Church History
Joseph Smith’s Revelations, Doctrine and Covenants 111

“Doctrine and Covenants 111,” Joseph Smith’s Revelations: A Doctrine and Covenants Study Companion from the Joseph Smith Papers (2020)

“Doctrine and Covenants 111,” Joseph Smith’s Revelations: A Doctrine and Covenants Study Companion from the Joseph Smith Papers

Doctrine and Covenants 111

Revelation, 6 August 1836

Source Note

Revelation, Salem, Essex Co., MA, 6 Aug. 1836. Featured version copied [between ca. Sept. 1836 and ca. early 1840s] in William W. Phelps, Diary, 1835–1864, pp. 35–[37]; handwriting of William W. Phelps; CHL. For more information, see the source note for William. W. Phelps, Diary, on the Joseph Smith Papers website.

Historical Introduction

On 25 July 1836, after writing two letters concerning church members in Missouri, JS, Hyrum Smith, Oliver Cowdery, and Sidney Rigdon left Kirtland, Ohio, to travel to the eastern United States, briefly visiting New York City and Boston and staying in Salem, Massachusetts, before returning to Kirtland in mid-September.1 Salem, which was officially incorporated as a city in May 1836, was described by Oliver Cowdery as a “pleasantly situated town with fifteen thousand inhabitants.”2 Located on Massachusetts Bay about fifteen miles north of the larger city of Boston, Salem’s busy port held a prominent place in the domestic and international commercial shipping trade of the United States.3 JS and his three companions arrived in Salem on 5 August and rented a house on Union Street for three weeks. The house may have been where JS dictated this revelation a day later.4

No known contemporary documents specify church leaders’ reasons for visiting the eastern United States, and few records discuss the trip. The main contemporary sources of information are two letters written by Oliver Cowdery to his brother Warren A. Cowdery, which were published in the church’s newspaper, and a letter JS wrote to his wife Emma while in Salem. Oliver Cowdery’s letters indicate that their time in New England was spent preaching and occasionally visiting historic places.5 The four church leaders were likely motivated by a concern about Zion and the financial situation of the church, particularly a need to reduce debts of church leaders. The financial burden placed on them by finishing the House of the Lord in Kirtland and purchasing land in Ohio and Missouri had added significantly to the church’s existing debts. Following a 2 April 1836 meeting at which JS and Cowdery were assigned to raise money to purchase land in Missouri, the men appear to have encountered difficulties in finding members willing to give their money or land for the cause of Zion.6 With the citizens of Clay County, Missouri, requesting that church members living there relocate, the need for temporal means to aid church members in Missouri grew even more pressing. JS and his colleagues may have raised money as they preached during their trip east in 1836, as it was not uncommon for missionaries to have the dual objectives of proselytizing and collecting funds for the church. This 6 August revelation addresses the church leaders’ financial concerns. It informed the men that they would have the power to pay their debts and instructed them to “concern not yourselves about Zion” for there were people and money in Salem “for the benefit of Zion.”

Related to the revelation’s statement that there was “much treasure” in Salem, two later accounts from individuals not directly involved in the journey state that JS traveled to the eastern United States to search for treasure or hidden money. In an 1843 pamphlet, sixteen-year-old dissident James C. Brewster briefly mentioned treasure hunting in relation to JS’s 1836 trip.7 Ebenezer Robinson wrote an account in 1889, fifty-three years after JS’s trip, that also linked the 1836 trip and searching for treasure—in fact, he claimed that the single objective of the trip was to look for hidden money in Salem.8 Robinson printed his account as the editor of the Return, a publication for David Whitmer’s Church of Christ.9 Robinson, who joined the Church of the Latter Day Saints in 1836 while working in the Kirtland printing office, stated in his reminiscences that Don Carlos Smith, who worked with him, told him that JS had learned about possible treasure from “a brother in the church, by the name of Burgess” who had come to Kirtland and “stated that a large amount of money had been secreted in the cellar of a certain house in Salem, Massachusetts, which had belonged to a widow, and he thought he was the only person now living, who had knowledge of it, or the location of the house.” Robinson claimed he was also told that Burgess met JS in Salem but that Burgess was unable to identify the house after so many years and left. Continuing their search, according to Robinson, JS and the three other men found and rented a house they thought contained the hidden money, but they were unsuccessful in finding it.10

It is possible that JS had been told about hidden money in Salem and decided to pursue it to aid the church and relieve the financial and temporal pressure weighing down the branches in Kirtland and Missouri, and two contemporary documents may provide support for the statements of Brewster and Robinson. First, a promissory note was made out to a Jonathan Burgess in Salem, a tentative connection to the Burgess of Robinson’s account.11 Second, JS mentioned looking for a specific house in Salem in his 19 August letter to Emma Smith. Robinson’s account stated that JS rented the house and failed to find any treasure, but JS’s letter to Emma reveals that he had not been able to rent or gain access to the house.12 While JS seemed hopeful the situation would change, the men left Salem only a few days later and offered no indication that they had rented or even visited the sought-after house, nor is there any evidence that they later returned.

