Preface [Views from the Iowa Side of the Mississippi River]

These historical documents supplement the other numerous contemporaneous letters and papers coming from the 1840s in the counties and states around Nauvoo. Many such historical sources are now to be found in the Church History Library of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as well as online in the Joseph Smith Papers (josephsmithpapers.org), on the websites State Historical Society of Missouri (shsmo.org), and in the libraries and websites of the State Historical Society of Iowa (history.iowa.gov). To aid readers and researchers, the documents included in this volume are presented in four parts.

Part 1 (pp. 27–146) includes autobiographical statements by Hawkins Taylor, the sheriff of Lee County, Iowa, during the Nauvoo period. His memoirs are vivid, personal, and generally neutral. He took his job as sheriff seriously in enforcing the law, arresting any who broke the law, and working tirelessly to help tame the unsettled towns and newly formed counties in Iowa Territory in the years leading up to Iowa’s statehood in 1846. Taylor remembered the struggles and good intentions of many individual citizens, groups of developers, farmers, church leaders, and politicians. His numerous publications in the Annals of Iowa as well as in local newspapers from 1870 to 1887 (483) offer interesting, objective, trustworthy insights into the struggles of many good people during the early years of Iowa’s history. People who were not actually Latter-day Saints were sometimes used to discredit members of the Church (94).

Part 2 (147–268) presents a selective recollection of the life of David Kilbourne written by his son in 1883. In the 1840s, Kilbourne unsuccessfully tried to develop the Montrose area across the river from Nauvoo. At that time, he wrote anti-Mormon newspaper articles for the Warsaw Signal and the Hawkeye and Iowa Patriot, and he sent letters to Missouri Governor Reynolds (May 1842) and to Laban Fleak (August 1842), trying to damage Joseph Smith and the Saints. In 1843 to 1845, Kilbourne then wrote seven letters to a minister named Thomas Dent in Blackburn, Lancashire, England, who had requested Kilbourne’s help in combatting LDS missionaries who were having success in his area. Kilbourne was happy to supply unrestrained negativity about Mormons until the death of Joseph Smith had been accomplished and the Saints were clearly migrating west. Kilbourne’s very negative comments to Dent—which included unique allegations of drunkenness, thefts, and supposed swindlings by Mormons (192, 196, 242), denigrating them as “dupes” and drunkards, not believing “in any religion” and “immoral” infidels and victimizers (229, 237, 241)—must be tempered in light of Kilbourne’s frustrations, fears, and jealousies of Latter-day Saint successes. Kilbourne apparently dropped contact with Dent after the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum. He moved to Keokuk in 1852, where he again faced land speculations and enterprising efforts amidst severe economic challenges until he died in 1876.

Part 3 (269–402) begins with a lengthy, never-before-published autobiography dictated by Laban B. Fleak (275–374), followed by a barrage of ten letters and a sworn affidavit that he mailed to Governor Reynolds (July 12, 1842–August 3, 1843). These items, together with a few other documents, were published in BYU Studies 11, no. 3 (1971); these are reprinted here for easy combination with the other Iowa documents. Having fought as a Missourian in battle of Crooked River in 1838, Fleak moved to Keokuk, pursuing Joseph, planning to return to Missouri, and hoping to ingratiate himself with Governor Reynolds. Fleak spoke positively about two inoffensive Latter-day Saints (319), but he appears to have known little firsthand about Joseph Smith. Fleak then associated with people across the river in Warsaw (326), relied on uninformed Nauvoo outsiders and on expelled Mormons in Keokuk (22, 330, 329), and became a leading Mason (357, 366). One day in 1844, in western Missouri, Fleak collected at his postbox sixty-nine newspapers or letters that had been sent to him about the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum. As stated in Fleak’s recorded history, this was “glorious news. . . . No news that Fleak ever rec’d gave as much joy to him and his wife, as did this” (346).

Part 4 (403–79) presents a set of records and minutes from the Iowa Stake, 1839–1843, allowing the voices of the members of the Church in Iowa to be heard. Although there were problems in Montrose, the Church clearly worked to correct them (405). As early as 1839, a branch was established in Lee County (407). In July 1841, vigilant priesthood holders reported that several members were not keeping the Word of Wisdom or praying in their families, and Church leaders resolved to “root iniquity out of the church and see that the members did their duty” (462). As confrontations and seriously insulting allegations arose, the Zarahemla Stake was disbanded in January 1842 (409). A “treaty” was then entered into between the Church and David Kilbourne (410). Going forward, Church members in that area resolved to live the law of consecration and care for the poor (418–19), and the bishop settled disputes (420). One elder was tried by a Church council for breaking the Word of Wisdom, lying, trespass, and slander; he confessed and was forgiven (421). People were disfellowshipped for not keeping the Word of Wisdom (424), for habitually drinking “ardent Spirits,” or for “keeping tipling shops” (456). The Church disallowed bringing Iowa lawsuits against a brother (423). In conference there on April 6, 1843, Joseph Smith “condemned theft and called for an end to any gangs” (466). Church leaders often required any disputing parties to “settle the difficulty between themselves” (476).