CHURCH RECORDS, 83
for Immediate necessity; but remember the city to be presently built, and be prudent.^^ And now from the shaking quakers came one Lemon Copley and accepted the gospel, though not in its fullness, as he retained
persecutions and general history. The one in charge of this duty is called by us "the historian and general church recorder." The first who occupied this position was John Whitmer, until 1838, when he was excommunicated from the church for transgression, and took portions of the church records with him.' likhards' Bihliography of Utah, MS., 2. 'The earliest clerk service rendered the prophet Joseph, of which there is any account, was by Martin Harris; Joseph's wife, Emma, then Oliver Cowdery, who, as is claimed, wrote the greater portion of the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon, as he translated it from the gold plates by the urim and thummira which he obtained with the plates. In March 1831 John Whitmer was appointed to keep the church record and history continually, Oliver having been appointed to other labors. Whitmer was assisted, temporarily, on occasions of absence or illness by Warren Parrish. At a meeting of high council at Kirtland, Sept. 14, 1835, it was decided that "Oliver Cowdery be appointed, and that he act hereafter as recorder for the church," Whitmer having just been called to he editor of the MeAsenger and Advocate. At a general conference held in Far West April 6, 1838, John Corrill and Elias Higbee M'ere appointed historians, and George W. Robinson "general church recorder and clerk for the tirst presidency." On the death of Elder Robert B. Thompson, which occurred at Nauvoo on the twenty-seventh of August, 1841, in his obituary it is stated: " Nearly two years past he had officiated as scribe to President Joseph Smith and clerk for the church, which important stations he filled with that dignity and honor befitting a man of God." During the expulsion from Missouri, and the early settlement of Nauvoo, James MiilhoUand, William Clayton, and perhaps others rendered temporary service in this line until the 13th of December, 1841, when Willai'd Richards was appointed recorder, general clerk, and private secretary to the prophet, which offices he occupied until his death, in March 1854, when he was succeeded by George A. Smith, who held it until his death on the first of September, 1875, with Wiltord Wood- ruff as his assistant. Soon after, Orson Pi-att succeeded to the office, retain- ing Woodruff as his assistant, until his demise on the third of October, ISSl. Directly after President Woodruff was appointed to the office, and in January 1884, Apostle Franklin D. Richards was appointed his assistant.' See Timea and Seasons, v. 401; Milknvial Star, v. 82; Richards' Narrative, MS., 94-8. ^^ Of the future of this city there were many revelations and many con- jectures. ' It was said that it would in a few years exceed in splendor every- thing known in ancient times. Its streets were to be paved with gold; all that escapetl the general destruction which was soon to take place would there assemble with all their wealth; the ten lost tribes of Israel had been discovered in their retreat, in the vicinity of the north pole, where they had for ages been secluded by immense barriers of ice, anil became vastly rich; the ice in a few years was to be melted away, when those tribes, with St John and some of the Nephites, which the book of Mormon had innnortalized, would be seen making their appearance in the new city, loaded with immense quantities of gold and silver. Whether the prophet himself ever declared that these things had been revealed to him, or that he had seen them through his magic stone or silver spectacles, we will not say; but that such stories and hundreds of others equally absui-d were told by those who were in daily intercourse with him, as being events which would probably take place, are susceptible of proof.' Jloive's Morinonism Unveiled, 127-8. 'Kirtland was never intended to be the metropolis of Mormonism; it was selected as a tem- porary abiding place, to make money m reference to a removal farther west.' Ferris' Utah and the Mormons, 72.
