The Joseph Smith Papers, Documents, Volume 11: September 1842 – February 1843

The eleventh volume of the Documents series contains personal correspondence, financial and legal documents, sermon accounts, and other documents from September 1842 through February 1843. These texts show Joseph Smith eluding arrest and extradition to Missouri while endeavoring to honor his many ecclesiastical and civic responsibilities in Nauvoo, Illinois. Key documents include letters Joseph Smith wrote to the Latter-day Saints instructing them on the practice of baptism for the dead, documents relating to the effort to attain a legal victory in Smith’s extradition case, and city ordinances passed to resolve issues stemming from Nauvoo’s thriving population. The volume gives insight into the life of Joseph Smith as he struggled to end the threat of extradition and faced the incessant demands of running a burgeoning city and a growing church.

Spencer W. McBride, Jeffrey D. Mahas, and Brett D. Dowdle are historians for the Church History Department, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Tyson Reeder is an assistant editor with the Papers of James Madison at the University of Virginia.