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Letter from David S. Hollister, 8 January 1844

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Letter from David S. Hollister, 8 January 1844

Source Note

, Letter, , Orleans Parish, LA, to JS, , Hancock Co., IL, 8 Jan. 1843 [1844]; handwriting of ; three pages; JS Collection, CHL. Includes address, postal stamp, postal notation, dockets, redactions, and notation.
Bifolium measuring 10 × 7⅞ inches (25 × 20 cm). The recto of the first leaf is ruled with twenty-seven horizontal lines printed in blue ink, now faded, and the verso of the first leaf and the recto of the second leaf are ruled with twenty-nine horizontal lines. An embossed logo for the paper mill “Southworth Co.” appears in the top left corner of the recto of the first leaf. The letter was inscribed in blue ink, trifolded twice in letter style, addressed, and sealed with a red adhesive wafer, the remnants of which are present on the recto of the second leaf. This leaf has a hole near the centerfold of the bifolium, likely created when the letter was opened, and there is also a tear at the bottom of the leaf. The document was later refolded for filing.
The letter was docketed by , who served as scribe to JS from 1842 to 1844, and by , who served as a clerk in the Church Historian’s Office (later Church Historical Department) from 1853 to 1859. A notation was added by Andrew Jenson, who began working in the Church Historian’s Office in 1891 and served as assistant church historian from 1897 to 1941. The letter was listed in an inventory that was produced by the Church Historian’s Office circa 1904. By 1973 this letter had been included in the JS Collection at the Church Historical Department (now CHL). The document’s early dockets and notation, its listing in a circa 1904 inventory, and its later inclusion in the JS Collection indicate continuous institutional custody.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    JS, Journal, 29 June 1842; “Clayton, William,” in Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:718.

    Jenson, Andrew. Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia: A Compilation of Biographical Sketches of Prominent Men and Women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 4 vols. Salt Lake City: Andrew Jenson History Co., 1901–1936.

  2. [2]

    “Obituary of Leo Hawkins,” Millennial Star, 30 July 1859, 21:496–497.

    Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star. Manchester, England, 1840–1842; Liverpool, 1842–1932; London, 1932–1970.

  3. [3]

    Jenson, Autobiography, 192, 389; Cannon, Journal, 9 Feb. 1891; Jenson, Journal, 9 Feb. 1891 and 19 Oct. 1897; Bitton and Arrington, Mormons and Their Historians, 47–52.

    Jenson, Andrew. Autobiography of Andrew Jenson: Assistant Historian of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. . . . Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1938.

    Cannon, George Q. Journals, 1855–1864, 1872–1901. CHL. CR 850 1.

    Jenson, Andrew. Journals, 1864–1941. Andrew Jenson, Autobiography and Journals, 1864–1941. CHL.

    Bitton, David, and Leonard J. Arrington. Mormons and Their Historians. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1988.

  4. [4]

    “Letters to and from the Prophet,” ca. 1904, [2], Historian’s Office, Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904, CHL.

    Historian’s Office. Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904. CHL. CR 100 130.

  5. [5]

    See the full bibliographic entry for JS Collection, 1827–1844, in the CHL catalog.

Historical Introduction

On 8 January 1844, wrote a letter from to JS in , Illinois, explaining recent difficulties with regarding the steamboat Maid of Iowa. JS and Jones, who was the boat’s captain, became co-owners of the vessel in June 1843. The following month, JS deeded his share of the boat to his wife . The Maid of Iowa operated on the in September and October 1843, but the river’s rising water level, which allowed larger vessels to travel the river, and the prejudice the Maid of Iowa faced because of its affiliation with the led Jones to consider running the boat in Louisiana instead. There he would supposedly face little competition. By the time he arrived, however, others had already “secured the winter trade.” Frustrated in his design, Jones instead “took a load of Indian traffic” up the and “a load of cotton down to New Orleans.” This trip, which took place sometime between October and December 1843, proved disastrous, as the Maid of Iowa was badly damaged. Meanwhile, in December 1843, JS and Emma Smith leased Emma’s interest in the ship to Hollister for one year in return for $600. Soon after, Hollister set out to examine his new investment. Once he found the Maid of Iowa, he and Jones quarreled over the steamboat’s management, which apparently prompted both Jones and Hollister to write separate letters to JS on 8 January 1844.
’s letter to JS recounted his efforts to find the steamboat, which he finally did in . He noted the ship’s damaged condition and described the debt and legal entanglements that threatened the boat with insolvency. In addition, Hollister complained about the lack of cooperation from and his wife, , and explained the arrangements that he had made to try to save the boat from its mounting debts. Hollister closed his letter expressing his anxiousness to receive JS’s response.
The letter was postmarked from on 11 January. A docket on the letter by , JS’s private clerk, indicates that the letter was received in JS’s . There is no known response from JS.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    See JS, Journal, 12 May and 2 June 1843; and Clayton, Journal, 10 May and 2–3 June 1843. Apparently, JS and Jones made their agreement in May 1843 and finalized it the next month. Within weeks of the agreement between JS and Jones and before it was finalized, James Adams deeded land to JS in exchange for half of JS’s half interest in the boat. (See Historical Introduction to Letter and Pay Order to Lucian Adams, 2 Oct. 1843.)

