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Complaint, 28 November 1842 [City of Nauvoo v. Hunter]
Source Note
Source Note
JS, Complaint, before , against Thomas Hunter, , Hancock Co., IL, 28 Nov. 1842, City of Nauvoo v. Hunter (Nauvoo, IL, Municipal Court 1842); handwriting of ; signature of JS; certified by , 28 Nov. 1842docket by , [, Hancock Co., IL], [28 Nov. 1842]; docket and notation by , [, Hancock Co., IL], 28 Feb. 1843; two pages; JS Collection (Supplement), CHL. Includes dockets, notation, and redaction.
Single leaf, measuring 6⅝ × 7¾ inches (17 × 20 cm) and ruled with nineteen blue horizontal lines. The leaf was reduced in size by tearing off the top and right side of the recto. The document was later trifolded for docketing and filed.
The document was docketed by , who served as city recorder and clerk of the Nauvoo Municipal Court from 1841 to 1843. When City of Nauvoo v. Hunter was appealed, Sloan forwarded this and other documents pertaining to the case to the Circuit Court, where they were filed by circuit court deputy clerk on 28 February 1843. The document entered private possession at an unknown time. The church subsequently acquired the complaint. The Church Historical Department (now CHL) published a register of the JS Collection in 1973. Between 1974 and 1984, staff continued to locate documents authored by or directed to JS in uncataloged church financial records and in name and subject files. The department also acquired additional JS documents from donors, collectors, and dealers. These newly located and acquired documents were kept together in a supplement to the JS Collection. A preliminary inventory of the supplement was created in 1992. This group of records was named the JS Collection (Supplement), 1833–1844, and its cataloging was finalized in 2017.
Footnotes
- [1]
“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.
- [2]
See the full bibliographic entry for JS Collection (Supplement), 1833–1844, in the CHL catalog.
Historical Introduction
Historical Introduction
On 28 November 1842, JS swore out a complaint accusing Thomas Hunter of maligning him and the . JS issued his complaint in , Illinois, to , a Nauvoo alderman with authority to act as a justice of the peace in and for Nauvoo. In his complaint, JS accused Hunter of violating Nauvoo’s ordinance regarding vagrants and disorderly persons. Like most vagrancy laws, this Nauvoo city ordinance was deliberately vague and provided wide latitude for city authorities to prosecute individuals for idleness, drunkenness, other disorderly conduct, or suspicious behavior. These ordinances also supplied a legal means to threaten and prosecute destitute or undesirable residents when it was deemed in the public interest.
JS likely based his complaint on a portion of the ordinance that forbade “profane or indecent language, or behaviour.” Although it is unclear whether Hunter insulted JS in person or whether JS had simply heard that Hunter had insulted him, on 26 November, according to JS’s complaint, Hunter had accused JS of being “an imposter and a swindler” and claimed that the church as an institution was a “swindle machine.” Alternatively, because of his position as mayor, JS may have been pointing to the provision condemning the use of “indecent, impertinent, or unbecoming language towards any City officer when in the discharge of his duty.” This explanation seems less likely, however, because the complaint did not mention JS’s office, and similar language appears in complaints filed by other individuals for incidents that did not involve city officers. Acting on behalf of , city recorder wrote up JS’s complaint, which JS signed and Marks certified.
Based on the complaint, issued an arrest warrant for Hunter that same day. The next day, 29 November, Hunter was arrested by constable and delivered into the custody of alderman . Following Hunter’s arrest but before his trial, JS swore out a second complaint against him, claiming he had violated the city’s ordinance regarding religious societies. Court records suggest that Hunter’s trial on 29 November 1842 revolved around JS’s second complaint and that he was convicted on that count. When Hunter appealed his conviction to the Circuit Court, sent both this and JS’s second complaint to the circuit court as part of the case documents.
See also Introduction to City of Nauvoo v. Hunter.
Footnotes
- [1]
Minutes, 13 Nov. 1841; see also Ocobock, “Vagrancy and Homelessness,” 1–34.
Ocobock, Paul. “Vagrancy and Homelessness in Global and Historical Perspective.” In Cast Out: Vagrancy and Homelessness in Global and Historical Perspective, edited by A. L. Beier and Paul Ocobock, 1–34. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2008.
- [2]
- [3]
- [4]
- [5]
Nauvoo Municipal Court Docket Book, 11 (second numbering). For a more complete account of Hunter’s trial, see Complaint against Thomas Hunter, 29 Nov. 1842.
| State of Illinois) | SS. |
| City of ) |
Before me , one of the Aldermen, and Justice of the peace for said , personally came Joseph Smith, who, being duly sworn according to law, deposeth and Saith, that he has been informed and believes that on or about the 26th. Instant one <Thomas> J. B. Hunter of said did commit a breach of an Ordinance of said entitled “an Ordinance concerning Vagrants and disorderly Persons”, by making statements that Deponent was an imposter and a swindler, and that the whole Mormon concern was a swindle machine, which had a tendency to injure my reputation, which is contrary to the <said> Ordinance as Deponent believes, and, this Deponent further, saith not.
Joseph Smith
Sworn to, and subscribed before me, in the aforesaid, this 28th. day of Novr. 1842.—
Alderman of the City of . [p. [1]]
Source Note
Source Note
Document Transcript
Document Information
Document Information
Footnotes
Footnotes
- [1]
“SS.” is a legal abbreviation for scilicet, a Latin adverb meaning “that is to say, to wit, viz.” (“Scilicet,” in Jones, Introduction to Legal Science, appendix, 28.)
Jones, Silas. An Introduction to Legal Science: Being a Concise and Familiar Treatise . . . to Which Is Appended a Concise Dictionary of Law Terms and Phrases. New York: John S. Voorhies, 1842.
- [2]
Signature of JS.
Certification by William Marks in the handwriting of James Sloan.
Signature of William Marks.