Aside from alluding to “more treasures than one,” the revelation makes other references to the people of Salem and their significance to the growing church. In the three weeks following the revelation, JS and the others in the church presidency spent much of their time in Salem and in Boston preaching to the people.13 By the early 1840s, church leaders in Nauvoo focused on the proselytizing aspects of the 6 August 1836 revelation. In 1841, Hyrum Smith and William Law of the First Presidency visited the eastern United States and left instructions at a church conference in Philadelphia for Erastus Snow and Benjamin Winchester to extend their missions and begin preaching in Salem. Snow recorded in his journal that Smith and Law “left with us a copy of a Revelation given about that people in 1836 which said the Lord had much people there whom he would gather into his kingdom in his Own due time and they thought the due time of the Lord had come.” Snow and Winchester arrived in Salem on 3 September 1841.14 After a week, Winchester returned to Philadelphia while Snow preached in Salem and the surrounding area.15 Snow organized the Salem branch on 5 March 1842, and by the end of his mission more than one hundred people had joined the church.16 When Snow and his family left in the fall of 1843, seventy-five members from “Boston and the eastern churches” traveled with them to Nauvoo.17

The original text of the revelation has not been found, but four copies are extant. The version presented here comes from a diary kept by William W. Phelps. Phelps’s diary also contains earlier JS revelations, Phelps’s September 1835 patriarchal blessing, and later material from the Illinois and Utah eras of the church. Although Phelps was in Kirtland for the March 1836 dedication of the House of the Lord, he had returned to Missouri before the date of this revelation. He likely copied the revelation into his diary in the late 1830s or early 1840s. Based on textual comparison, Phelps’s copy appears to be the earliest version, and it matches the text of later printed versions. Another version, made by Erastus Snow, was likely copied in 1841 from a copy that was left for him in Philadelphia by Hyrum Smith and William Law. Snow’s copy matches the wording used in Phelps’s inscription, with only minor exceptions. A third copy is in the Book of the Law of the Lord, inscribed by Robert B. Thompson in Nauvoo between 1840 and 1841.18 A fourth inscription of the revelation is found in volume B-1 of JS’s history and was written by Willard Richards between 1842 and 1844.19 The version in JS’s history is textually similar to both the Phelps and Book of the Law of the Lord inscriptions, with punctuation and spelling in the first six lines of the revelation that match the Book of the Law of the Lord inscription.

This revelation was not published in JS’s lifetime. It first appeared in print in the 1850s with the printing of the “History of Joseph Smith” in the Deseret News and the Millennial Star.20 It was first included in the Doctrine and Covenants in the 1876 edition, and the canonized version follows the text of the Phelps inscription featured here. Significant differences between Phelps’s copy and other early copies of this revelation are described in footnotes below.

Trip to eastern United States, July–September 1836.

Trip to eastern United States, July–September 1836. Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, and Hyrum Smith left Kirtland, Ohio, on 25 July 1836, traveling across Lake Erie and then through New York. The men stopped for a short time in New York City before heading northeast and ultimately arriving in Salem, Massachusetts, on 5 August. A revelation Joseph Smith dictated the next day instructed the men to remain in Salem for a time. After spending three or four weeks in Salem, the men stayed briefly in Boston before returning home to Kirtland in September.

A revelation

Salem (Mss.) [Massachusetts] August 6, 1836.

[1]I the Lord your God am not displeased with your coming21 this Journey, notwithstandi[n]g your follies. [2]I have much treasure in this city for you, for the benefit of Zion; and many people in this city whom I will gather out in due time for the benefit of Zion, through your instrumentality: [3]Therefore it is expedient that you should form acquaintance with men in this city, as you shall be lead, and as it shall be be given you.22 [4]And it shall come to pass, in due time, that I will give this city into your hands, that you shall have power over it, insomuch that they shall not discover your secret [p. 35] parts;23 and its wealth, pertaining to gold and silver, shall be yours. [5]Concern not yourselves about your debts, for I will give you power to pay them.24 [6]Concern not yourselves about Zion, for I will deal merciful with her. [7]Tarry in this place and in the regions round about, [8]and the place where it is my will that you should tarry, for the main, shall be signalized unto you by the peace and power of the my Spirit, that shall flow unto you. [9]This place you may obtain by hire, &c …25 And inquire [p. [36]] diligently concerning the more ancient inhabitants and founders of this city,26 [10]for there are more treasures than one for you, in this city:27 [11]Therefore be ye as wise as serpents28 and yet without sin, and I will order all things for your good as fast as ye are able to receive them. Amen. [p. [37]]

