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[Eight pamphlets on the first principles of the gospel]

PRATT, Orson. [Eight pamphlets on the first principles of the gospel. Liverpool: 1856-7]. 8 pts. (128p.) 24 cm.

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Orson Pratt assumed the presidency of the European/British Mission in July 1856, having previously served as president of the British Mission from 1848-1850. During his earlier presidency Pratt wrote sixteen missionary tracts under the title A Series of Pamphlets. [These pamphlets are included as one of the titles in 19th Century Mormon Publications]. With his usual energy, Pratt began another series of pamphlets less than a month after assuming his European Mission.

Written in the form of chapters of a larger book, these pamphlets were issued separately so they could be circulated as missionary tracts. But it was clearly Orson Pratt’s intention to ultimately gather them together as chapters of the definitive exposition of Mormon doctrine. This was never done; and it is not known if Orson Pratt had other chapters in mind in addition to those which were published.

In all, eight pamphlets were printed in this series: Chapter I. The true faith [August 25, 1856]; Chapter II. True repentance [September 8, 1856]; Chapter III. Water baptism [September 22, 1856]; Chapter IV. The Holy Spirit [November 15, 1856]; Chapter V. Spiritual Gifts [December 15, 1856]; Chapter VI. Necessity for miracles [January 15, 1857]; Chapter VII. Universal apostasy, or the seventeen centuries of darkness [February 15, 1857]; and Chapter VIII. Latter-day kingdom, or the preparation for the second advent [March 15, 1857]. Each contained 16 pages, the whole continuously paged. The chapter heading and title were printed as a caption title; Orson Pratt’s name as author and the place and date of publication were printed along the spine of each signature. The pamphlets were issued without wrappers; but in some instances an area conference printed a set of wrappers for those tracts to be distributed in the conference.

Excerpted and edited from Peter Crawley and Chad J. Flake, A Mormon Fifty: an exhibition in the Harold B. Lee Library in conjunction with the annual conference of the Mormon History Association. (Provo, Utah, Friends of the Brigham Young University Library, 1984). Item 48, p. [34-35].

Used by permission of the authors.

Epistle of Demetrius, Junior: the silversmith, to the workmen of like occupation,1841

Pratt, Parley Parker? An epistle of Demetrius, Junior; the silversmith, to the workmen of like occupation, and all others whom it may concern,–greeting: showing the best way to preserve our pure religion, & to put down the Latter Day Saints. Printed by J. Taylor; Smallbrook Street, Birmingham. [1841?]
Broadside 37 x 25 cm.

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Traditionally An Epistle of Demetrius has been attributed to Parley P. Pratt. And this seems clear from the work itself, for it bears his distinctive style. The first edition of this work was published in Manchester, probably in 1840.

The context of An Epistle of Demetrius comes from Acts 19:21-41, which tells of the opposition generated by Demetrius, an Ephesian silversmith, to the teachings of Paul which posed a threat to the silversmiths who earned their livings making religious objects. The broadside makes a nineteenth-century Demetrius speak for the sectarian clergy in opposition to the Latter-day Saints, and it is hardly subtle in suggesting that the clergy attack the Saints only out of self-interest.

This edition of An Epistle of Demetrius is textually identical to the Manchester edition, except for the slight change in the title, the correction of one typographical error, one trivial word-change, and the change of Manchester to Birmingham in the first paragraph. It retains the phrase “for it is only about 10 years old,” referring to the age of the Church, suggesting that it was printed not too long after the Manchester edition. Printed at the bottom of the second column is Price One Penny.

The Birmingham Conference saw considerable activity during the year following its organization in March 1841. George J. Adams’s efforts there during October were particularly successful, bringing the expected anti-Mormon attacks. It seems reasonable to conjecture, therefore, that the Birmingham edition of An Epistle of Demetrius was struck off about the time of his visit there.

Excerpted and edited from Peter Crawley, A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church. Volume One, 1830-1847. (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, Religious Studies Center, [1997]). Item 135, p. 180.

