Letter from William W. Phelps, 1 May 1834
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Source Note
, Letter, , Clay Co., MO, to church leaders (including JS), , Geauga Co., OH, 1 May 1834. Featured version published in The Evening and the Morning Star, May 1834, p. 160. For more complete source information, see the source note for Letter, 30 Oct. 1833.
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Historical Introduction
On 1 May 1834, wrote this letter to update church leaders in , Ohio, on the situation of the Saints who had been expelled from , Missouri, in November 1833 and who now resided mainly in , Missouri. The letter highlights continuing tensions between the Saints and the residents of Jackson County—tensions that grew as reports circulated that church members intended to regain their Jackson County lands, which the Saints did, in fact, try to do. Church leaders in petitioned Missouri governor for military assistance, but the governor did not believe he had the authority to maintain a militia force to protect church members from potential violence after they returned to possess their lands.Revelations dictated by JS in December 1833 and February 1834 state that JS was responsible for gathering the Lord’s “wariors[,] my young men and they that are of middle age” to “break down the walls of mine enemies th[r]ow down their tower and scatte[r] their watchmen.” In February 1834, JS declared his intention to travel to to help the Saints reclaim their land, thereby redeeming . For the next several weeks, JS and others sought recruits for the expedition to Missouri, setting 1 May as the date for their departure.It is unclear how much residents knew of the plans to redeem Zion by the time of ’s letter. church leaders had published the December 1833 revelation as a broadside and had sent copies of the revelation to in , Missouri, and to church members in . Given that , a Jackson County resident, was Dunklin’s lieutenant governor, it is probable that Boggs heard about the revelation and its potentially incendiary language of breaking down the walls of the Saints’ enemies and had shared that knowledge with his acquaintances in Jackson County.By late April 1834, many residents believed that church members were going to send armed forces into the county to regain their lands. According to John K. Townsend, a traveler who visited , Missouri, in late April and later published an account of his experiences, “Reports have been circulated that the Mormons are preparing to attack” Independence “and put the inhabitants to the sword.” Because of these reports, Townsend continued, residents of the town were “in a constant state of feverish alarm” and had “stationed sentries along the river for several miles, to prevent the landing of the enemy.” They also “parade[d] and stud[ied] military tactics every day” in order “to repel, with spirit, the threatened invasion.” Perhaps responding to such fears, and other church leaders informed on 24 April 1834 that although “a number of our brethren, perhaps 2 or 3 hundred, would remove to Jackson Co in the course of the ensuing summer,” they planned on peacefully reoccupying the land and using force only if they faced “another unparallelled attack from the mob.” Fears of aggression from church members continued in Jackson County, however, as Phelps’s letter explains.Given the amount of time it took for a letter to get from to , JS would not have seen ’s letter before departing for on 5 May. When the letter came to JS’s attention is unclear. published the letter in the May 1834 issue of The Evening and the Morning Star, designating it as “the last intelligence from the west.”
Footnotes
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1
For details on the Jackson County expulsion, see “Joseph Smith Documents from February 1833 through March 1834,”.
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2
William W. Phelps et al., Liberty, MO, to Daniel Dunklin, 4 Dec. 1833, copy; Daniel Dunklin, Jefferson City, MO, to William W. Phelps et al., 4 Feb. 1834, copy, William W. Phelps, Collection of Missouri Documents, CHL.
Phelps, William W. Collection of Missouri Documents, 1833–1837. CHL. MS 657.
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3
Revelation, 16–17 Dec. 1833 [D&C 101:55–57, 69–74]; Revelation, 24 Feb. 1834 [D&C 103:21–22].
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5
Minutes, 17 Mar. 1834; JS, Journal, 26–28 Feb. 1834; 1–2, 4–6, and 7 Mar. 1834; Letter to Orson Hyde, 7 Apr. 1834; see also Daniel Dunklin, Jefferson City, MO, to William W. Phelps et al., 4 Feb. 1834, copy, William W. Phelps, Collection of Missouri Documents, CHL.
Phelps, William W. Collection of Missouri Documents, 1833–1837. CHL. MS 657.
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7
Palmer, History of Napa and Lake Counties, California, 374; “Boggs, Lilburn W.,” in National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 12:303.
Palmer, Lyman L. History of Napa and Lake Counties, California. . . . San Francisco: Slocum, Bowen & Co., 1881.
The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. . . . 63 vols. New York: James T. White, 1898–1984.
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8
Boggs was one of the participants in the violence that drove church members from Jackson County in November 1833. (“A History, of the Persecution,” Times and Seasons, Jan. 1840, 1:35.)
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
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9
Townsend, Narrative of a Journey across the Rocky Mountains, 25.
Townsend, John K. Narrative of a Journey across the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River, and a Visit to the Sandwich Islands, Chili, &c. Philadelphia: Henry Perkins, 1839.
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10
Sidney Gilbert et al., Liberty, MO, to Daniel Dunklin, 24 Apr. 1834, William W. Phelps, Collection of Missouri Documents, CHL.
Phelps, William W. Collection of Missouri Documents, 1833–1837. CHL. MS 657.
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11
See Hartley, “Letters and Mail between Kirtland and Independence,” 163–189.
Hartley, William G. “Letters and Mail between Kirtland and Independence: A Mormon Postal History, 1831–33.” Journal of Mormon History 35, no. 3 (Summer 2009): 163–189.
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12
JS History, vol. A-1, 477.
JS History / Smith, Joseph, et al. History, 1838–1856. Vols. A-1–F-1 (original), A-2–E-2 (fair copy). Historian’s Office, History of the Church, 1839–ca. 1882. CHL. CR 100 102, boxes 1–7. The history for the period after 5 Aug. 1838 was composed after the death of Joseph Smith.
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13
“The Outrage in Jackson County, Missouri,” The Evening and the Morning Star, May 1834, 160.
The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, MO, June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland, OH, Dec. 1833–Sept. 1834.
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