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Lorenzo D. Wasson letter to David Hale, 1841 February

 Item — oversize: 3, Folder: 4
Identifier: MSS 7614
Image of Lorenzo D. Wasson letter to David Hale
Image of Lorenzo D. Wasson letter to David Hale

Scope and Contents

Color photocopy and typescript of letter written to David Hale from Lorenzo D. Wasson, Hale's nephew. Wasson writes that he is living with Joseph Smith, and gives his impressions of Smith, Nauvoo, and Mormonism. Also includes messages written by Emma Smith and possibly Joseph Smith, mentioning family matters and inviting Hale to settle in Nauvoo. Dated February 1841.

Dates

  • 1841 February

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

Access to originals restricted due to condition, photocopies and digital scans open for public research.

Conditions Governing Use

It is the responsibility of the researcher to obtain any necessary copyright clearances. Permission to publish material from David and Ira Hale papers must be obtained from the Supervisor of Reference Services and/or the Special Collections Board of Curators.

Biographical History

David Hale (1794-1878) was a farmer in Pennsylvania and Illinois. He was the brother of Emma Hale Smith.

David Hale was born on March 7, 1794 in Harmony, Susquehanna, Pennsylvania to parents Isaac Hale and Elizabeth Lewis; he was Emma Hale Smith's older brother. Hale served as a soldier during the War of 1812. He married Rhoda Jane Skinner at Harmony, Pennsylvannia in 1823 and they had five children. In approximately the 1840s he moved to Illinois and continued to work as a farmer. While he knew Joseph Smith during his lifetime, he never joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Hale died on April 16, 1878 in Amboy, Illinois.

Biographical History

Lorenzo D. Wasson (1819-1857) was a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a member of the Council of the Fifty.

Lorenzo D. Wasson was born in 1819 in New York to Benjamin Wasson and Elizabeth Hale. He lived in New York and Illinois and in 1840 moved to Nauvoo where he lived with Joseph and Emma Smith. While in Nauvoo he was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by Joseph Smith, joined the Nauvoo Masonic Lodge, and received permission to serve a mission. He served his mission to New Jersey and Pennsylvania in the summer of 1842. He became a member of the Council of Fifty, a political organization within the Church, in 1844. He married Marietta Crocker in 1843 and Aurelia Gaylord in approximately 1848.

Wasson died in 1857 in Amboy, Illinois.

Biographical History

Emma Hale Smith (1804-1879) was the first Relief Society President in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the wife of the Church's founder and first prophet, Joseph Smith, Jr.

Emma Hale Smith was born in 1804 at Willingborough Township (later Harmony), Susquehanna, Pennsylvania to parents Isaac Hale and Elizabeth Lewis. As a child she was well educated and physically active. She was a member of the Methodist Church, but later was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by Oliver Cowdrey in 1830. She married Joseph Smith, Jr. on January 18, 1827, in New York. Together they had eleven children, six of whom died early deaths. She was with Joseph Smith on the night he obtained the records from which The Book of Mormon was translated and she even assisted him as a scribe during part of the translation.

Emma was a prominent member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, being called "an elect lady" in a revelation canonized in Latter-day Saint scripture. She was the editor of "A Collection of Sacred Hymns, for the Church of the Latter Day Saints", published in 1835 and later became the first Relief Society president in 1842. Much of her married life was characterized by moving around the eastern United States to escape from mobs that sought the lives of her family members and there were periods where she took care of her children on her own while Joseph was imprisoned. Finally, when Joseph Smith was murdered in June 1844, she stayed in Nauvoo while the rest of the members of the Church went West. She married Lewis Crum Bidamon, was affiliated with the Reorganized Church of Latter-day Saints, and lived in Nauvoo, Illinois, for the rest of her life.

Emma Smith died April 20, 1879, in the Nauvoo House in Nauvoo, Illinois.

Extent

1 folder

Language of Materials

English

Existence and Location of Copies

Color photocopy and typescript in Oversize box 3, Folder 4.

Repository Details

Part of the L. Tom Perry Special Collections Repository

Contact:
1130 HBLL
Brigham Young University
Provo Utah 84602 United States