Documents

Documents to read online

Primary documents of the Morrisite movement that can be read online, with links to the institutions that hold them. Short government records are transcribed here; the transcriptions are the editor’s, and corrections are welcome. Page images belong to their repositories, and some need a free account.

Have a scan of a Morrisite pamphlet, letter or record that is not listed? Write to contact@morrisite.org. Forscutt’s “Sketch of Joseph Morris” is being edited separately and is not reproduced here.

Printed by the Morrisites

The Spirit Prevails (1886)

Joseph Morris

What it is: The revelations, articles and letters of Joseph Morris, printed in San Francisco by George S. Dove and Company. The fullest source for Morris’s teaching and for the community at Kington Fort.
Read it: Internet Archive

Roll of Membership (1886)

Geo. S. Dove & Co.

What it is: Eight pages listing the people baptized at South Weber in 1861–62, printed in San Francisco in May 1886.
Read it: Transcribed on this site, with notes and links to FamilySearch Family Tree. Copy: Utah State Historical Society, PAM 9569c1.

Gems of Inspiration (1899)

John R. Eardley

What it is: A collection by a former Morrisite of sayings and accounts from the movement, including Eardley’s history of Kington Fort and the surrender.
Read it: Internet Archive

The Voice of the Seventh Angel! (1887–92)

James Brighouse

What it is: Tracts of the Order of Enoch, whose title takes up Morris’s claim to be the Seventh Angel.
Read it: HathiTrust · Google Books

Not yet online

Wanted

Pamphlets: A Voice from the West (George S. and James Dove, 1879); Articles of Faith (San Francisco, 1887); A Few Items in the History of the Morrisites (James Dove, 1892). A library or family that holds one of these could make it available to everyone; the editor will help arrange scanning and an Internet Archive copy.

Government records

Order calling out the posse, June 11, 1862

Utah State Archives, series 2210

What it is: Acting Governor Frank Fuller’s order to Gen. Daniel H. Wells to furnish the marshal a military force to arrest Joseph Morris. The original has not been found; this copy is in a letter from Nauvoo Legion headquarters of January 14, 1871 (document 1,215), which copies it among “communications … from predecessors of Governor Shaffer.”
Text: Executive Department
Great Salt Lake City June 11th 1862

To Genl D H Wells Commanding Militia of Utah Territory:

Sir— A requisition has been made upon me this day, by Henry W. Lawrence, Esqr.— Territorial Marshall for the Territory of Utah, through his deputies, R. T. Burton, Esqr. and Theodore McKean Esqr. for a military force to act as a posse comitatus in the service of certain writs issued from the Third Judicial District Court of said Territory, for the arrest of Joseph Morris and others residing in the northern part of Davis County, in said district.

It appears that said Joseph Morris and his associates have organized themselves into an armed force to resist the execution of said writs, and are setting at defiance the law and its officers.

I therefore require you to furnish the said Henry W. Lawrence Esqr. or his Deputies aforesaid a sufficient military force for the arrest of the offenders, the vindication of justice and the enforcement of law.

Frank Fuller
Acting Governor and Commander-in-Chief.
Page images: Page 16 · page 17 (FamilySearch, Utah Territorial Militia Records, collection 1462415; free account)

Report of the expedition to Soda Springs, June 2, 1863

Official Records

What it is: Gen. P. Edward Connor’s report on escorting the first Morrisite party from Camp Douglas to Soda Springs and founding Camp Connor, May 1863.
Read it: eHistory, Ohio State University

South Weber militia company, April 22, 1859

Utah State Archives, series 2210

What it is: The officers of the South Weber company, listed before Joseph Morris came to the settlement. James Richie is on the 1861–62 roll; Thomas Peek’s family married into the Cook and Kendell families. Doubtful readings: “Cook” (the index’s reading; the hand may be “Crook”) and “Hickenson.”
Text: South Weber Fort
April 22nd 1859

John G. B. Haynes, Captain
John Cook, Lieutenant
George W. Hickenson, Do.
Johanneson Larsen, Do.
Robert Watts, Do.
James Richie, Sergeant
Thomas Peek, Do.
George Pay, Do.
Christopher Olson, Do.

this company numbers forty men all told.
Page image: FamilySearch (free account)

Weber District muster roll, October 1857

Utah State Archives, series 2210

What it is: Company B, 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment of Infantry, Weber Military District, Capt. Thomas J. Osborn, mustered at Ogden City on October 20, 1857, during the Utah War. Robert Farley and John Parson, later called together to South Weber by revelation, are privates in the same platoon.
Page image: FamilySearch (free account). The collection’s name index is searchable here.

Newspapers

“Fatal Resistance to the Laws,” June 18, 1862

Deseret News, p. 404

What it is: The Salt Lake paper’s first account of the siege, written the day after the prisoners reached the city. It traces the writs from Enoch M. King’s complaint of May 22, served on the 24th by J. L. Stoddard, to the affidavits of H. O. Hanson and Philo Allen on June 10, and names Morris, Cook, Banks, Klemgaard and John Parsons as the men the writs were against. It reports two young men of the posse killed, “Smith and Wahler” (see Questions), and Cook, Parsons, Klemgaard and some ninety others brought in as prisoners on June 17.
Read it: Utah Digital Newspapers (search the Deseret News for June 18, 1862)