Used by permission of the author and the Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University

Epistle of Demetrius, Junior: the silversmith, to the workmen of like occupation, 1842

Pratt, Parley Parker? An epistle of Demetrius, Junior; the silversmith, to the workmen of like occupation, and all others whom it may concern,–greeting: showing the best way to preserve our pure religion, & to put down the Latter Day Saints. (Printed for Elder E. P. Maginn.) [Peterborough, New Hampshire? 1842?]
Broadside 36.5 x 24 cm

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Traditionally An Epistle of Demetrius has been attributed to Parley P. Pratt. And this seems clear from the work itself, for it bears his distinctive style. The first edition of this work was published in Manchester, probably in 1840.

The context of An Epistle of Demetrius comes from Acts 19:21-41, which tells of the opposition generated by Demetrius, an Ephesian silversmith, to the teachings of Paul which posed a threat to the silversmiths who earned their livings making religious objects. The broadside makes a nineteenth-century Demetrius speak for the sectarian clergy in opposition to the Latter-day Saints, and it is hardly subtle in suggesting that the clergy attack the Saints only out of self-interest.

Two features of this edition of An Epistle of Demetrius allow a guess at the place and date of printing: Manchester has been replaced by America in the first paragraph, and the reference to the age of the Church has been changed from about 10 to about 12 years–suggesting, of course, that it is an 1842 American imprint.

Eli P. Maginn gained some notoriety in the early 1840s because of his skill as a preacher. An Englishman, born about 1819, he seems to have joined the Church in Canada in 1837 and thereafter worked in Canada and the eastern United States as a missionary. He labored in the vicinity of Peterborough, New Hampshire, from 1841 to 1843, and succeeded in raising up seven branches of the church. By May 18, 1842, he was a member of the quorums of seventy, and on July 29, 1843, was sustained as the presiding elder in Boston, Lowell, and Peterborough. Six weeks later he participated in a conference in Boston with Brigham Young and some of the Twelve, and then he dropped from sight. No mention of him occurs in the records of the LDS Church after November 1843.

On March 22, 1842, from Salem, Massachusetts, Maginn wrote of his activities to Joseph Smith and remarked: “I feel to rejoice in the prosperity of the work of the God of the Saints, which is truly prosperous in New England, the engine of eternal truth has been called into successful opposition against the crafts, and systems of “the like occupation,” and notwithstanding the contest has been exceeding fierce, the enemy being active in the usual way with falsehood, and misrepresentation, the victory is the Lord’s.”

The references to crafts and like occupation suggest Maginn had An Epistle of Demetrius in mind when he wrote this letter, so it seems likely he published the broadside about the same time. This edition was reprinted from the Manchester edition, with the two textually the same–including an obvious typographical error–except for three trifling changes in addition to those mentioned above.

Excerpted and edited from Peter Crawley, A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church. Volume One, 1830-1847. (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, Religious Studies Center, [1997]). Item 143 p.186-87.

Used by permission of the author and the Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University

Evening and the Morning Star, The

The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, Missouri: June 1832-July 1833; Kirtland, Ohio, December 1833-September 1834.
2 v. (24 nos. in 192 p.) 32 cm.

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The first Mormon newspaper had its conception at a Church conference in Ohio in September 1831 when William W. Phelps, a new convert and a veteran newspaperman, was directed to purchase a press and type in Cincinnati and establish a newspaper in Independence, Missouri. The first regular number of the Star appeared in June, and between June 1832 and July 1833, Phelps published a total of fourteen numbers before the press was destroyed on July 20, 1833.

The first fourteen issues include the earliest authorized printings of Joseph Smith’s revelations. The Star opens with “Articles and Covenants of the Church of Christ” (D&C 20), and all or parts of twenty-two other revelations, each subsequently incorporated into the Doctrine and Covenants. In addition Phelps included doctrinal discussions, instructions for the Saints, letters from the elders in various parts of the country, and bits of national and foreign news, particularly the catastrophic events which he saw as foreshadowing the Second Advent.

