Biography

Joseph T. Ball was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Joseph Ball and Mary Montgomery Drew, on 21 February in either 1804, 1805, or 1806.[1] Although Ball has been frequently cited by historians as the first black high priest and branch president in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there are no contemporary Mormon records which identify Ball as black.[2] Ball’s father was born in Jamaica, West Indies, and immigrated to Boston, Massachusetts by 1796.[3] In that year the older Joseph Ball became a founding member of the African Society of Boston, a fraternal organization that was created to mutually support other black members of the society.[4] In 1800, Ball had his first child with Mary Montgomery Drew, who would go on to bear six children in total with Ball, including Joseph T. Ball.[5] Despite their relationship and children, Ball and Drew did not marry until 19 November 1816.[6] Drew’s history and racial status is unclear, but one possible explanation for the delay in the marriage date would be because interracial marriage was illegal in Massachusetts at the time.[7] If Drew was white it may have taken time for Ball to distance himself from Boston’s black community and pass as white. Regardless, in both 1810 and 1820, the United States Census identified the entire Ball family as not white, with the 1820 census defining them as "Free Colored Persons."[8] However, in 1830, the Ball family was listed as white in the United States census, although it correctly identified a member of the family—presumably the older Joseph Ball—as a foreigner.[9] From that date on, all extant government records for the Ball family identify them as white.[10] By 1830, the Ball family was passing.

In the 1830s, two of Ball’s sisters, Martha V. and Lucy Ball, became heavily involved in the abolitionist movement. Although one keen-eyed observer of the sisters at an 1838 abolitionist convention in Philadelphia identified Martha as “slightly colored,” on the whole it appears the sisters successfully passed as white to most others in the movement.[11] For example, an 1834 advertisement for a school run by Martha and Lucy in William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator described the Ball sisters as “two white young ladies, well qualified for the station.”[12] In her examination of the question of the Ball sisters’ race, historian Debra Gold Hansen noted that she “had not found any reference to the Balls’ race in any of the correspondence or writings of their friends and colleagues.”[13] The same could be said for their brother Joseph T. Ball as well. Despite his racial heritage, there is no evidence that any of Ball’s associates and coreligionists in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ever saw him as anything other than white. Thus Ball’s sojourn in Mormonism illustrates the impossibility of policing racial boundaries.

Little is known of Joseph T. Ball’s early involvement with the church. He may have been among the fifteen or so Bostonian converts baptized by Orson Hyde and Samuel Smith in the summer of 1832.[14] He apparently relocated to Kirtland, Ohio, by September 1833. In a letter to former Boston resident Vienna Jaques, Joseph Smith reported that “Brothe[r] Ball and Siste[r] Elizabeth [Eaton] Chase arived here <from> boston.” Smith also related that Ball had moved about three miles away from town “to work at his trade”—presumably as a cooper.[15] It is unclear how long Ball remained in the Kirtland area.

On 17 March 1836, shortly before the dedication of the Kirtland temple, “several quorums” of priesthood holders met in the nearly completed structure to attend to church business. During their meeting, Ball’s name was presented for ordination to the office of elder, but the conference rejected his ordination along with three other men for unknown reasons.[16] Nevertheless, Ball must have been ordained an elder by January 1838, when he joined Wilford Woodruff on a mission to the Fox Islands in Maine.[17]

In all of Woodruff’s interactions with Ball, as a mission companion and thereafter, he never mentioned Ball’s racial identity. Woodruff’s journals and letters which contain numerous references to Ball are silent on the matter. In contrast, in 1835, when Woodruff created a membership list of the various branches of the church in Tennessee, he wrote “coloured” next to the names of five African-American church members.[18] For Woodruff, then, white was a default racial category not worth mentioning, while black was noteworthy. It seems evident that Woodruff did not mention Ball's race because he understood Ball to be white.

