In early 1842, John Wentworth — editor of the Chicago Democrat — asked Joseph Smith for an account of the Latter-day Saints suitable for inclusion in a history his friend George Barstow was writing about New Hampshire. Wentworth himself was a New Hampshire man and thought the Saints’ story might be of interest to readers of Barstow’s volume.
Joseph Smith’s response, dated March 1, 1842, and published the same day in the Nauvoo Times and Seasons, is one of the most concentrated primary-source statements of the Restoration in the Prophet’s own voice. It opens with a short narrative — the First Vision (described more briefly here than in the canonical Joseph Smith—History), the visit of the angel Moroni, the receiving of the plates, the translation and publication of the Book of Mormon, the organization of the Church, the gathering, the persecutions in Missouri, the move to Illinois, and the founding of Nauvoo.
The narrative is followed by thirteen short statements of belief that Joseph Smith composed for the occasion. These statements were canonized, forty years later in 1880, as the Articles of Faith in the Pearl of Great Price. The Articles begin “We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost” and continue through belief in the Atonement, in the Restoration, in the gifts of the Spirit, in the gathering, in the millennium, and in the freedom to worship.
The Wentworth Letter is significant beyond the canonized Articles. The surrounding narrative is among the clearest first-person summaries of the Restoration as Joseph Smith himself understood it in 1842 — fifteen years after the angel Moroni’s visit and three years before his death. For readers of Joseph Smith—History 1↗ who want a concise complement to the canonical account, the Wentworth Letter is the obvious next stop.