Letter to Parley P. Pratt and Others, 12 June 1842
Source Note
and JS, Letter, , Hancock Co., IL, to and others, , Lancashire, England, 12 June 1842; handwriting of ; four pages; CHL. Includes address.
Bifolium measuring 12¼ × 7½ inches (31 × 19 cm). The document was trifolded twice in letter style and sealed with red wax. Remnants of the wafer are visible on the last page of the letter. There is extensive tearing along the folds, and the document has undergone conservation.
The provenance of this document is unknown. The letter bears no dockets or notations and does not appear to have been part of the early Historian’s Office holdings. Around 1912, Joseph F. Smith presented a photomechanical copy of part of the letter’s first postscript on page four to his son Hyrum M. Smith, and other copies were in the possession of the extended Smith family. During the late twentieth century, the letter was evidently among some uncataloged JS documents in the Church Historical Department. The document was cataloged in 2003.
Extract of Hyrum Smith and JS, Letter, Nauvoo, IL, to Parley P. Pratt et al., Liverpool, England, 12 June 1842, in JS, Notation, 12 June 1842, photomechanical copy, CHL.
Smith, Joseph. Notation, 12 June 1842. Photomechanical copy. CHL. MS 6448.
In 2001, Dean Jessee’s research files contained a photocopy of the letter with Jessee’s notes, presumably inscribed in the 1970s, stating the original letter was in uncataloged JS material at the Church Historical Department.
See the full bibliographic entry for this letter in the CHL catalog.
Historical Introduction
On 12 June 1842, , acting on behalf of JS, wrote a letter in , Illinois, to and the other Latter-day Saints in . While most of the had completed their missions and returned to the by the summer of 1841, Pratt had remained in England. As the senior leader there, he oversaw the church’s proselytizing, publication, and emigration efforts. However, by December 1841 Pratt had wanted to return to Nauvoo and wrote to JS for advice regarding his “wish to come home in the spring and stay till, the is done.”
This June 1842 letter appears to be a belated reply to ’s letter, and it primarily addressed a question Pratt had asked about the of the British Saints to . In the letter, advised the Saints in against separating from their spouses over differences in religious belief. He further counseled Latter-day Saint fathers to remain in England with their families until they could afford passage for their entire family, rather than traveling to the alone with the intent to send for their families after they earned enough money. Hyrum repeatedly referenced the immoral and unchristian behavior that sometimes resulted when British Saints left their spouses behind to emigrate, and he maintained that some Saints who had left their spouses in England had committed adultery by taking a new spouse in Nauvoo. These moral admonitions may also have stemmed from the recent seductions perpetrated by and other men in Nauvoo.
further cautioned the British Saints that was not as prosperous as they may have been led to believe. Many English Saints had apparently immigrated to Nauvoo with hopes of prosperity and financial assistance from the church, only to have those hopes dashed. It was likely this disappointment that led Hyrum to warn the Saints still in about Nauvoo’s struggling economy and the church’s inability to financially support everyone who wished to immigrate. He specifically emphasized that fathers immigrating to Nauvoo would not be able to earn the money necessary for their family’s passage to .
The version of the letter featured here is the copy that was sent to . It appears to be a copy made of ’s original draft. The letter includes three postscripts, which may have been added after Clayton copied the letter. The first postscript identified the families of three British immigrants who were working on the ; in exchange for their labor, the church had agreed to help the families immigrate to Nauvoo. Clayton signed both JS’s and Hyrum Smith’s names to this postscript, suggesting that JS was involved in the request. The second postscript was appended to the first and specified that the aforementioned families should be sent to Nauvoo by fall 1842. The final postscript addressed concerns Pratt had raised in his December 1841 letter to JS and offered Pratt reassurance. The last two postscripts include Hyrum’s and JS’s initials.
, who was expected to depart soon from , was appointed to carry the letter to ; as a result, the letter bears no postal markings. Fielding arrived in by September 1842. An extract of this letter was published in the November 1842 issue of the British periodical Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star.
Unlike most of the other apostles and missionaries, Pratt had relocated his family to England in fall 1840 and thus did not experience years of separation from his family. (See Givens and Grow, Parley P. Pratt, 177, 184–185.)
