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Complaint, 6 December 1842 [City of Nauvoo v. Davis for Slander of Miles]
Source Note
Source Note
, Complaint, before JS as mayor, against , , Hancock Co., IL, 6 Dec. 1842, City of Nauvoo v. Davis for Slander of Miles (Nauvoo, IL, Mayor’s Court 1842); handwriting of ; signature of ; certified by JS, 6 Dec. 1842; notation by , [, Hancock Co., IL], [ca. 6 Dec. 1842]; docket by , ca. 6 Dec. 1842; two pages; Nauvoo, IL, Records, CHL. Includes notation and docket.
Single leaf, unevenly cut, measuring 5¾–5⅞ × 7¾ inches (15 × 20 cm). The leaf is torn on the left side of the verso and unevenly cut along the bottom edge. The leaf is ruled with fifteen horizontal lines and one partial line printed in blue ink with header space. The document was later trifolded and docketed for filing.
The document includes a docket by , who served as city recorder and clerk of the Municipal Court from 1841 to 1843. This document was 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.
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]
“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.
- [3]
“Schedule of Church Records. Nauvoo 1846,” [1], Historian’s Office, Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904, CHL.
Historian’s Office. Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904. CHL. CR 100 130.
- [4]
“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.
- [5]
See the full bibliographic entry for Nauvoo, IL, Records, 1841–1845, in the CHL catalog.
Historical Introduction
Historical Introduction
The five documents featured here pertain to a 6 December 1842 legal case initiated before the , Illinois, mayor’s court and presided over by JS. Because of his position as mayor of Nauvoo, JS possessed the authority of a justice of the peace within the city and served as the chief justice of the municipal court. In these roles, JS generated a large number of legal documents for which this case provides a representative sample. The 6 December 1842 legal proceedings featured here grew out of a complaint filed against . Davis, a merchant and tavernkeeper in Nauvoo, had a turbulent relationship with JS, which grew further strained in late 1842. Davis was brought before JS or Nauvoo’s municipal court at least five times in the week between 30 November and 6 December and was accused of violating several city ordinances. In each of these cases, JS participated as either a justice of the peace, a complainant, or a witness. On 29 November 1842, JS swore out a complaint accusing Davis of insulting his character and claiming Davis had violated the city’s ordinance concerning religious societies in doing so. Although the 30 November trial ended with a nonsuit after Davis’s lawyer challenged whether the evidence established a violation of the city ordinance, JS swore out a second complaint that same day without specifying which ordinance Davis had violated. On 3 December, Davis appeared before the municipal court for the trial based on JS’s second complaint, and the court found Davis guilty.
Meanwhile, on 1 December, swore a complaint before JS accusing of selling small quantities of liquor in violation of ’s temperance ordinance. That same day, also swore a complaint accusing Davis of assault and battery. Both cases were brought before JS the next day. The trial based on Miles’s temperance complaint resulted in a guilty verdict and a fine of twenty-five dollars, while all parties agreed to adjourn the assault case until 6 December at ten o’clock in the morning. At the 6 December trial, JS found Davis guilty and fined him fifty dollars. Sometime that day, Davis also appealed his temperance conviction to the municipal court, and the appeal was scheduled for six in the evening that same day.
At some point on 6 December, likely in connection with either the assault case hearing or the temperance violation appeal scheduled for that day, swore out a new complaint before JS accusing of using “Indecent Language and Behavior” against him on 3 December. After hearing Miles’s complaint, JS issued a warrant for Davis’s arrest to the city marshal and a summons for , , and Andrew Gravel to attend the trial. Unfortunately, the lack of specificity in the trial documents obscures the exact basis for Miles’s complaint. The identities of the four witnesses suggest, however, that this complaint arose out of Miles’s testimony given at the 3 December trial about Davis’s use of abusive language toward JS. As part of that earlier trial, Hyrum Smith, Gravel, and Miles were among those subpoenaed, and Johnson acted as Davis’s defense attorney.
Sometime following JS’s issue of the warrant and summons but before the trial arising from ’s complaint began, swore an affidavit before JS stating he believed that JS was prejudiced against him and that he could not receive an impartial trial. In response, JS agreed to transfer the case to alderman . Presumably after the change in jurisdiction, Marks summoned JS as a witness for the case. Rather than create a new summons, however, the court simply added JS’s name to the summons that had already been served, which the city marshal then served on JS separately. After hearing the evidence, Marks found Davis guilty and fined him ten dollars as well as court costs. Although Davis appealed his three other December convictions to the Circuit Court, in this case he simply paid the fine.
