Mormon Publications: 19th Century - Latter Day Saint's Messenger and Advocate

Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate. Kirtland, Ohio, October 1834–September 1837.

3 v. (36 nos. in 576 p.) 23 cm.

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When the new press was set up in Kirtland, the Church leaders agreed to complete the volume of The Evening and the Morning Star and then replace it with a new Kirtland periodical, the Messenger and Advocate. In October 1834 the first number of the Messenger and Advocate appeared, and for the next three years it was issued more or less monthly, making three volumes of twelve numbers each. By the time The Evening and the Morning Star ceased publication, the concept of the official church organ had evolved from that of a newspaper to be read and thrown away to that a periodical to be read and saved; so the format of the Messenger and Advocate was changed to a uniform sixteen-page, octavo issue, allowing the run to be more conveniently bound. Oliver Cowdery continued as editor for the first eight numbers. He was succeeded by John Whitmer who was officially the editor for number 9-18. W.W. Phelps, however, performed a substantial part of the editorial labors during Whitmer’s term. Oliver Cowdery again assumed the editorial chair with number 19, but it was his brother, Warren A. Cowdery, who actually edited the next nine issues. Warren A. Cowdery became the official editor with the twenty-ninth number, serving until the Messenger and Advocate ceased publication in September 1837.

The Messenger and Advocate is the basic source for the study of Mormonism’s Ohio period. The tone of the magazine reflects the theological ferment that characterized the Kirtland era. Its pages include doctrinal essays, official statements of the Church leaders, announcements and minutes of conferences, news of the progress of the Church in Kirtland and elsewhere, responses to anti-Mormon attacks, and letters from the outlying branches. The first number gives a summary of the basic tenets of Mormonism by Oliver Cowdery, and in eight of the first thirteen issues there is a series of letters from Cowdery to W. W. Phelps which constitute the first published account of the birth of Mormonism (See Letters by Oliver Cowdery, to W.W. Phelps . . . in this digital collection).

Excerpted and edited from Peter Crawley and Chad J. Flake, A Mormon Fifty: an exhibition in the Harold B. Lee Library in conjunction with the annual conference of the Mormon History Association. (Provo, Utah, Friends of the Brigham Young University Library, 1984). Item 4, p. [8–9]; and Peter Crawley, A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church. Volume One, 1830-1847. (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, Religious Studies Center, [1997]). Item 16, p. 47-50.

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