Notes

  1. Letter to William W. Phelps and Others, 25 July 1836; Letter to John Thornton and Others, 25 July 1836; Letter from the Editor, Messenger and Advocate, Sept. 1836, 2:372–375; Letter from the Editor, Messenger and Advocate, Oct. 1836, 3:386–393. Hyrum Smith departed for Kirtland shortly after 19 August; the other three men left Salem by 26 August. This was JS’s second trip to Salem. He had first visited the city as a young boy with his uncle Jesse Smith while recovering from leg surgery to remove diseased bone. (Letter to Emma Smith, 19 Aug. 1836, in JSP, D5:282; Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1844–1845, bk. 3, [2].)

  2. Letter from the Editor, Messenger and Advocate, Oct. 1836, 3:388, 391; “Salem,” Christian Register and Boston Observer, 8 Aug. 1836, [3]; Saltonstall, Address to the City Council.

  3. Most of Salem’s residents were involved in seafaring and commercial trade. In his May 1836 address at the city’s incorporation, Mayor Leverett Saltonstall stated, “In maritime enterprize, Salem is still unsurpassed. … We now hold, as we have always held, a respectable rank among the principal commercial places in the country.” The East India Marine Society Museum (now the Peabody Essex Museum) in Salem was founded by local mariners involved in international trade in Asia and the Pacific Rim. (Saltonstall, Address to the City Council, 22; Whitehill, East India Marine Society and the Peabody Museum of Salem, 3–15.)

  4. Letter from the Editor, Messenger and Advocate, Oct. 1836, 3:386–388; JS History, vol. B-1, 749. An Essex Register article reported that the four men rented a house on Union Street and may have planned to return the next year. In the nineteenth century some properties on Union Street in Salem were resident houses and others were rooming houses. (News Item, Essex Register [Salem, MA], 25 Aug 1836, [2]; Proper, “Joseph Smith and Salem,” 97n27.)

  5. Letter to Emma Smith, 19 Aug. 1836; Letter from the Editor, Messenger and Advocate, Sept. 1836, 2:372–375; Letter from the Editor, Messenger and Advocate, Oct. 1836, 3:386–393. Cowdery’s “letters from the editor” were used as a source for JS’s history. (JS History, vol. B-1, 749.)

  6. Minutes, 2 Apr. 1836. Some individuals unwilling to donate funds were brought before the Kirtland high council. (Minutes, 16 June 1836, in JSP, D5:247–253.)

  7. As a young man in Kirtland in 1837, Brewster claimed to have visions of ancient scriptures, and he and his small group of followers were disfellowshipped. He published his extra-scriptural Book of Esdras in 1842, which was the subject of a notice written by editor John Taylor in the December 1842 issue of the Times and Seasons. Responding to Taylor’s description of treasure hunting as a “ridiculous and pernicious” practice, Brewster wrote: “I would ask him who was the author of this practice among the Mormons? If he has a good memory, he will remember the house that was rented in the city of Boston, with the expectation of finding a large sum of money buried in or near the cellar.” (Minute Book 1, 20 Nov. 1837; “Notice,” Times and Seasons, 1 Dec. 1842, 4:32; Brewster, Very Important! To the Mormon Money Diggers, 4; see also Vogel, “James Colin Brewster,” 120–139.)

  8. Robinson wrote that he learned of JS’s 6 August 1836 revelation many years after JS’s trip to New England. It is not clear when Robinson first read the revelation, but he stated in 1889 that he had first heard of it only “recently,” when he saw it printed in an 1853 issue of the Millennial Star. (Ebenezer Robinson, “Items of Personal History of the Editor,” Return, July 1889, 104–108.)

  9. Robinson remained a Latter-day Saint during JS’s life, though he seems to have become disillusioned by JS’s financial dealings as well as his teachings about plural marriage in the 1840s. After JS’s death, Robinson first followed Sidney Rigdon, serving as his counselor for a time, and was then baptized into the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 1863. In 1888, he was affiliated with David Whitmer’s Church of Christ and served as the editor of the Return until his death in 1891. (Ebenezer Robinson, “Items of Personal History of the Editor,” Return, July 1889, 105–108; Nov. 1889, 173–174; Biographical and Historical Record of Ringgold and Decatur Counties, Iowa, 543–544.)

  10. Ebenezer Robinson, “Items of Personal History of the Editor,” Return, July 1889, 105–106.

  11. Promissory Note to Jonathan Burgess, 17 Aug. 1836, in JSP, D5:280.

  12. Ebenezer Robinson, “Items of Personal History of the Editor,” Return, July 1889, 105–106; Letter to Emma Smith, 19 Aug. 1836, in JSP, D5:282–283.

