239

Brigham Young and the First Presidency.

Commission issued to two Church representatives, dated at "Great Salt Lake City, California."

Salt Lake City, 16 October 1849
Document Signed by Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards as the First Presidency, and additionally by Thomas Bullock as clerk. One page, 12¼ x 7½ inches, docketed simply "Heywood & Woolley" on verso; folds, mount remnants on verso, untrimmed on left edge.


In this document, the three members of the still newly reorganized First Presidency commissioned two trusted members to head east on Church business. The signers included President Brigham Young, First Counselor Heber Kimball, and Second Counsellor Willard Richards, all of them central figures in the early Church. Richards had been incarcerated with Joseph and Hyrum Smith when they were murdered, but miraculously survived; his signature is not common. 

This document would have been carried eastward by Heywood and Woolley to establish their credentials. It reads: "To all persons whom it may concern, we the undersigned Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, having appointed Messrs. Heywood & Wooley our agents in transacting business in the eastern country for the benefit and welfare of said Church, and they are hereby authorized to receive tithing funds in the United States and from England, subject to our order, take pleasure in recommending them to the confidence of all business men, as men of integrity and business qualifications." 

The two agents, Joseph Leland Heywood (1815-1910) and Edwin Dilworth Woolley (1807-1881), set forth from Salt Lake City two days later, and arrived in St. Joseph, Missouri on 19 December, according to their letter in the Wilford Woodruff papers. Both later became ward bishops in Salt Lake City and had important roles in government. Heywood later lived on the land which became the LDS Conference Center.

The document was dated from "Great Salt Lake City, California"—a date line rarely seen, and only during a brief window. 

The area had been part of the Mexican territory of Alta California until the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Less than two years after the initial settlement by the Great Salt Lake, Brigham Young and his pioneers pursued statehood. They drafted a constitution for the proposed State of Deseret in March 1849, and soon formed a provisional government. Deseret covered most of modern-day Utah, Nevada, and Arizona, and much of southern California, avoiding any claim on the gold-mining settlements of northern California. 

During the short life of the provisional State of Deseret, southern California was considered an integral part of its territory—and was one of its lifelines to the outside world. California was also an easy reference point for outsiders to locate a new community which was literally not on the map.  An independent post office was established in Salt Lake City circa March 1849. The United States had no postal contracts to deliver mail to Salt Lake, but at least a dozen trips are recorded from the California coast to Salt Lake between 1847 and 1850, many of them bearing unofficial mail. Statehood was proposed to the United States Congress, but instead Utah Territory was formed in September 1850. 

We find only one other "Great Salt Lake City, California" document at auction—a postal cover postmarked "G.S.L.C. Cal July 23/50" which sold in 1997. At least three other similar postal covers are in private hands, all dated July 1849 to July 1850.

Provenance: acquired from the descendants of Joseph Heywood by collector Brent Ashworth; traded to the consignor Larry Faria in 2011.

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