Mormon Publications: 19th Century - Journal of Heber C. Kimball

Kimball, Heber Chase. Journal of Heber C. Kimball, an elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Giving an account of his mission to Great Britain , and the commencement of the work of the Lord in that land. Also the success which has attended the labors of the elders to the present time. By R. B. Thompson. Nauvoo , Ill : Printed by Robinson and Smith, 1840.

viii, [9]-60 pp. 20 cm.

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> The first Mormon mission to England in 1837-38 is one of the extraordinary chapters in the history of the Latter-day Saints. Launched when the Church in Kirtland was collapsing, it founded a proselytizing effort which would send a life-giving stream of converts to the Church in America for the next two decades. The Journal was the first of the Mormon "faith promoting" books. It tells the story of this mission from the perspective of Heber C. Kimball, who with Orson Hyde, Joseph Fielding, Willard Richards, John Goodson, Isaac Russell, and John Snyder, first carried the Mormon message across the Atlantic .

The Elders' Journal of August 1838 reported the return of Kimball and Hyde from England and announced that they intended to publish an account of their mission. But the expulsion of the Mormon's from Missouri and the subsequent call of the Twleve to a second British mission in the fall of 1839 interrupted any such attempt. Robert B. Thompson came naturally to this project. He was an Englishman, Joseph Fielding's brother-in-law, and the Church clerk assigned to help Joseph Smith compile his history. The fall of 1840 was also a propitious time to publish the story of the first missionary effort in Britain where eight of the Twelve, including Kimball, were once again laboring in the British Isles , and the first of two companies of British converts, totalling about 250, had just reached Nauvoo.

Two manuscripts in the LDS Church archives bear on this book-a journal which covers the period of the mission, and "Heber C. Kimball Journal, 1840," which Kimball dictated in the 1850s. This second document includes a transcription of Journal of Heber C. Kimball , preceded by the following explanation:

I here insert a copy of a pamphlet published by Robert B. Thompson while I was on my second mission to England: he and I previously went on a high hill in the woods, near the city of Quincy, Illinois, where we sat down when I gave him a short sketch of my first mission to England, from memory, not having my journal with me, as I had been recently driven from Missouri: I then omitted many dates which I now fill up, and also make many corrections and additions.

Thomas wrote to Kimball in England on November 5, 1840 , and mentioned the delay in publishing his journal, but he added that he expected to start on it soon as Ebenezer Robinson had just returned from Cincinnati with printing supplies. Robinson's and Don Carlos Smith's names in the title page indicate that the printing of the Journal of Heber C. Kimball began before they dissolved their partnership on December 14, 1840 . Since the book was advertised in the Times and Seasons of January 1, 1841 , it was likely finished near the end of the year. Beginning in April the Millennial Star advertised it at 1s.

Most of the printed book deals with the first mission to England . It also includes Kimball's account of the trip home in 1838, his experiences at Far West that fall, and his return to England in the spring of 1840. Thompson added a preface (pp. [iii]-viii), and a concluding statement (pp. 55-59) which summarizes the growth of the British Church up to July 1840. The last page contains a hymn, "With Darkness Long We've Been O'erwhelm'd," by William Clayton, later famous for his hymn "Come, Come, Ye Saints," and one of the leaders of the second company of British converts.

In 1882 Journal of Heber C. Kimball was reprinted in Salt Lake City , with substantial additions by Helen Mar Whitney, Kimball's daughter, as the seventh book of the "Faith Promoting Series." Kimball's autobiography was published serially in vol. 8 of the Deseret News and in vol. 26 of the Millennial Star .

Excerpted and edited from Peter Crawley, A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church. Volume One, 1830-1847. (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, Religious Studies Center, [1997]). Item 93, p. 141-43.

Used by permission of the author and the Religious Studies Center , Brigham Young University.