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by Ronald D. Dennis

The Evening and The Morning Star was the first newspaper of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was published in fourteen eight-paged, double-columned monthly issues in Independence, Missouri, from June 1832 to July 1833. When the press in Missouri was destroyed by a mob, publication was resumed several months later in Kirtland, Ohio, with ten issues published from December 1833 to September 1834. W. W. (William Wines) Phelps, its editor in Missouri, printed in it a brief History of the Church, a number of LDS hymns, instructions to members of the Church, letters reporting its progress throughout the country, and many of the revelations received by the Prophet Joseph Smith. Oliver Cowdery, its editor in Ohio, printed reports and commentaries about the Saints' difficulties in Missouri and some of the doctrinal writings of Sidney Rigdon, a counselor in the First Presidency.

Because the circulation of the Missouri-printed Star was small and localized, Cowdery reprinted all the original twenty-four issues in Kirtland between January 1835 and October 1836, in a new sixteen-page format, with numerous grammatical improvements, and a few articles deleted. The Evening and the Morning Star was succeeded by the Latter Day Saints' Messenger and Advocate in October 1834 (HC 2:167).

[See also Messenger and Advocate; Daily Living home page; Church History home page; 1831-1844 home page.]

Encyclopedia of Mormonism, Vol. 1, The Evening and The Morning Star

Copyright © 1992 by Macmillan Publishing Company