  13. “Mormonism,” Essex Register (Salem, MA), 22 Aug. 1836, [3]; “Mormonism,” Boston Daily Times, 24 Aug. 1836, [2]; “Mormonism—Again,” Boston Daily Times, 26 Aug. 1836, [2].

  14. Snow, Journal, 1841–1847, 3–4, 11.

  15. Snow, Journal, 1841–1847, 13–22. Snow spent most of his time in Salem, but he also traveled to other areas in Massachusetts, including Boston, Lynn, Marblehead, Northbridge, and Lowell, as well as Peterboro, New Hampshire, and Woonsocket, Rhode Island.

  16. Snow, Journal, 1841–1847, 21, 27; “The Mormons in Salem,” Salem (MA) Register, 2 June 1842, [2]. Snow recorded that there were fifty-three members at the organization of the Salem branch on 5 March 1842. By June 1842 the branch had grown to ninety members.

  17. Snow, Journal, 1841–1847, 44. For more detail on Snow’s mission in Salem, see Godfrey, “More Treasures Than One,” 196–204.

  18. Snow, Journal, 1841–1847, 3–4. The copy found in the Book of the Law of the Lord omits two clauses in the last few lines of the revelation, as described in footnotes below. One of these omissions can be explained as a scribal error, due to the repetitive nature of the first words of two adjacent sentences, but the omissions could also reflect a different version of the revelation. However, unlike Erastus Snow’s copy, the inscription in the Book of the Law of the Lord has the same first line as the Phelps copy, and it includes grammatical errors found in Phelps’s copy but not in Snow’s. (Book of the Law of the Lord, 22.)

  19. JS History, vol. B-1, 750; Searle, “Authorship of the History of Joseph Smith,” 110–112.

  20. “History of Joseph Smith,” Deseret News, 25 Dec. 1852, [1]; “History of Joseph Smith,” Millennial Star, 17 Dec. 1853, 15:51.

  21. Erastus Snow’s copy of the revelation reads “you concerning” in place of “your coming.” (“Revelation given August 6, 1836 in Salem, Ma,” in Snow, Journals, 1835–1851, 1856–1857, CHL.)

  22. One way JS and his companions may have tried to accomplish this directive to make acquaintances in the Boston-Salem area was by holding meetings. Their most publicized meeting in Salem was held at the Lyceum Hall on 20 August, where Rigdon spoke on Christianity. The Essex Register described Rigdon favorably as “a man of very respectable appearance” and “very fluent in his language.” Several Salem and Boston newspapers mentioned the meeting. The men also held several meetings in Boston after leaving Salem. According to local newspapers they held meetings at the house of a Fanny Brewer, and Rigdon spoke publicly on 22 and 24 August. (“Mormonism,” Essex Register [Salem, MA], 22 Aug. 1836, [3]; News Item, Salem [MA] Gazette, 23 Aug. 1836, [2]; “Mormonism,” Boston Daily Times, 24 Aug. 1836, [2]; “Mormonism,” Salem [MA] Observer, 27 Aug. 1836, [3]; Joshua Himes, “Joe Smith-ism, Alias Mormonism,” Christian Palladium [Union Mills, NY], 15 Dec. 1836, 5:243–244; “Mormonism—Again,” Boston Daily Times, 26 Aug. 1836, [2]; News Item, Boston Daily Times, 25 Aug. 1836, [2].)

  23. See Isaiah 3:17. A blessing given to Hyrum Smith by JS on 18 Dec. 1833 stated, “He shall be hid by the hand of the Lord that none of his secret parts shall be discovered unto his hu[r]t.” (JS, Journal, 18 Dec. 1833, in JSP, D4:491.)

  24. The clause “Concern not yourselves about your debts, for I will give you power to pay them” is omitted in the copy found in the Book of the Law of the Lord. (Book of the Law of the Lord, 22.)

  25. TEXT: Ellipses in original.

  26. JS, Hyrum Smith, Oliver Cowdery, and Sidney Rigdon visited museums and historic sites in Salem and Boston. On the day that JS dictated the revelation, Rigdon and Cowdery toured the East India Marine Society Museum and signed the guest register; JS visited the same museum on 9 August. Cowdery and possibly the other men also visited places in Salem related to the seventeenth-century witchcraft trials. They also visited the Boston naval yard, Bunker Hill, and the ruins of the Charlestown Ursuline Convent, which had been destroyed by a mob in 1834. (“Album, for the Use of Visitors,” series 5, vol. 4, 6 and 9 Aug. 1836, East India Marine Society Records, Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA; Letter from the Editor, Messenger and Advocate, Oct. 1836, 3:388–393.)

  27. The clause “for there are more treasures than one for you in this city” does not appear in the copy of the revelation in the Book of the Law of the Lord. (Book of the Law of the Lord, 22.)

  28. See Matthew 10:16.