Conference record · 1847 December Sustaining/Reorganization Conference · 1847-12-24
The authoritative witness is the open-to-research Church History Library manuscript, 'Pottawattamie settlements, 1847 December 23-27' (CR 100 318, 26 leaves), recorded by Thomas Bullock. The record is limited to the December 24, 26, and 27 sessions identified by the catalog as Conference. Follow-up (2026-07-16): all in-scope leaves (1-19) are now transcribed by direct reading of the CHL leaf images (fetched via the catalog's own delivery API, bypassing a browser-screenshot tool failure that had blocked this in a prior pass). Still graded fragmentary, not because content is missing, but because Thomas Bullock's fast longhand -- especially in leaf 9's dense world-events survey -- carries real word-level uncertainty; every uncertain reading is marked in place with [illegible] or [word?] per this file's own transcription notation rather than smoothed over. A second reader collating against the same images would improve confidence in specific bracketed spots, particularly leaf 9.
Catalog description: 'December 23, meeting of Twelve with Joseph Young and others, with speakers Wilford Woodruff and Joseph Young; December 24, Conference meetings in log tabernacle, with speakers Wilford Woodruff, Orson Pratt, Amasa M. Lyman, and George A. Smith; December 25, meetings regarding Pottawattamie High Council organization; also afternoon council meeting regarding filling of positions in Council of Twelve; December 26, Conference, with speaker William I. Appleby; December 27, Conference sessions, with speakers John Young, Heber C. Kimball, Ezra T. Benson, Joseph Young, Brigham Young, and George A. Smith, with vote to sustain First Presidency. Includes list of those to receive general epistle, also list of those donating for collection of music. Recorded by Thomas [Bullock].' The manuscript's own text (all 19 in-scope leaves) is now transcribed below; see fidelity_notes and source_collation_notes for method and confidence.
OCR'd from MStar_Vol_10_djvu.txt (lines ~14727-14898). Cleaned of mechanical OCR character errors and rejoined line-breaks without paraphrasing or modernizing wording. This is a personal letter, not conference minutes; it recounts the conference's two meeting attempts (an overcrowded first attempt, then the move to the newly built Log Tabernacle), the sustaining vote for the First Presidency and Patriarch, and quotes President Young's remarks at length, but is not a clerk's verbatim record of the whole proceedings.
Corroborates the underlying facts (the Twelve's Dec. 5, 1847 council decision, ratified at this conference) and gives Dec. 27, 1847 as the ratification date, without adding detail beyond what Young's letter already gives.
Ingested; not yet independently reviewed.
This is a living critical edition. If you find a transcription, metadata, or sourcing error in this talk, report it to the editors →Reports are collated against the page scan and land as corrections in the vault.