Footnotes
This is the second of two discourses JS preached during Sunday worship services on 13 August. In the morning, he spoke on the death of church member Elias Higbee. (Discourse, 13 Aug. 1843–A.)
Hancock Co., IL, Plat Books, 1836–1938, vol. 1, p. 27, Commerce Plat, 31 Jan. 1842, microfilm 954,774, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL.
U.S. and Canada Record Collection. FHL.
Historian’s Office, JS History, Draft Notes, 2 Mar. 1842, 5; see also JS History, vol. C-1, 1286. Conversely, Bagby felt that JS was dishonest in his land dealings. In an 1845 letter to his sister, Bagby railed against JS and “the wrongs and oppressions inflicted upon us in so many thousand ways by that abomination of land Pirates at Nauvoo.” (Walter Bagby, Carthage, IL, to Nancy Bagby Rogers, Glasgow, KY, 9 Mar. 1845, Bagby-Rogers-Wood-Fishback Family Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Margaret I. King Library, University of Kentucky, Lexington.)
Bagby-Rogers-Wood-Fishback Family Papers, 1805–1910. Special Collections, Margaret I. King Library, University of Kentucky, Lexington.
[Walter Bagby], Warsaw, IL, to Willard Richards, Nauvoo, IL, 10 Mar. 1843; Willard Richards, Nauvoo, IL, to Walter Bagby, Warsaw, IL, 14 Mar. 1843, copy, Willard Richards, Journals and Papers, CHL; see also JS History, vol. D-1, 1497–1498.
Richards, Willard. Journals and Papers, 1821–1854. CHL.
Clayton, Journal, 1 Aug. 1843. This sort of altercation was not uncommon in nineteenth-century America. In February 1844, for example, a Mr. A. Sympson (likely Alexander Sympson) accused Hancock County circuit court clerk Jacob B. Backenstos of circulating “reports derogatory to his character” and insisted that he retract his statements or “take a flogging.” Sympson “then struck him, with a cane.” In response, Backenstos “took to his natural weapons.—his heels.” (“An Affray at Carthage,” Warsaw [IL] Signal, 14 Feb. 1844, [2], italics in original.)
Clayton, William. Journals, 1842–1845. CHL.
Warsaw Signal. Warsaw, IL. 1841–1853.
Nauvoo was divided into two voting precincts—the Commerce precinct, which incorporated residents living north of Mulholland Street, and the Nauvoo precinct, comprising citizens living south of Mulholland Street. Though he lived in the Nauvoo precinct, JS apparently tried to vote at the Commerce precinct polls, which was located across the street from the temple at the law office of Stiles & Higbee. (Minutes, 10 June 1842 and 15 June 1843, Records 3, 1840–1843, Hancock County Papers, CHL; “Geo. P. Stiles,” Nauvoo Neighbor, 12 July 1843, [4].)
Hancock County Papers, 1830–1872. CHL.
Nauvoo Neighbor. Nauvoo, IL. 1843–1845.
In spring 1842, JS allegedly asked Rigdon’s daughter Nancy Rigdon to become his plural wife, which later resulted in difficulties between JS and the Rigdon family. Tensions between JS and Sidney Ridgon increased when John C. Bennett published a letter that JS purportedly wrote to Nancy Rigdon justifying the practice of plural marriage. In September 1842, JS asserted that the Nauvoo post office, which Sidney Rigdon operated from his home, was “exceedingly corrupt” and that a “confederate” of Bennett was tampering with the mail and stealing money. In November, JS and others petitioned the United States postmaster general to have Rigdon removed from his position. (Historical Introduction to Letter from Sidney Rigdon, 1 July 1842; JS, Journal, 21 Aug. 1842; Letter to Nancy Rigdon, ca. mid-Apr. 1842; Letter to James Arlington Bennet, 8 Sept. 1842; Emma Smith, Nauvoo, IL, to Sidney Rigdon, Nauvoo, IL, 12 Sept. 1842, Emma Smith, Correspondence, CHL; Letter to George W. Robinson, 6 Nov. 1842; JS, Journal, 8 Nov. 1842.)
Smith, Emma. Correspondence, 1842 and 1844. CHL.
