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Letter from William W. Phelps, 7 July 1837

Source Note

, Letter, , Caldwell Co., MO, to JS, [, Geauga Co., OH], 7 July 1837. Featured version published in “Communications,” Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate, July 1837, 3:529. For more complete source information, see the source note for Letter to Oliver Cowdery, Dec. 1834.

Historical Introduction

In August 1836, and , the two counselors to in the , purchased a one-mile-square plot of land, or 640 acres, near , as the town site for . They anticipated it would become a gathering place for the Latter-day Saints, and they hoped it would serve as the government seat of the proposed , intended for Mormon settlement. Some Missourians saw such a county as the solution to their Mormon problem; they sought to avoid conflicts similar to those they had previously encountered in and counties by creating a separate county for Mormons. As Latter-day Saint recounted, “They came to the conclusion to give us Caldwell County and that we should live there by Ourselves.” In late 1836, helped steer a bill through the Missouri legislature that created Caldwell and counties. William W. Phelps wrote the letter featured here in July 1837 to inform JS of the progress in founding and developing the new community of Far West.
Mormons had begun settling in and nearby areas in September and October 1836, and the population grew rapidly. In an October 1836 letter, and wrote that “settlement is increasing very fast” and that “several hundred families” lived in the area. By April 1837, and had created a plat for the town and selected a location for a to be built there; the plat was eventually accepted by the , though not without controversy. The high council felt Whitmer and Phelps had gone beyond their authority in planning the town, and they objected to the two men profiting from the sale of land. It was decided that the , , should take responsibility for the plat and for the distribution of lands in Far West. After the high council addressed the controversy, plans to build a temple moved forward. As Phelps reported in this letter, in early July they held a groundbreaking ceremony for the new House of the Lord.
’s letter was printed in the July issue of the Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate. The newspaper’s printers typeset the date of the letter as 7 May 1837, but that was a mistake; the content of the letter itself indicates a July 1837 context. The church newspaper corrected its mistake in the August 1837 issue, giving the accurate date of 7 July 1837.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Pettegrew, “History,” 26. A later history likened the creation of Caldwell County as a new geopolitical jurisdiction on which to place Mormons to reservations created for American Indians. Segregating the Mormons worked, according to the later history, and trouble only erupted when they left county boundaries. (“Mormonism,” Kansas City Daily Journal, 12 June 1881, 1; Stevens, Centennial History of Missouri, 108.)

    Pettegrew, David. “An History of David Pettegrew,” not after 1858. Pettigrew Collection, 1837–1858, 1881–1892, 1908–1930. CHL.

    Kansas City Daily Journal. Kansas City, MO. 1878–1891.

    Stevens, Walter B. Centennial History of Missouri (The Center State): One Hundred Years in the Union, 1820–1921. Vol. 1. Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing, 1921.

  2. [2]

    Minute Book 2, 25 July 1836; “History of Thomas Baldwin Marsh,” 5 [draft 4], Historian’s Office, Histories of the Twelve, 1856–1858, 1861, CHL; Laws of the State of Missouri, 38–42, 46–47, 155, 188, 204; Journal of the House of Representatives [1835], 86, 188, 219; History of Caldwell and Livingston Counties, Missouri, 103–105. Latter-day Saints purchased land in the area beginning in spring 1836; for example, land was purchased for Hyrum Smith in May, June, September, and November; and for JS and Oliver Cowdery in June and September. By the end of September 1836, William W. Phelps and John Whitmer had purchased a total of 1,000 acres of land in what would become Caldwell County, including the 640 acres designated as the town plot. (Application for Land Patent, 22 June 1836; Johnson and Romig, Index to Early Caldwell County, 47, 144–145, 202, 232–233.)

    Historian’s Office. Histories of the Twelve, 1856–1858, 1861. CHL. CR 100 93.

    Laws of the State of Missouri, Passed at the First Session of the Ninth General Assembly, Begun and Held at the City of Jefferson, on Monday, the Twenty-First Day of November, in the Year of Our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty-Six. 2nd ed. St. Louis: Chambers and Knapp, 1841.

    Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States: Being the First Session of the Twenty-Fourth Congress Begun and Held at the City of Washington, December 7, 1835, and in the Sixtieth Year of the Independence of the United States. Washington DC: Blair and Rives, 1835.

    History of Caldwell and Livingston Counties, Missouri, Written and Compiled from the Most Authentic Official and Private Sources. . . . St. Louis: National Historical Co., 1886.

    Johnson, Clark V., and Ronald E. Romig. An Index to Early Caldwell County, Missouri, Land Records. Rev. ed. Independence, MO: Missouri Mormon Frontier Foundation, 2002.

  3. [3]

    “Interesting Letter,” LDS Messenger and Advocate, Dec. 1836, 3:428–429.

    Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate. Kirtland, OH. Oct. 1834–Sept. 1837.

  4. [4]

    Minute Book 2, 7 Apr. 1837; “Description of Far West Plat,” 1837, copy, Brigham Young University and Church History and Doctrine Department, Church History Project Collection, CHL; Johnson and Romig, Index to Early Caldwell County, xiii; Edward Partridge to John Whitmer and William W. Phelps, Bond, 17 May 1837, John Whitmer Family Papers, CHL; Edward Partridge and Lydia Clisbee Partridge to John Whitmer and William W. Phelps, Mortgage, 17 May 1837, John Whitmer Family Papers, CHL.

