![[MORMONS]. A Circular of the High Council. To the Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Nauvoo, Illinois, 20 January 1846.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2005/NYR/2005_NYR_01614_0237_000(102409).jpg?w=1)
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[MORMONS]. A Circular of the High Council. To the Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Nauvoo, Illinois, 20 January 1846.
Broadside (288 x 232 mm). 1 page. Decorative floral border. In a blue morocco folding case.
THE FIRST PROCLAMATION OF THE PROPOSED MORMON MIGRATION TO THE WEST
"WE INTEND TO SEND OUT INTO THE WESTERN COUNTRY FROM THIS PLACE": THE MORMON COUNCIL ANNOUNCES ITS PLANS TO TRAVEL WEST. A remarkable survival, transmitting news of their intention to leave Nauvoo. "To the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and to all Whom it may concern; greeting. Beloved Brethren and Friends: We the members of the High Council of the church, by the voice of all her authorities, have unitedly and unanimously agreed, and embrace this opportunity to inform you, that we intend to send out into the western country from this place, sometime in the early part of the month of March, a company of pioneers, consisting mostly of young, hardy men, with some families. These are destined to be furnished with an ample outfit, taking with them a printing press, farming utensils of all kinds, with mill irons and bolting cloths, seeds of all kinds, grain, etc. The object of this early move is to put in a spring crop, to build houses, and to prepare for the reception of families who will start so soon as grass shall be sufficiently grown to sustain teams and stock. Our pioneers are instructed to proceed west until they find a good place to make a crop, in some good valley in the neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains, where they will infringe upon no one, and be not likely to be infringed upon. Here we will make a resting place, until we can determine a place for a permanent location. In the event of the President's recommendation to build blockhouses and stockade forts on the route to Oregon, becoming a law, we have encouragements of having work to do; and under our peculiar circumstances we can do it with less expense to the government than any other people...Should hostilities arise between the government of the United States and any other power, in relation to the right of possessing the Territory of Oregon, we are on hand to sustain the claim of the United States government to that country. It is geographically ours; and of right, no foreign power should hold dominion there; and if our services are required to prevent it, those services will be cheerfully rendered according to our ability. We feel the injuries that we have sustained, and are not insensible of the wrongs we have suffered; still we are Americans, and should our country be invaded, we hope to do, at least, as much as did the conscientious Quaker who took his passage on board a merchant ship and was attacked by pirates...Much of our property will be left in the hands of competent agents for sale at a low rate, for teams, for goods, and for cash. The funds arising from the sale of property will be applied to the removal of families from time to time as fast as consistent, and it now remains to be proven whether those of our families and friends who are necessarily left behind for a season to obtain an outfit, through the sale of property, shall be mobbed, burnt, and driven away by force. Does any American want the honor of doing it? or will Americans suffer such acts to be done, and the disgrace of them to rest on their character under existing circumstances? If they will, let the world know it. But we do not believe they will..." The broadside is signed in type by Samuel Bent, James Allred, George W. Harris, William Huntington, Henry G. Sherwood, Alpheus Cutler, Newel Knight, Lewis D. Wilson, Ezra T. Benson, David Fulmer, Thomas Grover and Aaron Johnson.
Brigham Young had led the defense of Joseph Smith during the troubled days in Kirtland and had held the church together during his Missouri imprisonment. After Smith's death in 1844, Young became president of the apostles and head of the church. As mob violence increased, Young prepared to effect a great exodus to the unsettled West, which Smith had earlier anticipated. Although there was a truce with the mobs, violence continued, with many houses being burned and lives threatened. Nearly the entire population of Nauvoo deserted the city in the winter of 1846, after which the mobs attacked the city with cannon and forced the remaining inhabitants out. "Young now set out to accomplish in a wilderness what Smith had failed to do in settled America--establish a permanent sanctuary and kingdom for the Saints...Thousands of Mormons followed Young in 1846 on the Mormon Trail to a temporary shelter at Winter Quarters (near Omaha, Nebraska), from which he led the first wagon company to Salt Lake City in July 1847" (Howard R. Lamar, editor, The New Encyclopedia of the American West, 1998, p. 624). This broadside is known in three copies besides the present one: at the Church Archives in Salt Lake, at Brigham Young University and at Yale. Not in Byrd, Illinois Imprints. Flake 1338; Scallawagiana 100, 31. VERY RARE.
