LDS History Chronology / Timeline
-- about Apr 13, 1833
[Joseph Smith] Kirtland, Ohio. Joseph Smith responded by letter to Jared Carters brother, who had inquired about the duties of Church officers and preparations for going to Zion. (1)
-- Apr 18, 1833
[Lucy Mack Smith] About 300 old settlers in Independence plan to eject the Mormons. There had been acts of violence as early as the spring of 1832. (2)
-- Apr 21, 1833
[Joseph Smith] Kirtland, Ohio. Joseph Smith responded to an epistle the brethren in Missouri sent in February. (1)
-- Apr 27, 1833
We perceive by a letter from Independence, Missouri, to the Editor of the Cincinnati Journal, that difficulties have already began in the Mormon community, at Mount Zion, in that quarter; one of the members having sued the Bishop, in a court of justice, for fifty dollars, which had been sent by the plaintiff to the said Bishop, from Ohio, "to purchase an inheritance for himself and the saints of God in Zion in these last days." This was certainly a most impious act, but "nevertheless and notwithstanding," the jury found for the plaintiff; it appearing that though the good bishop had indeed appropriated the money "to the purchase of an inheritance," yet he had, unthoughtedly no doubt, procured the deed to be drawn in his own name, to his heirs, &c. and no one else in Zion nor out of it. The writer states that on this decision several other members are ready to make similar demands on the good bishop. "Mormonism," Ohio Republican (Zanesville, Ohio), Apr. 27, 1833.
Possible cause of change in D&C 51:3. (3)
-- Apr 30, 1833
[Jaques, Vienna] Came to Kirtland before 30 April 1833. (4)
-- During 1833 Spring
The comments of the Mormons in Missouri about freed slaves are misunderstood by other Missourians, raising hostility in the area and a manifesto against the Mormons. (5)
-- During Apr 1833
[Polygamy] to 27 Jun 1844 Marriage - Joseph to Fanny Alger, age 16 ,. Fanny Alger is Joseph's first known plural wife, whom he came to know in Kirtland during early 1833 when she, at the age of 16, stayed at his home as a housemaid. Described as "a varry nice & Comly young woman," according to Benjamin Johnson, Fanny lived with the Smith family from 1833 to 1836. Martin Harris, one of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon, recalled that the prophet's "servant girl" claimed he had made "improper proposals to her, which created quite a talk amongst the people." Mormon Fanny Brewer similarly reported "much excitement against the Prophet[involving] an unlawful intercourse between himself and a young orphan girl residing in his family and under his protection." Former Mormon apostle William McLellin later wrote that Emma Smith substantiated the Smith-Alger affair. According to McLellin, Emma was searching for her husband and Alger one evening when through a crack in the barn d
oor she saw "him and Fanny in the barn together alone" on the hay mow. McLellin, in a letter to one of Smith's sons, added that the ensuing confrontation between Emma and her husband grew so heated that Rigdon, Frederick G. Williams, and Oliver Cowdery had to mediate the situation. After Emma related what she had witnessed, Smith, according to McLellin, "confessed humbly, and begged forgiveness. Emma and all forgave him." While Oliver Cowdery may have forgiven his cousin Joseph Smith, he did not forget the incident. Three years later, when provoked by the prophet, Cowdery countered by calling the Fanny Alger episode "a dirty, nasty, filthy affair." Chauncey Webb recounts Emmas later discovery of the relationship: Emma was furious, and drove the girl, who was unable to conceal the consequences of her celestial relation with the prophet, out of her house. SOURCE: Richard S. Van Wagoner, Sidney Rigdon, p.291 At least one account indicates that Fanny became pregnant. Chauncy G.
Webb, Smith's grammar teacher, later reported that when the pregnancy became evident, Emma Smith drove Fanny from her home (Wyl 1886, 57). Webb's daughter, Ann Eliza Webb Young, a divorced wife of Brigham Young, remembered that Fanny was taken into the Webb home on a temporary basis (Young 1876, 66-67). Fanny stayed with relatives in nearby Mayfield until about the time Joseph fled Kirtland for Missouri. Fanny left Kirtland in September 1836 with her family. Though she married non-Mormon Solomon Custer on 16 November 183614 and was living in Dublin City, Indiana, far from Kirtland, her name still raised eyebrows. Fanny Brewer, a Mormon visitor to Kirtland in 1837, observed "much excitement against the Prophet [involving] an unlawful intercourse between himself and a young orphan girl residing in his family and under his protection" (Parkin 1966, 174). SOURCE: Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, p.8 (6)
-- During spring of 1833
[Pratt, Orson] Attended School of Prophets in spring of 1833. (4)
-- May 1, 1833
[Lucy Mack Smith] John Smith (brother of Joseph Sr.) and family, including son George A., depart from Potsdam, New York, and arrive at Kirtland on 25 May. (2)
-- May 4, 1833
[Cahoon, Reynolds] Appointed to obtain money to build sacred edifices in Kirtland 4 May 1833. Worked on Kirtland Temple. (4)
Construction of a "school house" (late, house of the Lord, eventually, the Kirtland temple) is approved. Reynolds Cahoon, Jared Carter, and Hyrum Smith have oversight. (3)
[Joseph Smith] Joseph Smith appoints a temple building committee, the beginning of LDS bureaucracy. (7)
-- May 6, 1833
D&C 93 (Kirtland): keep commandments, see God; apostle John's record to be revealed; Godhead; preexistence, man in the begining with God, intelligence, light, truth; Joseph not keeping commandments, family must repent; translate scriptures, obtain (secular) knowledge and the laws of God for salvation of Zion. (3)
Footnotes:
1 - BYU Studies Journal, volume 46, no. 4: A Chronology of the Life of Joseph Smith
2 - Lucy's Book: A Critical Edition of Lucy Mack Smith's Family Memoir, Edited by Lavina Fielding Anderson, 2001, Signature Books
3 - http://saintswithouthalos.com/dirs/d_c.phtml
4 - Lyndon W. Cook, The Revelation of the Prophet Joseph Smith: A Historical and Biographical Commentary of the Doctrine and Covenants, Seventy's Mission Bookstore, Provo UT, 1985
5 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19th_century_(Mormonism)
6 - http://www.i4m.com/think/polygamy/JS_Polygamy_Timeline.htm
7 - D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, Appendix 7: Selected Chronology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830-47"
Mormon History Timeline / Chronology
http://mormon-church-history.blogspot.com/
A lighter version of this timeline: http://lds-church-history.blogspot.com/
