If You Could Spend a Day in the Vault . . .

[_Joe Geisner]

Oh, sorry, I forgot to mention.

When I talked with Lyndon about the Clayton diaries he told me that he never had access. This was Andy's project. Andy made typed notes for his Masters Thesis and for the Ehat/Cook Words of Joseph Smith. No matter what you want to say about the student who copied Lyndon's copy, we are all indebted to him for making this diary available. It was a shocker when it hit the streets.

There is a book called The Nauvoo Diaries of William Clayton, 1842-1846, Abridged and people in the know have told me that this contains around 70-75% of the Nauvoo diary. I believe Benchmark Books may still have copies, though I did not see any for sale at Sunstone, two weeks ago. But if you are interested, I suggest you call them.

[_Equality]

As far as I know, only Turley, the secretary to the 1st Prez., and members of the 1st Prez. are the only ones who get pretty much any access to the vault. It seems that even members of the 12 ask the secretary if they can see minutes and stuff. From what I understand, the only person who has the "key" is the secretary, but I hope they have a duplicate with each of the 1st Prez.

Thanks, Joe. I guess I am wondering, based on your comment that many of the items on the list of things that are supposed to be in the FP Vault are actually available in other places (or copies of them are available), what things on that list are NOT available anywhere to anyone outside the top church brass and Turley? When someones asks what is in the vault that we would like to see, I think they are referring to those things that have been kept not just from the public but from professional historians, including professional historians like Bushman. Obviously, the FP and Q12 minutes are in that category, as are the Nauvoo Council of 50 minutes and this Nuttall diary. What else is being kept under wraps?

[_just me]

Well, where are they keeping all the pioneer journals that they won't let people read?

That's what I want!

[_Joe Geisner]

Well, where are they keeping all the pioneer journals that they won't let people read?

That's what I want!

http://www.LDS.org/churchhistory/librar ... 68,00.html

And type in a name. David Roberts excellent Devils Gate used this constantly and found devastating information of Brigham Young's callous disregard for the handcart pioneers. Will Bagley say this is the most important overland trail research tool ever. He says that the transcription of the Thomas Bullock Pioneer Camp diary is superior to his own published work.

[_just me]

Well, where are they keeping all the pioneer journals that they won't let people read?

That's what I want!

http://www.LDS.org/churchhistory/librar ... 68,00.html

And type in a name. David Roberts excellent Devils Gate used this constantly and found devastating information of Brigham Young's callous disregard for the handcart pioneers. Will Bagley say this is the most important overland trail research tool ever. He says that the transcription of the Thomas Bullock Pioneer Camp diary is superior to his own published work.

Gosh, I've probably searched that thing over a thousand times. Little did I know...

[Guest]

Thanks, Joe. I guess I am wondering, based on your comment that many of the items on the list of things that are supposed to be in the FP Vault are actually available in other places (or copies of them are available), what things on that list are NOT available anywhere to anyone outside the top church brass and Turley? .... What else is being kept under wraps?

As I look at the list here is what I have not seen. But I should say that these items hold little interest to me and they could all be available, I just don't know. To be honest, some I have no idea what is even meant by the title.

Missionary Blessing of Truman O. Angell
George Bean Report
Ezra T. Benson Missionary Blessing
Carson Valley Mission List of Missionaries
Flat Head Mission List of Missionaries
Garden Grove, Iowa, History
Kirtland, Ohio, Township Record and record of Livestock Ear Marks
Las Vegas Mission List of Missionaries

I know Bill MacKinnon has done extensive work on the Las Vegas mission and knows all kinds of stuff about it. So this last item he may have seen, and I bet he knows who these men were that were sent to ore lead, to make bullets, to kill U.S. Soldiers.