    “Description of Far West Plat,” 1837. Brigham Young University and Church History and Doctrine Department, Church History Project Collection, 1977–1981. Photocopy. CHL. Original at State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia.

    Johnson, Clark V., and Ronald E. Romig. An Index to Early Caldwell County, Missouri, Land Records. Rev. ed. Independence, MO: Missouri Mormon Frontier Foundation, 2002.

    John Whitmer Family Papers, 1837–1912. CHL.

  5. [5]

    “Erratum,” LDS Messenger and Advocate, Aug. 1837, 3:560.

    Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate. Kirtland, OH. Oct. 1834–Sept. 1837.

Asterisk (*) denotes a "featured" version, which includes an introduction and annotation.
*Letter from William W. Phelps, 7 July 1837
History, 1838–1856, volume B-1 [1 September 1834–2 November 1838] “History of Joseph Smith”

Page [529]

. May [July] 7, 1837.
Dear brother in the Lord,
Permit me to drop you a few lines to show you our progress temporally and spiritually. A multiplicity of business has prevented me from writing much the year past, but the greatness of our doings and the importance of the occasion require a recital to you for your consolation.— Monday the 3d of July, was a great and glorious day in ; more than fifteen hundred saints assembled in this place, and, at 1/2 past 8 in the morning, after a prayer, singing, and an address, proceeded to break the ground for the ; the day was beautiful, the Spirit of the Lord was with us, a cellar for this great edifice, 110 long by 80 broad was nearly finished: on Tuesday the fourth, we had a large meeting and several of the Missourians were : Our meetings, held in the open prairie, or, in fact larger than they were in when I was there. We have more or less to bless, confirm and, baptize every Sabath.
This same day our school section was sold at auction, and although entirely a prairie, it brought, on a years credit, from 3 ½ to $10,20 an acre, making our first school fund $5070!! Land can not be had round town now much less than $10 per acre.
Our numbers increase daily, and, notwithstanding the season has been cold and backward, no one has lacked a meal, or went hungry. Provisions to be sure have risen, but not as high as our accounts say they are abroad.
Public notice has been given by the mob in , north of us, for the Mormons to leave that county by the first of August, and go into . Our enemies will not slumber, till Satan knows the bigness of his lot.
Our town gains some, we have about one hundred buildings, 8 of which are stores. If the brethren abroad are wise, and will come on with means, and help enter the land and populate the and build the , we shall soon have one of the most precious spots on the Globe. God grant that it may be so. Of late we receive but little news from you: and we think much of that is exaggerated.
As ever,
.
N. B. Please say in your Messenger: “A Post office has been established at , Caldwell County, Missouri. Our brethren will now have a chance to write to their friends.” [p. [529]]
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Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Letter from William W. Phelps, 7 July 1837
ID #
354
Total Pages
1
Print Volume Location
JSP, D5:401–404
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Footnotes

  1. [1]

    David Whitmer, John Whitmer, and William W. Phelps, the Missouri presidency, met with other church leaders and Saints in Far West on 15 November 1836. At that meeting they selected “Jacob Whitmer, Elisha H. Groves, and George M. Hinkle for a building committee to assist the Presidency to build the house of the Lord in said City.” On 7 April 1837, a council consisting of the Missouri presidency, high council, and bishopric accepted that committee to build the House of the Lord and appointed the presidency “to superintend the building of the House of the Lord in this City Far West and receive Revelations Visions &c concerning said house.” Some questioned the propriety of locating a place for a temple, breaking ground on the site, and receiving revelations for the House of the Lord without the approval of JS and the church presidency. The matter was ultimately resolved in November 1837. (Minute Book 2, 15 Nov. 1836 and 7 Apr. 1837; Revelation, 4 Sept. 1837; Minutes, 6 Nov. 1837; Minutes, 10 Nov. 1837.)

  2. [2]

    Early Missouri settlers regarded prairie lands as less fertile, and therefore less valuable, than wooded land near the rivers. The land to which Phelps refers was the section designated as “school land” in the township in which Far West was located. When offering federal lands for sale, the federal government gave states the land in each sixteenth section of every surveyed township to benefit public education in the various counties. The proceeds from its sale were to support public education locally. In Far West, section 16 was located a half-mile west of the town center. (Johnson and Romig, Index to Early Caldwell County Land Records, 11; An Act Concerning the Lands to Be Granted to the State of Missouri, for the Purposes of Education, and Other Public Uses [3 Mar. 1823], Public Statutes at Large, 17th Cong., 2nd Sess., chap. 69, p. 787.)

    Johnson, Clark V., and Ronald E. Romig. An Index to Early Caldwell County, Missouri, Land Records. Rev. ed. Independence, MO: Missouri Mormon Frontier Foundation, 2002.

    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.

  3. [3]

    James B. Turner of Daviess County, Missouri, wrote a notice in summer 1837 that Mormons settling north of Grand River would be driven out. William Bowman, John Brassfield, and Adam Black were among a self-described “mob party” that “went to see the mormons” sometime that summer and demanded that they leave. (Johnson, Mormon Redress Petitions, 746–749.)

    Johnson, Clark V., ed. Mormon Redress Petitions: Documents of the 1833–1838 Missouri Conflict. Religious Studies Center Monograph Series 16. Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1992.

  4. [4]

    This information had been published in an earlier correspondence in the Messenger and Advocate. (See “From Our Elders and Correspondents Abroad,” LDS Messenger and Advocate, June 1837, 3:519.)

    Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate. Kirtland, OH. Oct. 1834–Sept. 1837.

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