Theodore Turley Papers

Text on back cover (draft):

In 1837, British Emigrant Theodore Turley and his family, then living in Upper Canada, joined what became The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The following year, the Turleys migrated to the Church’s headquarters in Caldwell County, Missouri, arriving just before violence against the Saints led to civil war and an order from the state’s governor to exterminate or expel them.

With other refugees, the Turleys moved eastward and across the Mississippi River to Illinois, where Theodore built the first Latter-day Saint home in a settlement soon named Nauvoo by the Church’s founder, Joseph Smith. From there, Theodore accompanied some of the church’s apostles to his native England, where he enjoyed a measure of missionary success before being arrested and imprisoned to stop his preaching.

To help him escape further persecution, church leaders in England appointed Theodore Turley to lead a company of emigrants to Nauvoo. He and the members of the emigrant company endured a harrowing sea voyage and difficult river and lake passages before finally arriving safely at the church’s new headquarters in 1840.

Volume 1 of the Theodore Turley Papers reproduces the documents of his life during this challenging but faith-filled period of his life. The volume also provides introductions and other commentary that helps place the documents in the context of Latter-day Saint, British, and American History.