The Star, of course, was partly responsible for its own demise; for it was Phelp’s article “Free People of Color,” in the fourteenth issue, that precipitated the destruction of the printing office. According to the Star Extra of February 1834, he published “Free People of Color” to scotch the rumors that the Mormons were tampering with the Jackson County slaves. Unfortunately it only ignited the animosities of the local Missourians, leading immediately to the destruction of the print shop and ultimately to the expulsion of the Latter-day Saints from Jackson County.

For the non-Mormons in Jackson the Star certainly represented those characteristics which they found most objectionable in the Saints, their peculiar religious beliefs including a belief in direct revelation from God, their communitarianism, their rapidly increasing numbers in the county, and the fact that they were northerners in a slave-holding state.

The Star was resuscitated in Kirtland, Ohio, in December 1833 by Oliver Cowdery, who published ten additional numbers, making two volumes of twelve issues each. The ten issues published in Kirtland reflect the change in editor. They contain, for example, no revelations, and the articles are generally longer and better written. But then Cowdery had “hot copy,” and eight of the ten Kirtland issues include detailed discussions of the Mormons’ expulsion from Jackson County.

The circulation of the Star was small, probably no more than a few hundred, and it is clear that when it ceased publication, only a handful of files existed. Consequently, the entire twenty-four issues were reprinted in Kirtland between January 1835 and October 1836, in octavo format to conform with the Messenger and Advocate, so that more of the Church membership could retain those first Mormon writings.

Excerpted and edited from Peter Crawley, A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church. Volume One, 1830-1847. (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, Religious Studies Center, [1997]). Item 3, p.32-34.

Used by permission of the author and the Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University.

Evening and Morning Star

Evening and Morning Star: Independence: June 1832-July 1833; Kirtland: December 1833-September 1834. [Kirtland: January 1835-October 1836]
2 v. (24 nos. in 384 pp.) 24 cm

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The final number of The Evening and the Morning Star; September 1834, announced in a prospectus that the entire two volumes of the Star would be reprinted by F.G. Williams & Co., in octavo format better suited for binding, and at least two numbers of the reprint would be issued each month, commencing that November. One infers that, even at this early date, few complete runs of The Evening and the Morning Star had survived.

Despite the positiveness of the announcement, the first number of the reprinted Star did not appear until January 1835. Four additional numbers came off the press during the next five months, but only one more came out during the nine months following, undoubtedly because the shop was occupied with the Doctrine and Covenants and the hymnal. Then, between April and October 1836, the remaining eighteen numbers were reprinted. One might infer that Oliver Cowdery supervised the republication, at least the early issues, since statements at the end of the first three reprinted numbers are signed by him as editor of the Messenger and Advocate.

The reprint bears a shortened name, Evening and Morning Star, and substantial editing. Generally the material is rearranged within and among the numbers, and there are additions and deletions. In the first number, for instance, the prospectus and a statement on changes in the contents are added to the first reprinted number; an extract from the Book of Mormon, the article “On the Government of the Thoughts,” part of “Worldly Matters,” and the poem “The Body is But Chaff” are omitted; and the poems “The Prayer of a Wise Heathen” and “He Died! The Great Redeemer Died!” are moved to the second and third numbers, respectively.

There are significant textual changes. In the article “The Gathering” in the sixth number, for example, the population of the Jackson County Saints is originally given as 465 Church members and 345 nonmembers and children, while in the reprint these figures are changed to 472 and 358, respectively. The more important changes occur in the printed revelations. Apart from numerous grammatical improvements, these mainly reflect additions to the church’s governmental structure and adjustments in the practice of the law of consecration. The prospectus for the reprint as well as the statements in the first and third reprinted numbers pass these off as corrections of typographical and copying errors. But this seems disingenuous in view of the letter from Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, and F.G. Williams of June 25, 1833, which mentions typographical errors in the Book of Commandments and lists only four obvious ones. Generally the versions of the revelations in Evening and Morning Star coincide with those in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants.

