TO EBENEZER ROBINSON
1842 FEBRUARY 24

ADS. Joseph Smith, Nauvoo, Illinois, for Ebenezer Robinson, 24 February 1842, 1 p., Illinois State Historical Library, Springfield, Illinois.

Having learned the printing trade as a youth in New York, 19-year-old Ebenezer Robinson was employed in the Kirtland, Ohio, Mormon printing firm of F. G. Williams & Co. in 1835 when he was converted. During the ensuing years, Robinson's name was associated with Church printing in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. He wrote that following the expulsion of the Latter-day Saints from Missouri "an increased interest was manifest in the work, and calls were made for the Book of Mormon, but there were none on hand to supply the demand." He subsequently played an important role in the publication of the third (1840) American edition of the book. In June 1839, he and Don Carlos Smith had been given the Church press, salvaged from the Missouri mobbings, and were authorized to publish a paper -the Times and Seasons -at their own expense and to use the profits therefrom to support their families. In 1840, as co-editor and proprietor of the Nauvoo printing establishment, Ebenezer Robinson traveled to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he negotiated with the firm Shepard and Stearns to have stereotype plates made, from which the 1840 edition of the Book of Mormon was published. As they prospered, Smith and Robinson agreed in December 1840 to divide their business. Don Carlos was to take the Times and Seasons and handbill printing, and Ebenezer was to take the book and fancy job printing, the stereotype foundry, and the book bindery. When Don Carlos Smith died in August 1841, Ebenezer became sole proprietor of the establishment until he sold it to the Church in February 1842. On 24 February about three weeks after ownership of the printing office passed out of Robinson's hands, Joseph Smith authorized him to use the stereotype plates to make another impression of the Book of Mormon.639

Nauvoo City Feb. 24th 1842

Ebenezer Robinson is intitled to the use of the sterotipe plates and coppy right for the print[in]g [of] fifteen Hundred Books of Morman

Joseph Smith

Witness N K Whitney