Minutes of the October 1858 General Conference

Minutes of the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Great Salt Lake City, October 6-7, 1858. President Brigham Young presiding. ¶

Ten discourses recovered from the Church History Library manuscript CR 100 912 (the Carruth shorthand transcription of previously lost 1858 sermons) are filed separately in this vault: ¶

October 6 — Morning Session: Daniel H. Wells: Organization of the Conference—Arrangement of the Congregation by Quorums; Daniel H. Wells: Heber C. Kimball and Brigham Young Are Unwell—God Has His Eye on the Saints—Selling Grain to the Army; Orson Hyde: God Is at the Helm of the Ship—The Interests of All Israel—Selling Produce to the Gentiles. ¶

October 6 — Afternoon Session: Orson Pratt, "The Lord Will Not Forget Zion—Zion Is Being Cleansed and Purified—The Interests of All Israel"; Daniel H. Wells, "The Lord Never Makes Any Mistakes—Treatment of Strangers—Selling Wheat"; Daniel H. Wells, "Every Man to Perform His Duty Whether Told or Not." ¶

October 7 — Morning Session: John Taylor, "Obedience to Counsel—The Kingdom of God Will Prevail"; Joseph Young, "A Day of Warning and Not of Many Words." ¶

October 7 — Afternoon Session: Orson Hyde, "Agency and the Responsibility of Men—The War in Heaven—Evil Spirits Attacking Elder Kimball in England." ¶

October 7 — 4 O'Clock Session: Erastus Snow, "Obedience to Counsel--The Importance of Saving Wheat--Wheat as an Investment--Selling Wheat to the Saints and Not to the Merchants--The Army and Wheat." ¶

These manuscript sermons (ingested 2026-08-17 under the Carruth lost-sermon ruling) are the only verbatim texts of this conference located so far. No Journal of Discourses entry exists for this conference, and the Deseret News/Utah Digital Newspapers account of the full roster, sustainings, and business session has not been consulted directly: newspapers.lib.utah.edu returns HTTP 418 to automated fetch, and the secondary witness historicalgeneralconferences.weebly.com/1858-october.html remains a dead link (404, reconfirmed 2026-08-31), with its only known copy on web.archive.org unreachable from this pass's tooling. The conference roster and business-session record beyond the sermons above remain untranscribed. ¶

Context: The Utah War had ended by June 1858, with President Buchanan extending a general pardon and Alfred Cumming installed as the new civilian governor. Johnston's Army was encamped at Camp Floyd (Cedar Valley), about 40 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The Saints who had evacuated northward during the "Move South" of spring 1858 had returned to their homes by late summer. This was the first General Conference following the resolution of the Utah War crisis. ¶