Subpoena, 6 December 1842 [City of Nauvoo v. Davis for Slander of Miles]
Source Note
JS as mayor, Subpoena, to Nauvoo City Marshal [], for , , Andrew Gravel, and JS, , Hancock Co., IL, 6 Dec. 1842, City of Nauvoo v. Davis for Slander of Miles (Nauvoo, IL, Mayor’s Court 1842); handwriting of ; certified by on behalf of JS, 6 Dec. 1842; docket and notation by , [, Hancock Co., IL], [6 Dec. 1842]; docket by , [ca. 6 Dec. 1842]; two pages; Nauvoo, IL, Records, CHL. Includes seal, dockets, and notation.
Single leaf, measuring 5½ × 6¾ inches (14 × 17 cm) and ruled with fifteen horizontal lines printed in blue ink with header space. The document is cut on the bottom and left side of the recto and was folded in half for docketing and filing.
The document includes dockets by , who served as city recorder and clerk of the Municipal Court from 1841 to 1843, and a docket and notation by . After the summons was served, it was returned and presumably kept among Nauvoo city records. In 1845 the city of Nauvoo was disincorporated. Many if not most of the city records were likely included in the various collections of city records listed in an inventory produced by the Church Historian’s Office (later Family and Church History Department) in 1846, when they were packed up along with church records and taken to the Salt Lake Valley. The city records are also listed in inventories of church records created in 1855, 1878, and circa 1904. The Nauvoo, Illinois, records collection was arranged and cataloged by the Family and Church History Department (now CHL) in 2006. The document’s likely inclusion with the city records listed in early church inventories and its inclusion in the Nauvoo, Illinois, records collection in 2006 indicate continuous church custody since 1845.
“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. Bills, Resolutions, and Related General Assembly Records, 1st–98th Bienniums, 1819–2015. 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.
This fee appears to have been calculated based on an 1827 state law that stipulated constable fees of twelve and a half cents for serving a subpoena. With four witnesses listed on this summons, the total fee would have been fifty cents. (An Act Regulating the Salaries, Fees, and Compensation of the Several Officers and Persons Therein Mentioned [19 Feb. 1827], Public and General Statute Laws of the State of Illinois, p. 297, sec. 5.)
The Public and General Statute Laws of the State of Illinois: Containing All the Laws . . . Passed by the Ninth General Assembly, at Their First Session, Commencing December 1, 1834, and Ending February 13, 1835; and at Their Second Session, Commencing December 7, 1835, and Ending January 18, 1836; and Those Passed by the Tenth General Assembly, at Their Session Commencing December 5, 1836, and Ending March 6, 1837; and at Their Special Session, Commencing July 10, and Ending July 22, 1837. . . . Compiled by Jonathan Young Scammon. Chicago: Stephen F. Gale, 1839.
Docket in the handwriting of James Sloan written upside down in relation to the previous text.