In March 1838, while still Woodruff's companion, Ball received word from his mother asking him to return to Boston, possibly in connection with his father’s passing in 1837.[19] Ball left for Boston later that month.[20] Ball and Woodruff reconnected in Massachusetts in May, and Woodruff recorded staying with Ball and his mother in Boston in their home on 12 Botolph Street.[21] The two men traveled on to New York City and New Jersey, though Ball then returned to Boston and then the Fox Islands in July.[22] In December, he again visited New York City, taught the Saints there the Word of Wisdom, and “put in order, some things that were out of order in the church.”[23]

For the next two years, Ball appears to have continued to live in Boston while frequently traveling throughout New England preaching the gospel. During summer 1839, diaries and conference reports place him in New York City, Albany, New York, and New Jersey.[24] That winter, members of the New York City branch complained of Ball’s conduct for unknown reasons, but after an investigation the complaints were dropped.[25] On 1 May 1840, he left Boston for a mission in Massachusetts and eventually Mansfield, Connecticut, where he continued preaching until at least October, when he reported he had “baptized 50 all in good standing.”[26]

In 1841, Ball appears to have gone to Nauvoo for an extended period of time. Sometime that year Ball was baptized for his dead father, sister and a friend, presumably at Nauvoo in the Mississippi River.[27] In August 1841, Ball was called on a mission to South America by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. The description of the call—which contained instructions to leave for New Orleans immediately—suggests that Ball was in Nauvoo at the time.[28] Although the call was reconfirmed two months later, Ball did not fulfil the mission.[29] Nevertheless, Ball received an elder’s license in Nauvoo from Joseph Smith’s clerk, James Sloan, on 9 May 1842.[30]

In 1843, Ball spent most of the year preaching in and around Cincinnati, Ohio. On 25 June, Ball attended a conference at Cincinnati presided over by three members of the Quorum of the Twelve and attended by several priesthood holders, including early black Latter-day Saint Elijah Able. During the conference, apostle John E. Page stated that “wisdom forbids that we should introduce [Elijah Able] before the public” because of his race, a stance that was sustained by apostle Orson Pratt. At the conclusion of the conference, the apostles and priesthood holders present all sanctioned a motion that advised Able to “visit the coloured population” rather than continue public preaching. Though Ball was also present at the conference, neither Page nor Pratt made any mention of Ball’s race, nor was there any suggestion of similarly curtailing his preaching in public.[31]

 During the 1843 mission to Ohio, Ball became associated with Sam Brannan who was also preaching in the region.[32] A year later, back on the East Coast, Ball and Brannan joined with apostle William Smith and George J. Adams—a charismatic Mormon preacher and missionary—in collecting money from the eastern branches for personal use and introducing “their Spiritual Wife Claims”—a loosely structured version of polygamy—to the Saints. Arriving in Boston in early October 1844, Apostle Wilford Woodruff reported that “Elder Ball has taught as will as W^m Smith the Lowell girls that [it] is not wrong to have intercourse with the men what they please & Elder Ball tries to sleep with them when he can.” When local church authorities objected to their teachings, Woodruff stated that William Smith, Ball, Adams, and Brannan would “remove all presiding Elders that would not favor their designs & put in such as would.”[33] This is precisely what happened at Boston in early October 1844. When presiding elder John Hardy objected to Smith’s teachings and actions, Smith, Adams, and Brannan forced Hardy to resign his position and appointed Ball in his stead.[34] Woodruff noted that while only one man openly opposed the proceedings, he “knew others felt opposed to the moove.”[35] Ball and Adams subsequently excommunicated Hardy from the church.[36] Despite Woodruff’s opposition to the conduct of Smith and his followers, he took no action against them, save to report their conduct to Brigham Young. Ball presided over the Boston branch of the church from October 1844 to February 1845. Around this time, presumably when Smith arranged for Ball to replace Hardy, Smith ordained Ball a high priest.[37]

In February 1845, apostle Parley P. Pratt arrived in New York City to help bring order to the eastern churches reeling from Smith’s teachings and conduct. On 1 March 1845, he published a public letter calling on “the Elders generally to repair to Nauvoo,” specifically stating that “Elder Ball of Boston should also go up, leaving the affairs of the church to Elder Benson.”[38] Despite these specific instructions, Ball remained in Boston until mid-April when Ball’s friend Brannon wrote in The Prophet, a Latter-day Saint newspaper in New York City, that Ball was “on his way to Nauvoo, in compliance with council . . . . He carries with him the prayers of the church that he so faithfully served in the time of their deepest distress.”[39] After Ball left New York, Brannan wrote to Brigham Young informing him that Ball was supposed to pay the church some of the money he and the others had been accused of squandering.[40] Despite these assurances, there is no record of Ball fulfilling this financial obligation. Ball traveled slowly, only reaching Warren County, Ohio, by June, where he presided over a two-day conference of the church in the region, addressing the Saints “on the necessity of gathering to Zion” and “the necessity of obeying council.”[41]