    Clayton, William. Journals, 1842–1845. CHL.

  2. [2]

    Clayton, Journal, 15 July 1843.

    Clayton, William. Journals, 1842–1845. CHL.

  3. [3]

    Clayton, Journal, 28 Sept.–5 Oct. 1843.

    Clayton, William. Journals, 1842–1845. CHL.

  4. [4]

    Jones, “Martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith,” [22]; Letter from Erastus Derby, 9 Oct. 1843. The Red River originates in New Mexico and northern Texas and runs through northern Louisiana. Historically, it flowed into the Mississippi River. (See Lloyd, Lloyd’s Steamboat Directory, 163.)

    Dennis, Ronald D. “The Martyrdom of Joseph Smith and His Brother Hyrum.” BYU Studies 24 (Winter 1984): 78–109.

    Lloyd, James T. Lloyd’s Steamboat Directory, and Disasters on the Western Waters, Containing the History of the First Application of Steam, as a Motive Power. . . . Cincinnati: James T. Lloyd, 1856.

  5. [5]

    When Erastus Derby wrote JS on 9 October 1843, the Maid of Iowa was still on the Illinois River. By 25 December 1843, the boat had arrived in New Orleans. (Letter from Erastus Derby, 9 Oct. 1843; “Marine News,” Daily Picayune [New Orleans], 26 Dec. 1843, [3].)

    Daily Picayune. New Orleans, LA. 1837–1914.

  6. [6]

    Lease to David S. Hollister, 2 Dec. 1843; see also Clayton, Journal, 2–3 Dec. 1843. JS may have decided to lease the boat to Hollister in response to a 9 October 1843 letter from Erastus Derby, in which Derby concluded that “thare are more debts against her than She can pay this fall, with the best of management that Brother Clayton knows some thing about.” Derby advised JS that “if you want to get your money out of this boat you must get it in different hands.” (Letter from Erastus Derby, 9 Oct. 1843.)

    Clayton, William. Journals, 1842–1845. CHL.

  7. [7]

    Letter from Dan Jones, 8 Jan. 1844.

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Jany 8 1843 [1844]
Dear Brother Joseph
I have untill to day delayed writing you because I could not give you a definate account of what had ben done in the matter pertaining to the Boat M. of Iowa but will proceede to give you now the paticulars up to the present time. After a long and tedius Voyage spending many days on sand bars I arived at natches [Natchez, Mississippi] in just three weeks from the time I left home and there learned that the maid had assended and was plying between the Raft and Fort Towsand about eleven hundred mile from the mouth I embrased the first opertunity and started up and after proceedeing a few hundred miles past her in the night without any posibility of bording her and was under the necesity of proceeding about one hundred miles farther before I could land and there waited several days before I was able to get passage to meeting with so many delays I was nearly five weeks from the time I left home before I found the Boat and then to my surprise she was in the possession of the sheriff for a debt contracted at and so badly damaged by running through the raft and in the upper that I doubt wheathe [whether] she would have brot at auction over $2,000 I called on and offered to charter his portion of the Boat and tried in evry peaceble manner to get possession and offered to raise the money throug some of my friend and relieve the boat from her embaresment run her in some of the Bayoes this winter and return to in the spring— but he would acceede to no proposition I could make his was commander in chief and [p. [1]]
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Document Information

Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Letter from David S. Hollister, 8 January 1844
ID #
966
Total Pages
4
Print Volume Location
Handwriting on This Page
  • David S. Hollister

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    “The Raft,” sometimes referred to as the “Great Raft,” was “a series of naturally occurring logjams that clogged the Red River for more than 150 miles” until the United States government cleared the obstacles from 1833 to 1838. In 1839, however, a new raft formed approximately fifty miles north of Shreveport, Louisiana. By 1844 several unsuccessful attempts had been made to remove this raft. Louis Hunter, a historian of steamboat navigation, noted that “to circumvent the raft it was necessary to follow narrow and tortuous channels through bayous, lakes, and sloughs, which compelled the use of steamboats of small tonnage.” Fort Towson, located in present-day Oklahoma, was a federal military installation constructed in 1824 near where the Kiamichi River feeds into the Red River. The United States Army abandoned the fort in 1829 only to build a new Fort Towson six miles upriver from the original site in 1830. (Gudmestad, “Steamboats and the Removal of the Red River Raft,” 391, 398, 401–402, 411; Hunter, Steamboats on the Western Rivers, 198.)