JS’s clerk later recorded the entire trial, including ’s judgment, in JS’s docket book. However, his earlier rough minutes—featured here—record the trial only up through the decision to transfer the case to Marks, at which point it left JS’s jurisdiction.
Footnotes
- [1]
Complaint, 6 Dec. 1842 [City of Nauvoo v. Davis for Slander of Miles]; Warrant, 6 Dec. 1842 [City of Nauvoo v. Davis for Slander of Miles]; Subpoena, 6 Dec. 1842 [City of Nauvoo v. Davis for Slander of Miles]; Affidavit, 6 Dec. 1842 [City of Nauvoo v. Davis for Slander of Miles]; and Minutes, 6 Dec. 1842 [City of Nauvoo v. Davis for Slander of Miles].
- [2]
- [3]
- [4]
Nauvoo Municipal Court Docket Book, 10–15 (second numbering); Nauvoo Mayor’s Court Docket Book, 38–41.
Nauvoo Municipal Court Docket Book / Nauvoo, IL, Municipal Court. “Docket of the Municipal Court of the City of Nauvoo,” ca. 1843–1845. In Historian's Office, Historical Record Book, 1843–1874, pp. 51–150 and pp. 1–19 (second numbering). CHL. MS 3434.
Nauvoo Mayor’s Court Docket Book / Nauvoo, IL, Mayor’s Court. Docket Book, 1843. In Historian’s Office, Historical Record Book, 1843–1874, pp. 12–50. CHL.
- [5]
JS, Complaint, 30 Nov. 1842, photocopy, JS Collection, CHL, original in private possession. Because of its similarity to JS’s 28 November 1842 complaint against Thomas Hunter, the 30 November 1842 complaint against Amos Davis was likely an appeal to Nauvoo’s vagrancy laws. (See Complaint against Thomas Hunter, 28 Nov. 1842.)
- [6]
- [7]
Nauvoo City Council Minute Book, 15 Feb. 1841, 8. The Nauvoo city ordinance forbade selling whiskey “or other Spirituous Liquors” in small quantities, such as by the glass.
- [8]
- [9]
Nauvoo Municipal Court Docket Book, 14–15 (second numbering).
Nauvoo Municipal Court Docket Book / Nauvoo, IL, Municipal Court. “Docket of the Municipal Court of the City of Nauvoo,” ca. 1843–1845. In Historian's Office, Historical Record Book, 1843–1874, pp. 51–150 and pp. 1–19 (second numbering). CHL. MS 3434.
- [10]
Nauvoo Municipal Court Docket Book, 12–13 (second numbering).
Nauvoo Municipal Court Docket Book / Nauvoo, IL, Municipal Court. “Docket of the Municipal Court of the City of Nauvoo,” ca. 1843–1845. In Historian's Office, Historical Record Book, 1843–1874, pp. 51–150 and pp. 1–19 (second numbering). CHL. MS 3434.
- [11]
James Sloan’s rough minutes for the trial initially record that the papers were handed to alderman Newel K. Whitney. Sloan then crossed out Whitney’s name and replaced it with Marks’s. Regardless, the change of venue was a technical violation of Nauvoo’s charter, which granted the mayor “exclusive jurisdiction” over all cases arising out of city ordinances. There was no provision allowing for cases to be transferred to another justice or alderman. (Minutes, 6 Dec. 1842, City of Nauvoo v. Davis [Nauvoo Mayor’s Ct. 1842], Nauvoo, IL, Records, CHL; Act to Incorporate the City of Nauvoo, 16 Dec. 1840.)
- [12]
| State of Illinois) | S.s. |
| City of ) |
Personally appeared Before me Joseph Smith Mayor in and for the City of — who being Duly Sworn according to Law Deposeth and Saith that on or about the 3d Day of Dec. A.D. 1842 that Indecent Language and Behavior was used toward and Concerning the Said contrary to the ordinance of Said in Such Cases made and Provided and the Said Says that one is Guilty of the fact charged and furthe[r] this Deponent Saith not— Sworn to and Subscribed before me this Sixth Day of Dec. A.D. 1842—
Joseph Smith Mayor [p. [1]]
Source Note
Source Note
Document Transcript
Document Information
Document Information
Footnotes
Footnotes
- [1]
“S.s.” 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]
Although it did not name a specific ordinance, Miles’s complaint was likely based on Nauvoo’s vagrancy law, which, among other things, forbade “profane or indecent language, or behaviour.” (Minutes, 13 Nov. 1841; see also Complaint against Thomas Hunter, 28 Nov. 1842.)
Certification of JS in unidentified handwriting.
Signature of Ira Miles.
Signature of JS.