On 27 February 1835, JS held a council at his home in , Ohio, to instruct nine of the newly appointed on the importance of keeping a record of their meetings and decisions. The council then designated and to serve as clerks for the . JS also further instructed the apostles on their duty as traveling high counselors and described their distinctive calling, role, and jurisdiction.
Although an April 1830 revelation instructed the church to keep records, early record-keeping projects were inconsistent. For instance, journal-keeping efforts for JS lapsed after ten days in 1832, resumed semioccasionally from October 1833 until 5 December 1834, and then lapsed again until late September 1835. JS and the church eventually became more consistent at working on and maintaining histories, journals, letters, minutes, and other documents, but in February 1835, such efforts were unpredictable and at times even negligent. The impetus for a renewed concentration on record keeping may have been the barrage of perceived falsehoods and misrepresentations about the church that, in part, led church leaders to continue concerted efforts to publish a collection of JS revelations, to be known as the Doctrine and Covenants. At this 27 February 1835 meeting, JS suggested that incomplete record keeping meant that “we cannot bear record to the church, and to the world, of the great and glorious manifestations which have been made to us, with that degree of power and authority, we otherwise could.”
JS also noted that church leaders had “neglected to take minutes” of decisions on doctrinal and administrative matters. His commentary underscores the fact that the extant records of the early church provide far from complete coverage of early administrative decisions and even revelations. JS’s assertion is confirmed by the lack of early church records for many events mentioned in other sources. For example, there are no extant minutes of the 25 January 1832 at which JS was designated . Various clerks, mainly and , kept minutes of church meetings at least as early as 9 June 1830. However, after Cowdery and Whitmer left for in November 1831, there is no indication that minutes of any church proceedings were kept in until early December 1832. There is also no extant record of the vision or revelation to call the Twelve Apostles and the , which JS alluded to when the Twelve were selected. JS considered the records available in February 1835 so incomplete that he felt “deep sorrow” for the “fountain of intelligence or knowledge of infinite importance which is lost.”
In response to JS’s instruction, the Twelve appointed and as clerks, and Hyde and McLellin began recording the minutes of the Twelve’s meetings, including those of this 27 February meeting, on loose-leaf paper. By May 1835, they acquired a book and began recording minutes of their meetings in it, titling the volume “A record of the transactions of the twelve apostles of the church of christ of latter day saints,” or Record of the Twelve.
Two extant records contain the minutes of the 27 February 1835 meeting. copied one version of the minutes, listing as clerk, into the Record of the Twelve probably sometime in early May 1835, making it the earliest extant version. In 1836, copied another version of the minutes, showing as the clerk, in Minute Book 1. The two original minutes drafted by McLellin and Oliver Cowdery are no longer extant. While the versions in the Record of the Twelve and Minute Book 1 contain much of the same information, each also provides important unique material. The version recorded in the Record of the Twelve, for example, includes more information about the power and authority of the Twelve than the version in Minute Book 1 does. According to the Record of the Twelve version, JS explained that the duty of the Twelve was to “go and unlock the kingdom of heaven to foreign nations”; he also stated that they stood in “the same relation to those nations” as JS stood to them, “as a minister.” JS’s remarks, as recorded in the Record of the Twelve, foreshadow further counsel given to the Twelve Apostles in May 1835, as well as instructions on priesthood that were included in the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants.
The Record of the Twelve is the only known record created by the Twelve Apostles during the first several years after their organization. The record was kept through August 1835 and subsequently used to copy and record patriarchal blessings. For more information on the Record of the Twelve, see Esplin and Nielsen, “Record of the Twelve,” 4–52.
of such things, thinking that prehaps that they would never benefit us afterwards, wh[i]ch had we now, would decide almost any point that might be agitated; and now we cannot bear record to the church nor unto the world of the great and glorious manifestations that have been made to us with that degree of power and authority whi[c]h we otherwise could if we had those decisions to publish abroad.
Since the twelve are now chosen, I wish to tell them a course which they may pursue and be benefitted hereafter in a point of light of which they, prehaps, are not now aware. At all times when you assemble in the capacity of a council to transact business let the oldest of your number preside, and let one or more be appointed to keep a record of your proceedings and on the decision of every important item, be it what it may, let such decision be noted down, and they will ever after remain upon record as law, covenants and doctrine. Any Questions thus decided might at the time appear unimportant, but should they be recorded and one of you lay hands upon them afterward you might find them of infinite worth not only to your brethren but a feast als[o] to your own souls.
Should you assemble from time to time and proceed to discuss important questions and pass decisions upon them and omit to record such decisions, by and by, you will be driven to straits from which you will not be able to extricate yourselves— not being in a sufficient situation to bring your faith to bare with sufficient perfection or power to obtain the desired information. Now in consequence of a neglect to write these things when God reveals them, not esteeming them of sufficient worth the spirit may withdraw and God may be angry, and here is a fountain of intelligence or knowledge of infinite importance which is lost. What was the cause of this? The answer is slothfulness [p. 2]