JS, Motion, to Nauvoo City Council, [, Hancock Co., IL], 5 Mar. 1842; handwriting of JS; one page; Nauvoo, IL, Records, 1841–1845, CHL. Includes endorsement and docket.
Single leaf measuring 1½ × 7⅝ inches (4 × 19 cm). The motion was inscribed on one side of a slip of paper that was apparently hand cut from a larger sheet. The verso is blank. JS inscribed the text in blue ink.
The document bears an endorsement in the handwriting of as well as a docket in the lower left corner of the recto probably also in the handwriting of Sloan, who served as city recorder from 1841 to 1843. The motion was presumably kept among Nauvoo city records. In 1845 the city of Nauvoo was disincorporated. Many if not most of the city records were listed in an inventory that was produced by the Church Historian’s Office (now CHL) in 1846, when they were packed up with church records that were taken to the Salt Lake Valley. Subsequent inventories of church records in Salt Lake City indicate continuous institutional custody.
“Officers of the City of Nauvoo,” Times and Seasons, 15 Dec. 1841, 3:638; “Municipal Court of the City of Nauvoo,” Times and Seasons, 1 July 1843, 4:244.
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
“An Act to Repeal the Nauvoo Charter,” 14th General Assembly, 1844–1845, Senate Bill no. 35 (House Bill no. 42), Illinois General Assembly, Enrolled Acts of the General Assembly, 1818–2012, Illinois State Archives, Springfield.
Illinois General Assembly. Enrolled Acts of the General Assembly, 1818–2012. Illinois State Archives, Springfield.
“Inventory. Historian’s Office. 4th April 1855,” [1]–[2]; “Index of Records and Journals in the Historian’s Office 1878,” [11]; “Index to Papers in the Historians Office,” [ca. 1904], 7, Historian’s Office, Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904, CHL.
Historian’s Office. Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904. CHL. CR 100 130.
Historical Introduction
On 5 March 1842 JS, acting in the capacity of vice mayor of , Illinois, proposed a motion to the Nauvoo City Council regarding petitions by residents of the city. The motion was one of at least three JS drafted in his own hand and submitted to the council on this date. JS’s initial draft of the motion stated that all citizens’ petitions to the city council would be passed, provided that those opposing the petition did not outnumber its signers. When the motion was recorded in the city council’s minute books, a significant stipulation was added to the text specifying that the proposed resolution would apply only to petitions for opening new streets in the city. The city council passed the amended motion as a resolution, after which recorder inscribed the resolution in the city council proceedings volume. The original motion is featured here.