Excerpted and edited from Peter Crawley, A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church. Volume One, 1830-1847. (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, Religious Studies Center, [1997]). Item 17, p. 50-51.

Used by permission of the author and the Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University.

Evening and the Morning Star Extra, The

The Evening and the Morning Star: Extra. Kirtland, Ohio, February, 1834. [Kirtland, 1834]
Broadside 32 x 24.5 cm.

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The Star Extra reprints the Missouri handbill (whose existence is inferred from several contemporary sources) together with two editorial comments by Oliver Cowdery. Its main text, entitled “The Mormons” So Called, is signed by Parley Pratt, Newel Knight, John Carrill [Corrill], and dated December 12, 1833. It recounts the events leading up to the destruction of the Star office, the agreement of the Saints to leave Jackson County by April 1, 1834, and their violent expulsion in November 1833. This account largely agrees–at a number of points word for word–with that in Parley Pratt’s 1839 work entitled History of the Late Persecution, suggesting that Parley actually wrote the handbill and used it five years later in composing his book. (See this digital collection for the 1840 edition of this work entitled Late Persecution of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints ).

Pratt, Knight, and Corrill were among the ten high priests chosen “to wa[t]ch over” the ten Missouri branches by a Church council on September 11, 1833. Knight and his father Joseph, Sr., were associated with Joseph Smith as early as 1827. Born in Marlborough, Vermont, September 13, 1800, Newel moved with his family to Bainbridge, New York, in 1809, and then to Colesville two years later. David Whitmer baptized him into the church in May 1830. In May 1831 he moved with the Colesville branch to Ohio, and three months later he led the Colesville Saints into Missouri. He was a member of the first high council in Missouri and a member of the high councils at Far West and Nauvoo. He evacuated Nauvoo with George Miller’s company in 1846, and on January 11, 1847, he died at the Ponca Indian reservation in northern Nebraska.

John Corrill was born in Worcester County, Massachusetts, September 17, 1794. He encountered Oliver Cowdery in Ohio in the fall of 1830 and was baptized into the Church the following January. On June 3, 1831, he was ordained an assistant to Bishop Edward Partridge, a position he held until November 7, 1837. In 1838 he was elected to the Missouri state legislature from Caldwell County. That fall Corrill began to distance himself from the Church leaders, and in November he testified for the state at Joseph Smith’s trial before Austin A. King. The following March he was excommunicated. He died in Quincy, Illinois, September 6, 1843. Yet his book A brief History of the Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints (Commonly Called Mormons) Including an Account of Their Doctrine and Discipline; with the Reasons of the Author for Leaving the Church (St. Louis, 1839) was inoffensive enough for The Prophet to advertise it for much of its run.

Excerpted and edited from Peter Crawley, A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church. Volume One, 1830-1847. (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, Religious Studies Center, [1997]). Item 10, p. 42-43.

Used by permission of the author and the Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University

Extract from a manuscript entitled The Peacemaker

Jacob, Udney Hay. An extract, from a manuscript entitled the Peacemaker. Or the doctrines of the millennium: being a treatise on religion and jurisprudence. Or a new system of religion and politicks. For God, my country, and my rights. By Udney Hay Jacob, an Israelite, and a shepherd of Israel. Nauvoo, Ill. J. Smith, Printer. 1842.
37 pp. 20.5 cm.

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Strictly speaking, this is not a Mormon book. Its preface states, “The author of this work is not a Mormon, although it is printed by their press.” It is included because it was printed at the Times and Seasons office and bears Joseph Smith’s name as printer, and because some have argued that it was gotten out at Joseph Smith’s behest to promote the doctrine of plural marriage.

Born in Massachusetts in 1781, Udney Hay Jacob and his family lived in Hancock County at the same time the Mormons began moving into Nauvoo. His oldest son Norton joined the Church in March 1841, much to the dismay of his family. That fall Norton left the family farm to locate seven miles from Nauvoo, and in early November 1842 he moved into the city. Udney Jacob joined the Church in 1843, became disaffected, and was rebaptized in 1845. As late as January 1844 he had not personally met Joseph Smith. He remained in Hancock while Norton traveled with the pioneer company to the Great Basin in the summer of 1847, and in the fall of 1850 he too made the overland trip to Utah. He died in Salt Lake City ten years later.

