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April 28, 1834

The United Firm was established by revelation in the spring of 1832 for the purpose of “regulating and establishing the affairs of the storehouse for the poor of my people, both in this place [Kirtland, OH] and in the land of Zion [Independence, MO],” as well as “to advance the cause, which ye have espoused, to the salvation of man, and to the glory of your Father who is in heaven” (Doctrine and Covenants 78:3–4).[1] Between 1832 and 1834, the United Firm managed the financial, mercantile, and publishing needs of the rapidly growing restored Church of Jesus Christ.[2] As early Latter-day Saints learned how to implement the eternal principles of the law of consecration (Doctrine and Covenants 42:30–39) in their temporal environment, the United Firm, sometimes also called the United Order,[3] became the principal organization that handled the Church’s financial and commercial interests in both Kirtland and in Missouri, including the purchasing of real estate for the Church, the purchasing and selling of mercantile goods, and the printing Church publications, among other things.

By the spring of 1834, the Firm was saddled with debt, and internal divisions among management weakened its organizational cohesion. To make matters worse, the operations of the Missouri branch of the Firm had all but ceased entirely with the Saints’ expulsion from Jackson County in November 1833. In April of 1834, a revelation directed the Missouri and Ohio branches of the Firm to be separated and the remaining properties of the Ohio branch be divided among its members, effectively ending its operations as well (Doctrine and Covenants 104).[4] The present revelation received by Joseph Smith that same month reaffirmed the separation of the two branches of the Firm and gave direction on how to settle some of the remaining assets among its membership. Specifically, the revelation earmarks three thousand dollars as being “reserved” to provide “inheritances,” meaning probably real estate or land, for the remaining members.

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Revelation given at Kirtland, Ohio, April 28, 1834.

Verily, thus saith the Lord concerning the division and settlement of the United Firm—let there be reserved three thousand dollars for the right and claim of the firm in Kirtland for inheritances in due time—even when the Lord will, and with this claim to be had in remembrance when the Lord shall reveal it for a right of inheritance. Ye are made free from the firm of Zion, and the firm in Zion is made free from the firm in Kirtland. Thus saith the Lord. Amen.

Notes

[1] JSP, D2:197, identifies section 78 as a revelation that deals “with the church’s mercantile and publishing endeavors,” demonstrating how the commercial and spiritual aspects of the work of the Church often blend together. For an informative exploration into the Church’s commercial history, see the essays collected in Matthew C. Godfrey and Michael Hubbard MacKay, eds., Business and Religion: The Intersection of Faith and Finance (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2019).

[2] An exhaustive analysis of the United Firm has been offered in Max H. Parkin, “Joseph Smith and the United Firm: The Growth and Decline of the Church’s First Master Plan of Business and Finance, Ohio and Missouri, 1832–1834,” BYU Studies Quarterly 46, no. 3 (2007): 5–62; see also Matthew C. Godfrey, “Newel K. Whitney and the United Firm,” in Revelations in Context: The Stories behind the Sections of the Doctrine and Covenants, ed. Matthew McBride and James Goldberg (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2016), 142–47.

[3] Not to be confused with the united order(s) established in Utah among the Saints as a system of cooperative industries meant in part to implement the principles of the law of consecration. On such, see generally Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830–1900 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1958); Leonard J. Arrington, Feramorz Y. Fox, and Dean L. May, Building the City of God: Community and Cooperation among the Mormons (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976).

[4] See additionally the historical context and commentary provided in JSP, D4:33–34.