Someone brought up the Patriarchal Blessing books. They are not in the 1st Prez. vault. They are in the CHL. (at least scans) I know when I went to get copies of my wife's ancestors blessing it was in their department in the COB. But if yu want to see the blessing, get Mike Marquardt's Early Patriarchal Blessings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I own three copies because this is a real treasure. Mike has volume two coming out within a year, and it will be larger and have more blessings. The work he has done is priceless in this area. It is one of the most important works ever created in Mormon studies. We all owe Mike a tremendous amount of debt for his incredible work.

Also, the vault does contain three seer-stones. Grant Palmer has seen them and did a great description.

[_harmony]

What I want isn't in the vault: I want to see the revelation that restored the Melchizedek priesthood. I want to see a photograph of Peter, James, and John or the angel with the flaming sword or even Elijah. I want to see the revelation that started the priesthood ban. And I really really REALLY want to see the financial report of all income and expenditures for 1957-2011.

[_Bond James Bond]

Obscene Material [I don’t know what this could be]

This should be published to all the world.

It's already out on the Net. If you want some websites I'm sure I could suggest a few key words to put into Google.

[_Madison54]

I have lots of thoughts on this vault issue and hope I can share some of what I have learned over the years.

The amount of Mormon records available is over whelming, it is staggering. People could spend multiple lifetimes looking at archive material that is easily available. There is huge gold mines of information that are basically being left untouched. I recently visited four archives and have received large qualities of material from three others. Most of this material I had never even heard of six months ago and found huge amounts of information that has blown my socks off. I say this after 25 years of active research.

Ok....wow, Joe! All of your entire posts in this thread (and elsewhere) are fascinating to read.

I am still fairly new on this forum and just recently started posting more, but I have already found that there are such incredibly intelligent and well read individuals here (you, Blixa, Just Me, Cicero, Infymus, Kishkumen plus I'm sure many others who I haven't had the opportunity to communicate with yet).

I am blown away with the knowledge, writings, and resources you all have and I wish so badly there was a way to share and benefit from each other's research.

I know that many do not share an interest in church history. I have siblings who stopped believing years ago who were able to just walk away and didn't really care to spend time delving into the true history. But, for me I was obsessed and driven to read everything I could get my hands on and then dig even deeper and then deeper.

I have files of information on some really different aspects of church history. Some of this was because of who my ancestors were and I have some of their journals and this was where my interest lay. But this led me to researching more and more church history topics.

I also own a library of hundreds of books and have an insatiable appetite to continue reading and reading. Many of these books are very old books and were written by contemporaries of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and so on where I found most of the very best information. Of course, there was a lot of "anti" writings back then, but if you read enough, pick out the identical (some times just off handed comments), you can piece things together and figure out the truth.

I became obsessed with some strange topics and I won't go into them here....but I did find that writings and histories (by members and nonmembers) from back in the days things happened are incredible to read. They had no idea we'd be reading them today. They had no idea what the church would become (or what doctrines would change or become taboo) and many thought it would die out just as other religions did. So, many writings are very honest and accurate.

Well...I could ramble forever (as you can probably tell).

Just for example: The Arrington collection at USU is one of the greatest collection on Mormon history. There is 400 or 500 boxes just on Mormon related items. The Mike Marquardt collection is second to Arrington with over 400 boxes of Mormon related materials. There is enough in these two collections to keep a person occupied for a life and they are full of mind blowing information. BYU Special Collections has thousands upon thousands of boxes and they are all full of treasures waiting for the young and old to mine. And finally Mike Quinn's collection at Yale has been way under utilized. His has so much good stuff, we need to send an army to mine this collection.

Ok Joe....how do we access these or find them?

I have gotten into the BYU collections and also the Yale collection and read some of Quinn's writings during that time, but I'd like to read more.

I am willing to read and read if I can be pointed in the right direction. I also love to type and will offer my services to anyone for this.

I just feel that many of us and others elsewhere are all studying and researching many of the same topics. Maybe we could split it up and then return and report to each other.....for those interested in this?

I will PM you....

[_just me]

Great.Thread.

Joe, thanks for your contributions! Happy to have you here sharing with us.