The second of two texts inscribed in a ledger book. The paper, which is ruled both horizontally and vertically, measures 12½ × 7¾ inches (32 × 20 cm). The book contains 276 leaves, including the flyleaves in the front and back of the book. The bound book, which features a brown suede cover, measures 13 × 8½ × 1¾ inches (33 × 22 × 4 cm). The spine has a pasted red label with “LEDGER” in gold lettering. Following the four front flyleaves, the first twenty-four pages are tabbed index pages. The next seventy-three pages were used by for various financial accounts he kept prior to his move to , Ohio. Following a blank page, Minute Book 2 fills the next 187 pages, although there are some blank pages within and at the end of this record. The portion of the ledger in which Minute Book 2 is inscribed has its own pagination, all apparently done by . ’s handwriting appears on the title page (the recto of the leaf preceding page 1) and on pages 1–37, 41–42, 44–52, and 55–93. Pages 38–40 are blank. ’s handwriting appears on pages 43 and 52–55. There is also unidentified handwriting in the middle of page 87. The inscription ends with minutes of the , Illinois, stake high council meetings held 1 and 15 June 1844, recorded by on pages 178–185. The minutes were recorded with a quill pen, and all are in brown ink, except for some blue ink on pages 179–181. The remaining 251 pages of the book are blank. There were originally four back flyleaves; only two remain, and they are blank.

Minute Book 2 includes several redactions made in graphite, as well as some marking in blue pencil. At some point, the leather cover was decorated with blind tooling, and a paper sticker was pasted on the spine with “CONFERENCE MINUTES AND HIGH COUNCIL RECORDS OF FAR WEST” inscribed in unidentified handwriting. This sticker resembles several other such stickers found on early church record books.

The volume may have been included in the exodus inventory as part of “Records of High Council.” It is listed in middle- and late-nineteenth-century inventories of the Historian’s Office in Salt Lake City. The Genealogical Society of Utah made a microfilm copy of the volume in 1954. Church historian Joseph Fielding Smith took the volume with him to the Office of the First Presidency when he became church president in 1970 and kept it in his safe. The book was returned to the Church History Department in 2008. These archival records and archival marking on the book indicate continuous institutional custody.

The minutes inscribed in Minute Book 2 are copies—most likely copies of copies. The original minutes of these early church conferences, councils, and other meetings were taken by and several other men who acted as clerks. Whitmer, who lived in and was the appointed church historian, may have collected and kept the minutes that he and other clerks had taken down. , who began functioning as the clerk of the Zion (Missouri) high council in on 3 March 1838, was formally appointed to that position on 6 April 1838. Immediately following his appointment, Robinson attempted to procure the records of the church in Far West from Whitmer, but Whitmer refused to relinquish them. In response, JS and wrote a letter on 9 April 1838 demanding that Whitmer surrender his notes for the history he had been appointed to keep for the church. Half a century later, Robinson recounted that although Whitmer ignored this demand to give up his historical notes, a “record” was obtained from Whitmer and brought to Robinson’s house, and Robinson “copied the entire record into another book, assisted a part of the time, by Dr. .” That Robinson copied the record into “another book” seems to imply that Whitmer’s record was also kept in a record book. That Minute Book 2 is dated 6 April 1838 (when Robinson was appointed clerk), begins in Robinson’s handwriting, and includes handwriting from Richards indicates that it is the copy of the early minutes of the church that Robinson made from Whitmer’s record. Robinson titled his copy of the record book “The Conference Minutes, and Record Book, of Christ’s Church of Latter Day Saints.” The minute book has been more commonly known by the shorter and less formal name “Far West Record.” Because of its importance in the 1830s and the frequency with which it is cited in the annotation of The Joseph Smith Papers, it has been designated with the short citation “Minute Book 2.”

The minutes of the church’s January 1831 conference, as recorded on page 2 of Minute Book 2, include a reference to a revelation recorded on page 80 of the “Book of Commandments.” This indicates that ’s record was a copy of the original minutes and was likely made sometime between 1833 and 1835 after printing of the Book of Commandments had begun and before the Doctrine and Covenants was published. If Whitmer had begun making his copy of the minutes after the publication of the Doctrine and Covenants, he would have been much more likely to reference that book than the unfinished printing of the Book of Commandments. That made a copy of the minutes, rather than continuing Whitmer’s record, suggests that Whitmer’s record was returned to him. Whitmer left on 19 June 1838. He remained in Missouri and never reestablished ties with the church in . Robinson, therefore, apparently finished copying Whitmer’s record of minutes by 19 June, when Whitmer separated from the body of the Saints. In the lists of conference and council participants found in some of the minutes, some names are followed by parenthetical remarks regarding their excommunication or their disciplinary status. These parenthetical notes were evidently added by Whitmer when he copied the originals and were then copied from Whitmer’s record by Robinson.