Letter to Wilson Law, 16 August 1842
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Source Note
JS, Letter, [near , Hancock Co., IL], to , [, Hancock Co., IL], 16 Aug. 1842; handwriting of ; two pages; JS Collection, CHL. Includes dockets, notation, and archival marking.Single leaf measuring 11⅝–11¾ × 7½–7⅝ inches (30 × 19 cm). All edges of the leaf were unevenly cut. The letter was folded and docketed for filing purposes.The document was docketed by Andrew Jenson, who began working in the Church Historian’s Office in 1882 and served as assistant church historian from 1897 to 1941. A notation by an unidentified Historian’s Office clerk was inscribed presumably in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. By 1973 the document had been included in the JS Collection at the Church Historical Department, now CHL. The document’s docket, notation, and inclusion in the JS Collection by 1973 suggest continuous institutional custody.
Footnotes
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1
Jenson, Autobiography, 131, 133, 135, 141, 192, 389; Jenson, Journal, 9 Feb. 1891 and 19 Oct. 1897; Bitton and Arrington, Mormons and Their Historians, 44–52.
Jenson, Andrew. Autobiography of Andrew Jenson. Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1938.
Jenson, Andrew. Journals, 1864–1941. Andrew Jenson, Autobiography and Journals, 1864–1941. CHL.
Bitton, David, and Leonard J. Arrington. Mormons and Their Historians. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1988.
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2
See the full bibliographic entry for JS Collection, 1827–1844, in the CHL catalog.
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Historical Introduction
While in hiding outside of , Illinois, to avoid arrest and extradition to , JS wrote to in Nauvoo on 16 August 1842 asking his opinion on whether JS should leave for a time. On 14 August, JS, as lieutenant general of the , had issued orders to Law, the legion’s major general, to rescue him if he was captured and to prepare to defend the Saints against possible enemy attacks. The next day, JS received Law’s response indicating his willingness to follow the orders and pledging full support to JS. On the night of 15 August, a group of JS’s friends and associates had traveled to the residence of , where JS was hiding, to inform JS of threats the officers seeking his arrest had made against Nauvoo’s citizens. JS’s journal indicates that after a lengthy conversation, “it was considered wisdom” for JS to make plans to depart for the ’s lumber operation at Black River Falls, Wisconsin Territory, should he feel the need to flee.The next day, apparently in the morning, JS wrote the letter to featured here, again addressing him as the major general of the Nauvoo Legion but also calling him a brother in the gospel and a friend. JS expressed joy in reading Law’s 15 August letter. He informed Law that he thought it might be best if he left for and asked for Law’s thoughts on the matter. The same day JS wrote this letter, he composed one to his wife Emma Smith, in which he outlined preparations she would need to make if they decided to flee to Wisconsin Territory. , who had been staying with JS while he was in hiding, delivered the letters to their recipients. Law responded to JS’s letter in the early afternoon of 16 August, the same day he received it., who appears to have been at ’s farm on 16 August, inscribed the version of the letter featured here. Out of all the correspondence with and while JS was in hiding in August 1842, this is the only extant letter on loose paper; all other letters from their correspondence are available only as copies made in JS’s journal. This may represent the original letter written by Clayton as JS dictated it to him. Alternately, it may be a retained copy that Clayton made after drafting the original, in which case the original is not extant. Clayton appears to have used this version when copying the contents of the letter into JS’s journal after returning to , probably between 21 and 23 August.
Footnotes
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1
Letter to Wilson Law, 14 Aug. 1842; Letter from Wilson Law, 15 Aug. 1842.
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2
JS, Journal, 15 Aug. 1842; Letter from Wilson Law, 15 Aug. 1842. On the church’s lumber operation in Wisconsin Territory, see Letter from George W. Henry, 18 July 1841; “The Church and Its Prospects,” Times and Seasons, 15 Sept. 1841, 2:543; JS, Journal, 26 and 28 June 1842; George Miller, St. James, MI, to “Dear Brother,” 26 June 1855, in Northern Islander (St. James, MI), 16 Aug. 1855, [3]–[4]; and Rowley, “Mormon Experience in the Wisconsin Pineries,” 121–129.
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
Northern Islander. St. James, MI. 1850–1856.
Rowley, Dennis. “The Mormon Experience in the Wisconsin Pineries, 1841–1845.” BYU Studies 32, nos. 1 and 2 (1992): 119–148.
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3
JS, Journal, 16 Aug. 1842; Letter to Emma Smith, 16 Aug. 1842.
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5
JS, Journal, Copied Correspondence, 30 June–17 Aug. 1842; Book of the Law of the Lord, 170–181. This date range is suggested by changes in the ink Clayton used when writing in the Book of the Law of the Lord.
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