Ball arrived in Nauvoo by mid-July 1845. By the time he arrived in the city, his associate George J. Adams had already been excommunicated from the church months earlier for his conduct in the east and there were significant tensions between William Smith and the other apostles in the city.[42] Nevertheless, Ball appears to have continued his close association with William Smith, receiving a patriarchal blessing from him on 14 July 1845. The blessing stated that “the powers and blessings of the holy Priesthood are upon thine head after the order of Melchisedec even ordained a High Priest by the Spirit of Revelation from under my hands,” and further pronounced that Ball was “of that Royal Stock, to whom the blessings and promises were made, even of Joseph[']s tribe whose blessings are of heaven.”[43] The claim to lineage in the House of Israel was as much a racial claim as a spiritual one in the nineteenth century. All other known patriarchal blessings for black Latter-day Saints which state a lineage in the nineteenth century, identify their lineage as Canaan, Ham, or Cain.[44] Ball’s lineage in his patriarchal blessing is further evidence that church leaders saw Ball as white.

During the summer of 1845, at least two apostles wrote to church leaders in Nauvoo reporting on Ball’s misconduct in Boston. In June, Parley P. Pratt wrote to Brigham Young that he had “no Confidence whatever in the virtue, honesty and integrity of Elder Ball, who lately Started for the west. I have become fully Convinced, from the Most positive testimony, and feel also assured by the Spirit that he is a very Corrupt Man, and guilty of Adultery, fornication, or attempts at seduction and Crime of the Grocest [Grossest?] kind.” Pratt further stated that while he had not taken any action against Ball in the east, he advised that the church “Should immediately disfellowship him and call him to account.”[45] Two months later, Orson Hyde wrote to Bishop Newel K. Whitney that “By accounts, Bro. Joseph Ball is any thing but a pure hearted man He is represented as very corrupt like Adams. He is gone to Nauvoo. You will no doubt have an eye to him.”[46]

By the time Hyde’s letter arrived in Nauvoo, Ball had almost certainly left the city. In August 1845, the tensions between William Smith and the other apostles led to a formal break.[47] It seems likely that Ball followed Smith out of the city and the church, although there is no record of any formal discipline taken against him. It appears that Ball returned to Boston and at some point, began affiliating with the followers of the schismatic Latter Day Saint prophet, James J. Strang. In July 1849, Ball and other Strangites wrote to Strang, requesting that he come to Boston to preach and reorganize the scattered branch in the city.[48] Ball’s later religious affiliations are unknown.

Ball died in Boston on 20 September 1861 after a three-year struggle with tuberculosis. The extra line in his death record meant to signify race was left blank; a silence which identified Ball as white.[49]

By Jeffrey D. Mahas

Primary Sources

The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay. Boston: Wright & Potter, 1869. Volume 1.

“Boston Conference,” The Prophet (New York City, New York), 2 Nov. 1844, 2.

Brigham Young office files. Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Charles Greenwood to James Strang, 1 July 1849, James Jesse Strang Collection, WA MSS 446 box 1 folder 8, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

Communications, Times and Seasons (Nauvoo, Illinois), 15 December 1840, 253-254.

“Conference Minutes,” Times and Seasons (Nauvoo, Illinois), 1 July 1845, 948.

“Elder J. T. Ball,” The Prophet (New York City, New York), 19 Apr. 1845, 2.

Historian’s Office Minutes and Reports (local units), 1840-1886, Ohio, 1843-1844, CR 100 589, box 1, folder 11, images 3-7, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

"History, 1838–1856, volume C-1 [2 November 1838–31 July 1842]," p. 1224 and 1232, The Joseph Smith Papers, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, accessed December 7, 2018.

History and minutes of the New York Branch, in High Priests Quorum Record. CR 1000 1. Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Jonathan Oldham Duke, Autobiography and Diary, vol. 1. Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah

Joseph Smith, Kirtland, Ohio to Vienna Jaques, Independence, Missouri, 4 September 1833. The Joseph Smith Papers, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, accessed December 7, 2018.

