Sidney RIGDON. AUTOGRAPH DOCUMENT SIGNED. Hancock County, Illinois, May 4, 1841.

25 X 20 cm. (10 X 8 inches). 1½ pages on one leaf. Very good condition; horizontal folds.

$4,500**SOLD**

More than a page in Sidney Rigdon's distinctive handwriting, followed by the clerk's attest note and filing docket. Rigdon has been sued by a fellow member of the Church for payment of money owed, and Rigdon here signs a sworn statement that he cannot defend himself without the testimony of his subpoenaed witnesses, Joseph Smith, Alanson Ripley and Reynolds Cahoon, who "are not absent by the will nor consent of the subscriber, Sidney Rigdon."

 

 

SIDNEY RIGDON (1793-1876) was First Counselor to Joseph Smith from 1833 until Smith's death. He was also one of the most influential figures in the development of early Mormonism. In terms of doctrine, priesthood organization, the Word of Wisdom, Missouri persecutions, and so many other factors, Rigdon's importance to the new faith can hardly be exaggerated. According to one account, Rigdon participated actively in the reception of the famous vision now known as Doctrine and Covenants Section 76, the vision of the three degrees of glory . . .

WE THUS SEE the tremendous influence of Sidney Rigdon. An 1833 revelation, in fact, stated that Rigdon and Frederick G. Williams were "equal" with Joseph Smith "in holding the keys of this last kingdom" (D&C 90:6). It may be surprising for some readers to think that Rigdon continues to exert a major influence on their lives today: A primary reason why faithful Latter-day Saints drink no alcoholic beverages whatever (as opposed to mere moderation) may be found in the actions of the High Council on December 4, 1836, when Sidney

This statement is backed by Wilford Woodruff, who wrote in his journal:

Here, now, is an actual document written out by Rigdon in person. His autograph is not common, and an entire document of this length in his handwriting is truly exceptional. There is real feeling between these lines, with intriguing historical implications. The text reads in its entirety as follows:

Both Rigdon and the plaintiff, Nicholas Singley, were born in Pennsylvania in the early 1790s. SINGLEY appears to have been a good Latter-day Saint, and shows up in the Kirtland Council Minute Book entry for June 10, 1836, approved to be ordained an elder. The following spring, according to the Kirtland Elders' Quorum Record, counselor Reuben Hedlock "proseaded to ann[o]int . . . Nicholas Singley," among others, and "the Breatheren who were annointed prayed for their blesings to . . . be Sealed upon them." (April 5, 1837). Singley and his wife Margaret evidently joined the Church in 1833, and were 1847 Utah pioneers. Very late in life, Margaret, living in California, was baptized a member of the Reorganized Church.

Sidney Rigdon wrote the paper now at hand during a particularly difficult time, when he had lost nearly fifty pounds from sickness. Rigdon's modern biographer portrays him as a manic depressive, whose periods of despair naturally increased in the unhealthy climate of early Nauvoo. Although he was Joseph Smith's First Counselor in the Presidency of the Church (not to mention city postmaster and councilman) and held any number of prestigious appointments, Sidney would spend much of the Nauvoo period in semi-convalescence. One month before the present document was signed, however, he preached mightily at the laying of the cornerstone for the Nauvoo Temple (to the surprised delight of the congregation); see the newspaper included below. On April 8, he delivered the first known public address on Mormon baptism for the dead. By the beginning of May, unfortunately, he was too ill to finish a theological essay for the Times and Seasons, "but as soon as his health will admit," noted the editors, "we shall take pleasure in giving it publicity." (issue for May 1, 1841, p.404; for background material in this and the following paragraph, see Richard S. Van Wagoner, Sidney Rigdon; A Portrait of Religious Excess [Salt Lake City, 1994], Chapter 20).

Around the time when Rigdon wrote and signed this document, he seems to have added feelings of rejection to his periodic despair. Hyrum Smith felt that this was because Joseph had hesitated to ordain Sidney to be a "Prophet, Seer and Revelator" as had been done to others. But the syndrome was probably more generalized. Rigdon had once been a prime mover in the formation of Mormonism, and now there were others who enjoyed equal and more influence with the Prophet who could not be interrupted this day to come testify for his counselor.

I speculate that this suit may have been tried in Carthage, because the absent Joseph Smith was in Nauvoo that very day, writing a letter to relieve his own financial concerns (as shown in a published letter of Joseph Smith to Oliver Granger, May 4, 1841). Sidney's old fellow sufferer from Missouri, Reynolds Cahoon, was not present to testify for him, either. Whether for good or contrived reasons, we can imagine how these absences must have worked on a mind like Rigdon's. This educated man's bizarre misspelling of the word, "witnessis" reminds me of similar effusions which have spilled from my own pen at times of exaggerated stress.

::ACCOMPANYING THIS DOCUMENT:: is a shorter, related document written out and signed, "Rigdon," twice. It is apparently signed for Rigdon by his lawyers (none of it in Rigdon's hand). It stipulates that the parties disagree about whether the debt has been paid, and both submit the matter to the court.

 

It is docketed on the verso as "Singley vs. Rigdon, Plea & Replication."

Here, then, is an exceptional memento of one of Mormonism's most important early founders, and a fine souvenir of Nauvoo! The two documents are accompanied by . . .

::A SIGNED, NOTARIZED STATEMENT OF PROVENANCE:: by a reputable gentleman whom I have known for many years, whose father was an antiquarian dealer in Illinois beginning in the 1920s. They acquired the documents as part of the collection of an historian-collector a generation ago, and have owned them to the present day.