Whitney, Newel Kimball, Reynolds Cahoon, and Vinson Knight.  Kirtland, Ohio, September 18th, 1837. To the saints scattered abroad, the bishop and his counselors of Kirtland send greeting.  N. K. Whitney, R. Cahoon, V. Knight, [sic] [Kirtland, 1837]
Broadside 50.5 x 32.5 cm.

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On September 17, 1837, the Church leaders called the Kirtland Saints together in the temple.  At issue was a failed Mormon “bank”, an onerous debt, proliferating lawsuits, and apostasy—all embedded in the national economic crises following the banking panic of May 1837.  Here they directed the bishop and his counselors to issue a memorial to the Saints abroad, which they drafted the next day.  This memorial was printed from a rearrangement of the same typesetting, in the Messenger and Advocate (see this digital collection) of September 1837.

An appeal for financial help directed to the Mormons outside Kirtland, the memorial outlines the various circumstances which contributed to the penury of the church, and it suggests that the appropriate way to finance the work of the last days is to tithe the members—foreshadowing the revelation of July 8, 1838 (Doctrine and Covenants 119).  It further argues that the salvation of the Saints depends on the building up of Zion and her stakes, thus linking the well–being of the colony in Kirtland to those in Missouri.

Newel Kimball Whitney was called to be the bishop in Kirtland on December 4, 1831 (Doctrine and Covenants 72).  A native of Vermont, he was a prosperous merchant in Kirtland when he joined the church in November 1830.  In October 1839 he was appointed bishop of the Nauvoo middle ward, and five years later he was sustained as “first bishop in the Church.”  He made the overland journey to Utah in 1848 and continued to serve as the presiding bishop until his death in Salt Lake City, September 23, 1850, at age fifty–five.

Reynolds Cahoon was chosen a counselor to Whitney on February 10, 1832.  A veteran of the War of 1812 and a native of New York, he converted to Mormonism in Ohio in 1830, at the age of forty.  He was on the committees charged with building the Kirtland Nauvoo temples.  In June 1838 John Smith selected him to be his counselor in the presidency of the stake at Adam–ondi–Ahman, and in October 1839 Smith again picked him as a counselor in the presidency of the Montrose, Iowa, stake.  Cahoon was a member of the Council of Fifty and was named a captain of a hundred when the Twelve began planning for the evacuation of Illinois (see Circular, to the Whole Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 1845, in this digital collection).  He made the overland trek to Utah in 1848, and died at South Cottonwood, April 19, 1861.

Vinson Knight was ordained a counselor to Bishop Whitney on January 13, 1836.  Born in Norwich, Massachusetts, March 14, 1804, he joined the Church in 1834 and was approved to be ordained an elder eleven days before he was called to be Whitney’s counselor.  In October 1839 he was appointed the bishop of the Nauvoo lower ward, and sixteen months later he was elected to the first Nauvoo city council, in which capacities he served until his death on July 31, 1842.

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 37, p. 68-9.

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