, Letter, , New Haven Co., CT, to JS, [, Hancock Co., IL], 1 Apr. 1840. Featured version copied [between mid-Apr. and June 1840] in JS Letterbook 2, pp. 123–125; handwriting of ; JS Collection, CHL. For more complete source information, see the source note for JS Letterbook 2.
Historical Introduction
On 1 April 1840, , a land speculator from , wrote to JS in , Illinois, regarding potential land purchases. Hotchkiss had addressed a letter to JS in two weeks earlier, believing JS was still in the eastern . After learning that JS had returned to , Hotchkiss wrote this 1 April letter, in which he offered to sell to JS and the additional land in central and western and conveyed his sympathy regarding the Senate Committee on the Judiciary’s negative recommendation on the Latter-day Saints’ petition for redress to Congress. The previous year, Hotchkiss and his business partners, and , had sold to the church all of their property in the Commerce area. Aware of the rapid influx of Mormons to Illinois, Hotchkiss offered in this April 1840 letter to sell properties in the area of , Illinois, and in the region of Henry and Mercer counties, further up the and northeast of Commerce. No response from JS is known to exist, and the Saints did not purchase the land that Hotchkiss offered to sell.
The original letter is apparently not extant. copied the version featured here into JS Letterbook 2, likely sometime between the third week of April and the end of June 1840.
enterprise. These constitu[t]e a capital which can never be shaken by man, and form the basis of all that is great in commercial influence on [or?] in the attainment of pecuniary power—
informs me that is probably in , it would have afforded me much pleasure, to have seen you all at my house, and it was my intention, to spend some time at while you were there; but my health has been so very infirm, that it has prevented me form [from] executing nearly all the arrangements, I had proposed for myself, for the last eight months. Knowing the aditions constantly joining your society, it has occurred to me, that some of them may be unprovided with farming lands; and I mention at this time, that I am interested in a Tract of about 12000 acres of very choice lands consisting of timber and prairie, fifteen or twenty miles from , upon which and several other families are settled, and cultivating most excellent farms— it is in one of the best neighborhoods in the — I do not know what my copartners in this tract would say about disposing of what remains unsold of the tract (say eight to nine thousand acres) but I should be disposed to sell upon reasonable terms, provided twenty to forty families valuable for their prudence industry, and good habits from your society, can be found to form a small colony of practical farmers— I am also interested with the same gentleman in lands near , in Henry and Mercer Counties, and believe this would on many accounts an othe[r] extremely desirable place or location for a colony of your people— I have said nothing to those owning with me relative to this subject, but suppose they would be governed materially by two considerations; namely the characters of the purchasers and the fact of their being actual setlers or not— If you think two small colonies of the right sort can be formed from your society, you will oblige [p. 124]
The 17 April 1840 issue of the Peoria Register and North-Western Gazetteer reported that “about 300 houses have been put up in Nauvoo since last October,” and “the increase of population by immigration is very great. Our informant states that several families arrive every day.” (“Latest from the Mormons,” Peoria [IL] Register and North-Western Gazetteer, 17 Apr. 1840, [2].)
Peoria Register and North-Western Gazetteer. Peoria, IL. 1837–1843.
Hotchkiss, Tuttle, and Gillet owned lands near Springfield in Sangamon and Logan counties. Gillet and some of his extended family resided at Lake Fork, Logan County, northeast of Springfield. (Horace Hotchkiss, New York, to John Gillet, 7 Nov. 1846; John Gillet, Nauvoo, IL, to Smith Tuttle, Fair Haven, CT, 15 July 1844; John Gillet to Smith Tuttle, 1 Aug. 1841, Gillett Family Papers, 1736–1904, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, IL.)
Gillett Family Papers, 1736–1904. Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, IL.