Laws of the African Society, Instituted at Boston, Anno Domini, 1796. Boston: N. P., 1802.

“Letter from Wilford Woodruff and Others, 9 March 1838," p. 35, The Joseph Smith Papers, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, accessed December 10, 2018.

"License Record Book," p. 94, The Joseph Smith Papers, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, accessed December 7, 2018.

Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

"Minute Book 1," p. 146, The Joseph Smith Papers, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, accessed December 10, 2018.

Nauvoo Baptisms for the Dead, Book A. Microfilm. Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

“New School for Colored Females,” The Liberator (Boston, Massachusetts), 29 March 1834, 3.

Newel K. Whitney Collection, VMSS 76 box 1 folder 26, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.

“Notice to the Elders,” The Prophet (New York City, New York), 1 Mar. 1845, 2.

Report of a Delegate to the Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women. Boston: I. Knapp, 1838.

"S. Brannan to Wilford Woodruff, 5 Dec. 1843," in Times and Seasons (Nauvoo Illinois), 1 Jan. 1844, 388.

United States. 1810 Census. Massachusetts, Boston, 6^th Ward.

United States. 1820 Census. Massachusetts, Boston, 6^th Ward.

United States. 1830 Census. Massachusetts, Boston, 6^th Ward.

Wilford Woodruff Journals and Papers. Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah

Wilford Woodruff Collection. Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Secondary Sources

Ball, Joseph T. Findagrave.com.

Dirkmaat, Gerrit J. et al. The Joseph Smith Papers Documents Volume 3: February 1833-March 1834. Salt Lake City: The Church Historian’s Press, 2014.

Hansen, Debra Gold. Strained Sisterhood: Gender and Class in Boston Female Anti-slavery Society. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993.

Hansen, Debra Gold. “The Boston Female Anti-Slavery Societies, 1834-1840.” In The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Edited by Jean Fagen Yellin and John C. Van Horne. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994.

Harris, Matthew. “Mormons and Lineage: The Complicated History of Blacks and Patriarchal Blessings, 1830-2018.” Dialogue 51, no. 3 (Fall 2018): 83-129.

Marquardt, H. Michael. Early Patriarchal Blessings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City: Smith-Pettit Foundation, 2007.

O’Donovan, Connell. “Brigham Young, African Americans, and Plural Marriage: Schism and the Beginnings of Black Priesthood and Temple Denial.” The Persistence of Polygamy: From Joseph Smith’s Martyrdom to the First Manifesto, 1844-1890. Independence, Missouri: John Whitmer Books, 2013.

Walker, Kyle R. William B. Smith: In the Shadow of a Prophet. Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2015.

[1] According to Ball’s 1845 patriarchal blessing, he was born on February 21, 1804. However, his gravestone gives his birth year as 1805, while death records suggest 1806. H. Michael Marquardt, ed., Early Patriarchal Blessings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Smith-Pettit Foundation, 2007), 320; Joseph T. Ball, Findagrave.com; "Massachusetts Deaths, 1841-1915," Joseph T. Ball, 20 Sep 1861, Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, v 149 p 132, State Archives, Boston, microfilm 960,179, U.S. and Canada Records Collection, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[2] See for example, Connell O’Donovan, “Early Boston Mormons and Missionaries, A to C 1831-1860;" Connell O’Donovan, “Brigham Young, African Americans, and Plural Marriage: Schism and the Beginnings of Black Priesthood and Temple Denial,” The Persistence of Polygamy: From Joseph Smith’s Martyrdom to the First Manifesto, 1844-1890 (Independence, Missouri: John Whitmer Books, 2013), 49-57; Matthew L. Harris and Newell G. Bringhurst, eds, The Mormon Church and Blacks: A Documentary History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015), 19, 30, 32; Kyle R. Walker, William B. Smith: In the Shadow of a Prophet (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2015), 237-239; Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women’s Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835-1870 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017), 21-23.

[3] "Massachusetts Deaths, 1841-1915," Martha V. Ball, 22 Dec. 1894, Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, v 447 p 510, State Archives, Boston, microfilm 961,514, U.S. and Canada Records Collection, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah; "Massachusetts Deaths, 1841-1915," Lucy Ball, 13 Apr. 1891, Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, v 420 p 121, State Archives, Boston, microfilm 961,505, U.S. and Canada Records Collection, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[4] Laws of the African Society, Instituted at Boston, Anno Domini, 1796 (Boston: N. P., 1802), 7.