Udney Jacob seems to have written a book sometime before March 1840, when he corresponded with Martin Van Buren in an attempt to promote his work. Two chapters apparently make up An Extract from a Manuscript Entitled The Peacemaker. The Times and Seasons shop probably printed it in November 1842, since Joseph Smith repudiated it in the Times and Seasons of December 1, “a short time” after it appeared (see this digital collection).

Since it bears Joseph Smith’s name as printer, most likely it was published no later than November 12, when Smith turned the full responsibility for the printing office over to John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff, who had been managing it for the preceding nine months.

That some in Nauvoo believed the pamphlet expressed the views of the Church authorities is indicated by Oliver Olney in an anti-Mormon tract, entitled The Absurdities of Mormonism Portrayed, published in the spring of 1843. Thirty-four years later, John D. Lee made the same claim in his book Mormonism Unveiled. But in August 1845, in a response to a speech of William Smith, John Taylor publicly refuted this idea: “I had been called upon to expose the corruptions of some men who were in secret publishing the doctrines contained in a book written by Udney H. Jacobs which was a corrupt book; they state that it was Joseph’s views, published under a cloak of another man’s name and the character of Joseph Smith was implicated in the matter.”

Jacob himself commented on the pamphlet in 1851 in a letter to Brigham Young: “I cannot imagine why you suspected me unless it was that I wrote a pamphlet some years since entitled the Peace Maker–you have certainly a wrong idea of that matter. I was not then a member of this Church, and that pamphlet was not written for this people but for the citizens of the United States who professed to believe the Bible.”

The foregoing does not seem to support the contention that Joseph Smith sponsored the publication of An Extract from The Peacemaker. More likely, the stir over polygamy in the summer and fall of 1842 and his son’s recent move to Nauvoo prompted Udney Jacob to approach the Times and Seasons shop about printing his pamphlet, and a willing hand in the shop accepted the job without reviewing it with his superiors.

Excerpted and edited from Peter Crawley, A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church. Volume One, 1830-1847. (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, Religious Studies Center, [1997]). Item 165, p. 211-12.

Used by permission of the author and the Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University.

Extract from the new translation of the Bible

Extract from the new translation of the Bible, It being the 24th chapter of Matthew; but in order to show the connection we will commence with the last verse of the 23rd chapter, viz. Published for the benefit of the Saints. [Kirtland? 1835?]
Broadside 30.5 x 25 cm.

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This broadside prints the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew as revised by Joseph Smith in the spring of 1831. Two manuscripts containing this text are in the possession of the Community of Christ (formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints): the original manuscript (NT 1), and a copy made by John Whitmer in the summer of 1831 with later corrections by Joseph Smith (NT 2). This broadside differs at a number of points from both NT 1 and NT 2, but generally it follows NT 1.

It is not at all clear where or when this broadside was printed. Some have suggested it was published in Nauvoo in the 1840s to refute the teachings of William Miller, and it is so entered in Cecil K. Byrd’s A Bibliography of Illinois Imprints (Chicago, 1966), no. 782. But there are reasons for believing it was printed earlier. Of all the early Mormon presses, the type style of the Messenger and Advocate most closely resembles that of the broadside. Moreover, the text is printed in John Corrill’s A Brief History of the Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints (St. Louis, 1839), exactly as in the broadside except for one omission and some improvements in punctuation and capitalization. Because of the activity of the Kirtland press in 1835, this broadside is tentatively assigned as an 1835 Kirtland imprint.

Excerpted and edited from Peter Crawley, A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church. Volume One, 1830-1847. (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, Religious Studies Center, [1997]). Item 25, p. 60-61.

Used by permission of the author and the Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University.