“The Davis County Bandits,” June 25, 1862

Deseret News, p. 412

What it is: The result of the hearing before Judge Kinney in chambers, June 18–19, 1862. Richard Cook was fined fifty dollars and jailed thirty days for contempt and held to bail; Peter Klemgaard and Christian Neilson were remanded to prison; the other ninety-five men were held to bail of $1,500 each for the March 1863 term of the Third District Court, and stood surety for one another. It is the only list found so far of the men taken at Kington Fort, and a check on the roll: 76 of the 95 match a man on the roll, 7 more probably do, and 12 are not on it (marked * below).
On the roll: Every man on this list who matches a name on the 1861–62 roll of membership is tagged 1862 prisoner there: the 76 held to bail, with Richard Cook, Peter Klemgaard and Christian Neilson. Hover over or tap a tag to see the name as the paper printed it and what happened to him. The 7 uncertain matches are not tagged. The 1863 trials and the men not on the roll are open questions (see Questions).
Text: Richard Cook was fined fifty dollars and ordered to be imprisoned thirty days for contempt in not obeying the writ of Habeas Corpus, and also held to bail in the sum of fifteen hundred dollars for his appearance at the next term of the Court, to answer further in the premises. Peter Klemgaard and Christian Neilson were remanded to prison, and

John Parsons, Peter L. McCue, Ed. Moss, Andrew Mason, Daniel Smith, Jos. Richardson, J. B. Ledgeway, J. A. Merrick, Wm. Hill, M. Mudd, L. C. Hanson, Wm. Rogers*, Joseph Dove, G. Gudmenson, H. P. Smith, L. Parr*, Alonzo Brown, R. J. Livingston, James Bowman, John Winn, O. O. Rosenblad, Peter Christoferson, Josiah Price, N. M. Urumsen, J. Christiansen, John Neilson, J. C. Sorenson, J. G. Lousley*, H. Hanson, S. P. Guhl, A. Jenson, J. Poulsen, Elijah Clifford, J. Petrie, Chas. Higham, C. Jensen, J. Jensen, S. Hagg, S. Williamsen*, P. Sorensen, Michael Christiansen, Neils Larson, J. P. Sorensen*, Alexander Dow, W. W. Thomas, R. E. Farley, John Jones, D. Thomas, John Gray, R. D. Alvy, Hugh Park, N. Peterson, Andrew Anderson, H. Okensen*, S. P. Rasmusson*, N. R. Beck, T. L. Williams, J. E. Reese*, J. Peterson, Edward Lloyd, J. C. Edwards*, Hugh Davies, Wm. Davies, Saml. Hulse*, Wm. Chamberlain, A. Warrenden, Wm. Adams, James Dove, George Dove, Abraham Taylor, Joseph Taylor, John Ames, R. Rasmusson, H. Peterson, Andrew Christofferson, James Laird, Peter Peterson, P. Swensen, N. Anderson, L. Olsen, Geo. Thompson, John Trehan*, John Cook, Andrew Lee, William White, David Park, J. O. Mather, J. Mather, L. C. Larsen, Alexander Richardson, E. L. Chapell, Peter J. Moss, Wm. Magee, Peter McCue, Peter Moffat*

were each held to bail, in the sum of fifteen hundred dollars, for their appearance at the next regular term of the Third Judicial District Court, to be held in Great Salt Lake City, on the second Monday of March, A.D. 1863, to answer such charges as may be brought against them by the Grand Jury.
Read it: Utah Digital Newspapers (search the Deseret News for June 25, 1862)

Church records

“Niels Anderson matter, 1903”

Church History Library, CR 1 191

What it is: Letters of Niels and Mary Christoffersen Anderson to President Joseph F. Smith, January–March 1903, asking help for Mary, wounded at Kington Fort in 1862, with the office’s draft reply and related correspondence.
Read it: Church History Catalog (24 images)

Joseph Morris’s letters and revelations

Church History Library, CR 1234 1

What it is: Morris’s letters to Brigham Young and manuscript revelations, 1858–1862, in the folders “Revelations of Joseph Morris” in Brigham Young’s office files. Kirk Watson’s edition, The Morrisites: Writings and Revelations (2026), prints the letters.
Find it: Search the Church History Catalog for CR 1234 1; access may require a request to the library.

Two revelations to the First Presidency, January 14 and 16, 1860

Church History Library, CR 1234 1

What it is: Two manuscript revelations, signed “Jesus Christ” and addressed to “the first presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later day saints and all so to the twelve apostles.” Both demand that the leaders receive “my servant Joseph.” They are filed as anonymous letters among Brigham Young’s incoming correspondence for 1860, outside the folders of Morris’s revelations, and were identified by Kirk Watson in November 2026.
Why they matter: They are among the earliest dated revelations of Morris to survive in manuscript. The Spirit Prevails has only No. 2 (“Winter of 1859”) before them; its No. 3 is dated March 1860. Neither is printed there, but both are early forms of later texts. The January 14 revelation opens “when you whas small in your own eyes i took you and i rose you to the apostle ship,” the same opening as No. 18, “Revelation to President Brigham Young” (October 2, 1860). Like No. 18, it charges Young with turning the Lord’s servant away from his door and speaks of “the throne of isreal.” The January 16 revelation requires anyone with “gould and silver and houses and lands and whives” to “lay them at the feet of my servant Joseph,” the test Morris set out again in No. 185 (December 28, 1861).
How they were received: The office docket on the January 14 letter reads “Jan 14 1860 / Balderdash / About revelations / Rec Jan 20 1860,” and the same clerk wrote “Balderdash” above the heading of each revelation. The letter is addressed “To president Brigham Young grait Sault Lake City.” Whether the hand is Morris’s own has not yet been checked against his signed letters.
Read it: January 14, 1860 (5 images) · January 16, 1860 (2 images). Church History Catalog; Brigham Young office files, General Correspondence, Incoming, General Letters, A–Bi, 1860, “Anonymous letter.” A free Church Account may be required.