[5] Joseph T. Ball. Findagrave.com.

[6] Boston Marriage Publications, 1807-1817, vol. 8, p. 439, Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

[7] An Act for the Better Preventing of a Spurious and Mixt Issue [Dec. 7, 1705], in The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1869), 1:578-9.

[8] The 1810 census broke down white population by age but had a separate category for “All other free Persons except Indians.” According to the 1810 census, there were 9 non-white free persons living in the Ball house that year. The 1820 census identified the Ball family as “Free Colored Persons.” United States. 1810 Census. Massachusetts, Boston, 6^th Ward; United States. 1820 Census. Massachusetts, Boston, 6^th Ward.

[9] United States. 1830 Census. Massachusetts, Boston, 6^th Ward.

[10] United States. 1840 Census. Massachusetts, Boston, 6^th Ward; "Massachusetts Deaths, 1841-1915," Martha V. Ball, 22 Dec. 1894, Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, v 447 p 510, State Archives, Boston, microfilm 961,514, U.S. and Canada Records Collection, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah; "Massachusetts Deaths, 1841-1915," Lucy Ball, 13 Apr. 1891, Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, v 420 p 121, State Archives, Boston, microfilm 961,505, U.S. and Canada Records Collection, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[11] Report of a Delegate to the Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women (Boston: I. Knapp, 1838), 6.

[12] “New School for Colored Females,” The Liberator (Boston, Massachusetts), 29 March 1834, 3; Debra Gold Hansen, “The Boston Female Anti-Slavery Societies, 1834-1840,” in The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America, ed. by Jean Fagen Yellin and John C. Van Horne (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994), p. 56-57n37.

[13] Hansen, apparently unaware of the 1810 and 1820 census, concluded that the Ball sisters “typified white, middle-class abolitionists.” Debra Gold Hansen, “The Boston Female Anti-Slavery Societies, 1834-1840,” in The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America, ed. by Jean Fagen Yellin and John C. Van Horne (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994), p. 56-57n37; Debra Gold Hansen, Strained Sisterhood: Gender and Class in Boston Female Anti-slavery Society (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993), 107-108.

[14] Gerrit J. Dirkmaat, et al, The Joseph Smith Papers Documents Volume 3: February 1833-March 1834 (Salt Lake City: The Church Historian’s Press, 2014), 288-289.

[15] Joseph Smith to Vienna Jaques, 4 September 1833, The Joseph Smith Papers, Church History Library, accessed December 7, 2018; "Massachusetts Deaths, 1841-1915," Joseph T. Ball, 20 Sep 1861, Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, v 149 p 132, State Archives, Boston, microfilm 960,179, U.S. and Canada Records Collection, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[16] "Minute Book 1," p. 146, The Joseph Smith Papers, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, accessed December 10, 2018, .

[17] Wilford Woodruff, Journal, 13 January 1838, Wilford Woodruff journals and papers. Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah; “Letter from Wilford Woodruff and Others, 9 March 1838," p. 35, The Joseph Smith Papers, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, accessed December 10, 2018.

[18] Wilford Woodruff, Membership Record Book, 1835, Wilford Woodruff Collection, MS 5506, Box 2, folder 6, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[19] Phebe Woodruff to Wilford Woodruff, 1 March 1838, Wilford Woodruff collection. Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah; Joseph T. Ball, Findagrave.com.

[20] Wilford Woodruff, Journal, 21 March 1838, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[21] Wilford Woodruff, Journal, 9-13 May 1838, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[22] Wilford Woodruff, Journal, 14 May through 8 June, 5 July and 20 July 1838, Wilford Woodruff journals and papers. Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[23] History and minutes of the New York Branch, in High Priests Quorum Record, Winter 1838, CR 1000 1, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[24] Jonathan Oldham Duke, Autobiography and Diary, vol. 1 p. 6. Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah; “Conference Minutes,” Times and Seasons (Nauvoo, Illinois), January 1840, 44.

[25] History and minutes of the New York Branch, 12 December 1839, in High Priests Quorum Record, CR 1000 1, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah; Wilford Woodruff, Journal, 12 December 1839, Wilford Woodruff journals and papers. Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[26] “Communications,” Times and Seasons (Nauvoo, Illinois), 15 December 1840, 253-254.