JS, Journal, 11 Feb. 1843; Letter to Sidney Rigdon, 27 Mar. 1843. Rigdon wrote back to JS immediately, and his defense apparently assuaged JS’s fears temporarily. (Letter from Sidney Rigdon, 27 Mar. 1843.)
Thomas Carlin, Quincy, IL, to Sidney Rigdon, Nauvoo, IL, copied into JS, Journal, 27 Aug. 1843. Rigdon later publicly defended himself at the church’s October 1843 conference, and the congregation ultimately voted to retain him as one of JS’s counselors. (Minutes and Discourses, 6–9 Oct. 1843.)
Historical Introduction to Appendix 3: Willard Richards, Draft Notes of JS’s Activities, 1842, 1844.
The Nauvoo city marshal was Henry G. Sherwood. (Nauvoo City Council Minute Book, 3 Feb. 1841, 1.)
During the Second Great Awakening, charismatic evangelists preached in outdoor spaces often referred to as “campgrounds.” In 1840s Nauvoo, the lack of a large indoor meeting space meant that Latter-day Saints listened to many of JS’s sermons in groves of trees near the temple construction site that Latter-day Saints variously referred to as “grove,” “temple stand,” or “camp ground.” Religious leaders of the age frequently segregated congregants by gender at camp meetings. (JS, Journal, 25 Sept. 1842; JS, Journal, 16 July and 17 Sept. 1843; Dunham, Journal, 10 May 1840; Clayton, Journal, 13 Aug. 1843; Kincheloe, “Transcending Role Restrictions,” 159–161; Warner, “Let All Things Be Done Decently and in Order,” 87.)
Dunham, Jonathan. Journals, 1837–1846. Jonathan Dunham, Papers, 1825–1846. CHL. MS 1387, fds. 1–4.
Clayton, William. Journals, 1842–1845. CHL.
Kincheloe, Joe L. “Transcending Role Restrictions: Women at Camp Meetings and Political Rallies.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly 40, no. 2 (Summer 1981): 158–169.
Warner, Caroline Everard Athey. “Let All Things Be Done Decently and In Order: Gender Segregation in the Seating of Early American Churches.” Master’s thesis, College of William and Mary, 2009.
Grog shop and grocery were colloquial terms for unlicensed establishments that sold spirits, or alcoholic beverages, by the glass; the term beer barrel was slang for a drunkard. Nauvoo city law prohibited the sale of spirituous liquors in small quantities (that is, by the glass) unless recommended by a physician. For a short period, the Nauvoo City Council licensed sellers to dispense some vinous liquors and beer, but the council repealed those ordinances in May 1842. Though the public consumption of alcohol was discouraged, neither production nor home consumption was prohibited by law. On 7 March 1843, for example, Theodore Turley was permitted to open a brewery at the corner of Hyde and Water streets. (“Grocery,” in Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms, 165; “Barrel,” “Lush-crib (or ken),” and “Lushington,” in Farmer and Henley, Dictionary of Slang and Colloquial English, 31, 278; Nauvoo City Council Minute Book, 15 Feb. and 12 July 1841, 8, 20; 14 May 1842, 78; JS, Journal, 7 and 10 Mar. 1843; “Nauvoo Brewery,” Nauvoo Neighbor, 27 Dec. 1843, [3]; see also An Act to Regulate the Licensing of Groceries in the City and County of St. Louis [15 Feb. 1843], Laws of the State of Missouri [1842–1843], p. 209; and Historical Introduction to State of Illinois v. Eagle..)
Bartlett, John Russell. Dictionary of Americanisms. A Glossary of Words and Phrases, Usually Regarded as Peculiar to the United States. New York: Bartlett and Welford, 1848.
A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon and Cant, Embracing English, American, and Anglo-Indian Slang, Pidgin English, Tinkers’ Jargon, and Other Irregular Phraseology. Edited by Albert Barrere and Charles G. Leland. 2 vols. [London]: Ballantyne, 1889–1890.
Nauvoo Neighbor. Nauvoo, IL. 1843–1845.
Laws of the State of Missouri, Passed at the Session of the Fifteenth General Assembly, Begun and Held at the City of Jefferson on Monday, the Twenty-fifth Day of December, Eighteen Hundred and Forty-eight, and Ended on Monday the Twelfth Day of March, Eighteen Hundred and Forty-nine. Jefferson: Hampton L. Boon, 1849.