1907. Typescript. CHL.
Smith, Bathsheba W. Bigler. Autobiography, ca. 1875–1906. Microfilm. CHL.
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7
Bigler, Autobiographical Sketch, 1; Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1844–1845, bk. 17, [6].
Bigler, Jacob G. Autobiographical Sketch, 1907. Typescript. CHL.
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10
Mark Bigler died in Quincy on 23 September 1839. (Bigler, Autobiographical Sketch, 1.)
Bigler, Jacob G. Autobiographical Sketch, 1907. Typescript. CHL.
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