Broadside (288 x 232 mm). 1 page. Decorative floral border. In a blue morocco folding case.
THE FIRST PROCLAMATION OF THE PROPOSED MORMON MIGRATION TO THE WEST
"WE INTEND TO SEND OUT INTO THE WESTERN COUNTRY FROM THIS PLACE": THE MORMON COUNCIL ANNOUNCES ITS PLANS TO TRAVEL WEST. A remarkable survival, transmitting news of their intention to leave Nauvoo. "To the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and to all Whom it may concern; greeting. Beloved Brethren and Friends: We the members of the High Council of the church, by the voice of all her authorities, have unitedly and unanimously agreed, and embrace this opportunity to inform you, that we intend to send out into the western country from this place, sometime in the early part of the month of March, a company of pioneers, consisting mostly of young, hardy men, with some families. These are destined to be furnished with an ample outfit, taking with them a printing press, farming utensils of all kinds, with mill irons and bolting cloths, seeds of all kinds, grain, etc. The object of this early move is to put in a spring crop, to build houses, and to prepare for the reception of families who will start so soon as grass shall be sufficiently grown to sustain teams and stock. Our pioneers are instructed to proceed west until they find a good place to make a crop, in some good valley in the neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains, where they will infringe upon no one, and be not likely to be infringed upon. Here we will make a resting place, until we can determine a place for a permanent location. In the event of the President's recommendation to build blockhouses and stockade forts on the route to Oregon, becoming a law, we have encouragements of having work to do; and under our peculiar circumstances we can do it with less expense to the government than any other people...Should hostilities arise between the government of the United States and any other power, in relation to the right of possessing the Territory of Oregon, we are on hand to sustain the claim of the United States government to that country. It is geographically ours; and of right, no foreign power should hold dominion there; and if our services are required to prevent it, those services will be cheerfully rendered according to our ability. We feel the injuries that we have sustained, and are not insensible of the wrongs we have suffered; still we are Americans, and should our country be invaded, we hope to do, at least, as much as did the conscientious Quaker who took his passage on board a merchant ship and was attacked by pirates...Much of our property will be left in the hands of competent agents for sale at a low rate, for teams, for goods, and for cash. The funds arising from the sale of property will be applied to the removal of families from time to time as fast as consistent, and it now remains to be proven whether those of our families and friends who are necessarily left behind for a season to obtain an outfit, through the sale of property, shall be mobbed, burnt, and driven away by force. Does any American want the honor of doing it? or will Americans suffer such acts to be done, and the disgrace of them to rest on their character under existing circumstances? If they will, let the world know it. But we do not believe they will..." The broadside is signed in type by Samuel Bent, James Allred, George W. Harris, William Huntington, Henry G. Sherwood, Alpheus Cutler, Newel Knight, Lewis D. Wilson, Ezra T. Benson, David Fulmer, Thomas Grover and Aaron Johnson.
Brigham Young had led the defense of Joseph Smith during the troubled days in Kirtland and had held the church together during his Missouri imprisonment. After Smith's death in 1844, Young became president of the apostles and head of the church. As mob violence increased, Young prepared to effect a great exodus to the unsettled West, which Smith had earlier anticipated. Although there was a truce with the mobs, violence continued, with many houses being burned and lives threatened. Nearly the entire population of Nauvoo deserted the city in the winter of 1846, after which the mobs attacked the city with cannon and forced the remaining inhabitants out. "Young now set out to accomplish in a wilderness what Smith had failed to do in settled America--establish a permanent sanctuary and kingdom for the Saints...Thousands of Mormons followed Young in 1846 on the Mormon Trail to a temporary shelter at Winter Quarters (near Omaha, Nebraska), from which he led the first wagon company to Salt Lake City in July 1847" (Howard R. Lamar, editor, The New Encyclopedia of the American West, 1998, p. 624). This broadside is known in three copies besides the present one: at the Church Archives in Salt Lake, at Brigham Young University and at Yale. Not in Byrd, Illinois Imprints. Flake 1338; Scallawagiana 100, 31. VERY RARE.