    Gudmestad, Robert. “Steamboats and the Removal of the Red River Raft.” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 52, no. 4 (Fall 2011): 389–416.

    Hunter, Louis C. Steamboats on the Western Rivers: An Economic and Technological History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1949.

  2. [2]

    Hollister likely left Nauvoo shortly after signing the lease for the Maid of Iowa, on 2 or 3 December 1843. (See Lease to David S. Hollister, 2 Dec. 1843; and Clayton, Journal, 2–3 Dec. 1843.)

    Clayton, William. Journals, 1842–1845. CHL.

  3. [3]

    Jones claimed that it was Hollister’s fault that the Maid of Iowa was detained in New Orleans until its debt was paid. Word that Hollister was coming to take the boat had apparently leaked in St. Louis, and one of the vessel’s creditors—which Hollister identified later in his letter as McAllister & Co.—arrived in New Orleans before Hollister and sued for payment of the debt. This was not the first time that creditors had hounded the steamboat. Jones recounted that in 1842 creditors had attached the boat for his business partner’s personal debts, but the financial intervention of Jones’s friends had freed the vessel. Later, when the boat visited St. Louis in September 1843, creditors descended upon the vessel to demand payment. William Clayton recorded that “almost as soon as we landed the creditors began to come on board with their claims, but in consequence of our dissappointment, we were compelled to ask them to wait longer. Some of them appeared very angry and we had to pay them.” McAllister & Co. might have been one of these angered creditors. (Clayton, Journal, 26 Sept. 1843; see also Letter from Dan Jones, 8 Jan. 1844; Green’s Saint Louis Directory, 113; and Jones, “Martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith,” [21].)

    Clayton, William. Journals, 1842–1845. CHL.

    Green, James. Green’s Saint Louis Directory (No. 1) for 1845: Containing the Names of the Inhabitants, Their Occupations, Places of Business, and Dwelling Houses; Also, a List of Streets and Avenues; Together With Other Useful Information, and an Advertisement Directory. Saint Louis: By the author, 1844.

    Dennis, Ronald D. “The Martyrdom of Joseph Smith and His Brother Hyrum.” BYU Studies 24 (Winter 1984): 78–109.

  4. [4]

    When JS purchased his half interest in the Maid of Iowa, he gave Jones two promissory notes, which together were worth $1,375, and paid $625, making JS’s share of the boat $2,000. If Hollister’s estimate was accurate, the boat had lost half its value. (Clayton, Journal, 2 June 1843; JS, Journal, 12 May and 2 June 1843; JS to Dan Jones and Levi Moffet, Financial Statement, 12 May 1843, Newel K. Whitney, Papers, BYU.)

    Clayton, William. Journals, 1842–1845. CHL.

  5. [5]

    Ice prevented steamboats from traveling on the upper Mississippi River during the winter months, with the river freezing over entirely some years. (See JS, Journal, 18, 20–22, and 27–28 Feb. 1844; “Nauvoo,” Burlington [VT] Sentinel, 26 Jan. 1844, [2]; “Nauvoo Ferry,” Nauvoo Neighbor, 18 Oct. 1843, [4]; News Item, Nauvoo Neighbor, 7 Feb. 1844, [2]; and News Item, Nauvoo Neighbor, 28 Feb. 1844, [2].)

    Burlington Sentinel. Burlington, VT. 1830–1844.

    Nauvoo Neighbor. Nauvoo, IL. 1843–1845.

  6. [6]

    According to Jones, Hollister would not accept any proposal unless Jones made him the captain. (Letter from Dan Jones, 8 Jan. 1844.)

  7. [7]

    In an earlier letter to JS, Erastus Derby hinted at the influence of Jones’s family, contending that “a Steam boat is no place for a family to Live when they med[d]le with that that is not their buisness.” (Letter from Erastus Derby, 9 Oct. 1843.)

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