[27] Baptisms for the Dead, 1840-1845, vol. A, p. 1 and 11, microfilm 183,376, U.S. and Canada Records Collection, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[28] "History, 1838–1856, volume C-1 [2 November 1838–31 July 1842]," p. 1224, The Joseph Smith Papers, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, accessed December 7, 2018.

[29] "History, 1838–1856, volume C-1 [2 November 1838–31 July 1842]," p. 1232, The Joseph Smith Papers, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, accessed December 7, 2018.

[30] "License Record Book," p. 94, The Joseph Smith Papers, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, accessed December 7, 2018.

[31] Historian’s Office Minutes and Reports (local units), 1840-1886, Ohio, 1843-1844, CR 100 589, box 1, folder 11, images 3-7, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[32] S. Brannan to Wilford Woodruff, 5 Dec. 1843, in Times and Seasons (Nauvoo Illinois), 1 Jan. 1844, 388.

[33] Wilford Woodruff to Brigham Young, 9 and 14 October 1844, Brigham Young office files, CR 1234 1, box 43, folder 24, images 11-14, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[34] Wilford Woodruff to Brigham Young, 9, 12, and 14 Oct. 1844, Brigham Young office files, CR 1234 1, box 43, folder 24, images 11-14, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[35] Wilford Woodruff to Brigham Young, 9 and 14 Oct. 1844, Brigham Young office files. Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah; Wilford Woodruff, Journal, 7 October 1844, Wilford Woodruff journal and papers, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[36] “Boston Conference,” The Prophet (New York City, New York), 2 Nov. 1844, 2.

[37] H. Michael Marquardt, ed., Early Patriarchal Blessings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Smith-Pettit Foundation, 2007), 320.

[38] “Notice to the Elders,” The Prophet (New York City, New York), 1 Mar. 1845, 3.

[39] “Elder J. T. Ball,” The Prophet (New York City, New York), 19 Apr. 1845, 2.

[40] Sam Brannan to Brigham Young, 22 July 1845, Brigham Young office files, CR 1234 1, box 20, folder 10, images 21-26, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[41] “Conference Minutes,” Times and Seasons (Nauvoo, Illinois), 1 July 1845, 948.

[42] “Notice to the Churches Abroad,” Times and Seasons (Nauvoo, Illinois), 15 April 1845, 878; Kyle R. Walker, William B. Smith: In the Shadow of a Prophet (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2015), 257-278.

[43] H. Michael Marquardt, ed., Early Patriarchal Blessings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Smith-Pettit Foundation, 2007), 320.

[44] Matthew Harris, “Mormons and Lineage: The Complicated History of Blacks and Patriarchal Blessings, 1830-2018,” Dialogue 51, no. 3 (Fall 2018): 83-129. Harris identifies Ball’s blessing as evidence that lineage was not settled in the 1840s under William Smith. It seems just as likely, if not more so, however, that Ball’s blessing is instead evidence that Smith did not see Ball as black.

[45] Quoted by Connell O’Donovan, “Brigham Young, African Americans, and Plural Marriage: Schism and the Beginnings of Black Priesthood and Temple Denial,” in The Persistence of Polygamy: From Joseph Smith’s Martyrdom to the First Manifesto, 1844-1890,ed. by Newell G. Bringhurst and Craig L. Foster(Independence, Missouri: John Whitmer Books, 2013), 56. Even though Century of Black Mormons was not given permission to cite to the Pratt letter directly, the LDS Church History Library did confirm content of the letter as quoted here. 

[46] Orson Hyde to Newel K. Whitney, 24 Aug. 1845, Newel K. Whitney Collection VMSS 76 box 1 folder 26, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, BYU, Provo, Utah.

[47] Kyle R. Walker, William B. Smith: In the Shadow of a Prophet (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2015), 279-306.

[48] Charles Greenwood to James Strang, 1 July 1849, James Jesse Strang Collection, WA MSS 446 box 1 folder 8, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

[49] "Massachusetts Deaths, 1841-1915," Joseph T. Ball, 20 Sep 1861, Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, v 149 p 132, State Archives, Boston, microfilm 960,179, U.S. and Canada Records Collection, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Documents

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