Joseph Smith played a key role in these deliberations. “The prophet had conceived a plan of instituting a Bank, with a view of relieving their financial embarrassments,” explained Joseph Young. In addition the institution would help meet precisely the concerns leaders had about spiritual influences and the needs of the poor. Wilhelm Ritter Von Wymetal, who published a hostile treatment of Mormonism in 1886, had a general sense that the institution was expected to also serve a spiritual purpose: “The bank was founded in 1836. Its origin dates from Joseh’s idea to secure to all the Saints ‘inheritance,’ which they should possess in this life and in the other.” The Saints’ relief from debt was not to come directly through transferring loans to the bank; rather, the bank would foster investing in real property that would allow the Church to earn its way out of debt by shifting from trying to bring in income through seeking donations or merchandising to earning money through land investment which would also help meet the needs of the poor. The property was not to be given away to the poor, however. “Instead of receiving their ‘inheritance’ the Saints had to buy them,” Von Wymetal explained. The Bank of Geauga was not funding enough growth in Kirtland, so, like other regional communities, the Saints living in Kirtland “at last decide could not prosper without a currency of its own,” as Oliver Olney put it.

Therefore, on September 14, a day or two after Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Hyrum Smtih, and Oliver Cowdery returned from Salem, the firm of Smith, Rigdon & Cowdery, that had operated the Chester store for part of the year, brought thirty-nine acres of farmland from a Latter-day Saint, Hiram Dayton. Dayton had been driven from Parkman, Ohio, by persecution after joining the Church and had lost $4,500 as a result. William Draper, a twenty-nine-year-old farmer, also bought 13.25 acres from Dayton on September 13 and sold it to Joseph Smith on September 14. These initial purchases were apparently made with cash. However, store goods were quickly used to purchase additional property.

The stores operated by Church leaders in the region competed against each other and did not draw in as much outside business from the rest of the county as the Painesville stores. In addition, scarce resources in Kirtland may have made it difficult for those who received store credit to pay. As credit became tighter and some individuals could no longer get credit in Joseph’s Church-owned store, they impugned the Prophet and left the Church. Brigham Young, preaching in Salt Lake City in 1852, drew a dramatic scenario of Joseh’s reaction for his audience: “’Well,’ says Joseph, ‘these goods will make the people apostatize; trade away a first-rate store of goods, and be in debt for them.” Young sometimes used hyperbole to make his point, and this seems to have been such a case as he chastised members in Utah for doing the same thing. Giving credit was typical for stores. Brigham himself, in 1836, had purchased a pair of “panterloons” on credit in Kirtland. His use of “trade away” to describe what happened to the store goods did not mean that Joseph gave away all $20,000 worth of goods to the poor as much as it reflected the Church’s withdrawal from merchandising.

However, he made it clear that there was some expectation that Joseph, running a Church store, would make goods more accessible than typical stores: “Joseph goes to New York and buys 20,000 dollars’ worth of goods, comes into Kirtland and commences to trade. In comes one of the brethren, ‘Brother Joseph, let me have a frock pattern for my wife.’ What if Joseph says, ‘No, I cannot without the money.’ The consequence would be, ‘He is no Prophet,’ says James. . . . After a while, in comes Bill and sister Suan. Says Bill, ‘Brother Joseph, I want a shawl, I have not got the money, but I wish you to trust me a week or a fortnight.’ Well, brother Joseph thinks the others have done and apostatized, and he don’t know but these goods will make the whole Church do the same, so he lets Bill have a shawl.” Cyrus Smalling, who lived in Kirtland at the time, agreed that goods were sold on finest broadcloth, and imagining themselves rich, but could pay nothing.” Neither Young nor Smalling suggested that all or even most of the goods were given on credit or that eventually debts were not paid. However, the effort to sell small goods in a store was likely not as profitable as selling large tracts of land in a rising real estate market, since most of the goods were eventually traded for land.