Givens, Terryl L., and Matthew J. Grow. Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
come to this place, & in a few weeks, or months, they have found themselves new husbands, and they are living in adultery; and we are obliged to cut them off from the . I presume. There are men also that are guilty of the same crime, as we are credibly informed. We are knowing to their having taken wives here and are credibly informed that they have wives in . There is another evil which does exist There are poor men who come here and leave their families behind in a destitute situation, and beg for assistan[c]e to send back after the[i]r families. Every man should tarry with his family untill Providence provides for the whole, for there is no means here to be obtained to send back. Money is scarce and hard to be obtained. The people that to this place are generally poor, the gathering being attended with a great sacrifice; and money cannot be obtained by labor; but all kinds of produce is plentiful, and can be obtained by labor. Therefore, the poor man that leaves his family in , cannot get means—which must be silver and Gold—to send for his family, but must remain under the painful sensation, that his family must be cast upon the mercy of the people and separated and put into the Poorhouse. Therefore, to remedy the evil, we forbid a man’s leaving his family behind, because he has no means to bring them. If the Church is not able to bring them, and the Parrish will not send them let the man tarry with his family—live with them—and die with them, and not leave them untill providence [s]hall open a way for the[m] to all come together, and we also forbid that a woman shall leave her husband, because he is an unbeliever. We also forbid that a man shall leave his wife, because she is an unbeliever. If he is a bad man (i.e. the unbeliever) there is a law to remedy that evil. and if she is a bad woman, there is a law to remedy that evil: [p. [2]]
Concern about the adulterous actions of John C. Bennett and other men in Nauvoo appears to have led to a heightened concern about morality in the spring and summer of 1842, as well as a desire to more strictly admonish the residents of Nauvoo concerning morality. A case brought before the Nauvoo high council in January 1843, however, confirmed the allegations made in this 12 June letter to Pratt. On 25 January 1843, a British convert named Mrs. Pool and her recent husband, John Blazzard, were charged with adultery. Apparently Pool had separated from her first husband in England but had not obtained a divorce, and she had married Blazzard after immigrating to Nauvoo. In cases of spousal abandonment or a long period of separation between the couple, some individuals married again without getting a divorce from their first spouse. This practice was not uncommon and was not necessarily viewed as a moral failing. Witness statements before the high council indicate that JS and Hyrum Smith may have held differing opinions on whether a second marriage without a legal divorce constituted adultery. While Hyrum considered such actions adulterous, Gustavus Hills claimed that JS had advised the couple to marry. JS had officiated at the marriage of Newel Knight and Lydia Goldthwaite Bailey in Kirtland, Ohio, in November 1835 even though Bailey had not obtained a divorce from her first husband. (Nauvoo High Council Minutes, 25 Jan. 1843; JS, Journal, 24 Nov. 1835; Flake, “Development of Early Latter-day Saint Marriage Rites,” 79–84; see also Letter to Vilate Murray Kimball, 2 Mar. 1841; Letter to the Church and Others, 23 June 1842; Nauvoo City Council Minute Book, 14 May 1842, 77; and Minutes and Discourse, 9 June 1842.)
Nauvoo High Council Minutes, 1839–1845. CHL. LR 3102 22.
Flake, Kathleen. “The Development of Early Latter-day Saint Marriage Rites, 1831–53.” Journal of Mormon History 41, no. 1 (Jan. 2015): 77–102.
Most of the people working on the Nauvootemple were paid in goods rather than specie. By 1842, Nauvoo was functioning largely on a bartering system, with little specie available in the community. (See Trustee-in-Trust, Ledger A, 23–183; and JS, Nauvoo, IL, to “the Hands of the Stone Shop,” 21 Dec. 1842, in Clayton, Journal, 21 Dec. 1842.)
Trustees Land Books / Trustee-in-Trust, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Land Books, 1839–1845. 2 vols. CHL. MS 3437.
The emphasis on earning specie, or gold and silver coins, is indicative of the economic climate in the United States in the early 1840s. Several banks, including the State Bank of Illinois, had closed after a second financial panic in 1839. Banknotes were usually seen as unreliable, and banknotes from most American banks would not be accepted in England. (See Letter from Edward Hunter, 10 May 1842; and Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 574–575.)
Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848. The Oxford History of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Several men who had immigrated to Nauvoo had left their families behind in England in hopes of earning money for their future passage but had unwittingly abandoned them to poverty. The postscript to this letter identifies three such men. While they were able to arrange to work on the Nauvoo temple to secure their families’ passage to America, JS and Hyrum Smith cautioned that this was not to be viewed as a precedent for other cases. Another English Saint, William Parr, had used his resources to travel to Nauvoo and found himself destitute and unable to provide for himself or aid his distant family. Writing on 17 June 1842, Heber C. Kimball noted the unhappiness among some of the English Saints, who had expected to be better provided for when they arrived in Nauvoo. Some, for instance, anticipated that homes would be available for them. The experiences of these immigrants likely led Hyrum to warn the Saints still in England about economic circumstances in Nauvoo and the church’s financial limitations. (Lyman Wight and James Brown, Nauvoo, IL, to Parley P. Pratt, Liverpool, England, 17 June 1842; Heber C. Kimball, Nauvoo, IL, to Parley P. Pratt, “Manchester or Liverpool,” England, 17 June 1842, Parley P. Pratt, Correspondence, CHL; Account of Meeting and Discourse, 18 June 1842.)
Pratt, Parley P. Correspondence, 1842–1855. CHL. MS 897.