Footnotes
“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.
“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.
See the full bibliographic entry for JS Collection, 1827–1844, in the CHL catalog.
Footnotes
Smith, Saintly Scoundrel, 108.
Smith, Andrew F. The Saintly Scoundrel: The Life and Times of Dr. John Cook Bennett. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997.
Robert D. Foster, Assignment, Nauvoo, IL, to JS, Hancock Co., IL, 1 July 1842, JS Collection, CHL.
“Extract of a Letter from Robert D. Foster,” Wasp, 24 Sept. 1842, [2].
The Wasp. Nauvoo, IL. Apr. 1842–Apr. 1843.
TEXT: The first page of the bifolium is blank. Foster started his letter on the second page of the bifolium.
This family was likely the Joseph and Sally Stacy Murdock family, who had been baptized in 1836 in New York. The Black Swamp was an area of land in northwestern Ohio, described as “an irregular strip about thirty miles wide, lying parallel to the east bank of the Maumee River from Lake Erie southwest to New Haven, Indiana,” and “some 1,500 square miles in extent.” Although northwestern Ohio saw increasing numbers of white settlers in the 1830s, most avoided the Black Swamp area. (Biographical Sketch of Joseph Murdock, ca. 1844, Nymphas C. Murdock, Collection, CHL; Kaatz, “Black Swamp,” 1, 19.)
Murdock, Nymphas C. Collection, 1803–1931. CHL.
Kaatz, Martin R. “The Black Swamp: A Study in Historical Geography.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 45, no. 1 (Mar. 1955): 1–35.
The son-in-law referred to here was likely Alphonso Green, who married Betsy Murdock, daughter of Joseph Murdock and his first wife, Sally Bonny Murdock, in December 1838 in Hamilton, New York. Green was baptized about the same time as the Murdock family. He apparently went to Nauvoo in the summer of 1841 with Jonathan Dunham and may have purchased land at that time. “A. Davis” may have been Amos Davis, a merchant in Nauvoo. (Esshom, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, 898; Thompson, Advancing the Mormon Frontier, 9; Dunham, Journal, 3 Aug. 1841; Gregg, History of Hancock County, Illinois, 950.)
Esshom, Frank. Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah: Comprising Photographs, Genealogies, Biographies. Salt Lake City: Utah Pioneers Book, 1913.
Thompson, George A. Advancing the Mormon Frontier: The Life and Times of Joseph Stacy Murdock, Pioneer, Colonizer, Peacemaker. Edited by Alan Glen Humpherys. Provo, UT: BYU Press, 2009.
Dunham, Jonathan. Journals, 1837–1846. Jonathan Dunham, Papers, 1825–1846. CHL. MS 1387, fds. 1–4.
Gregg, Thomas. History of Hancock County, Illinois, Together with an Outline History of the State, and a Digest of State Laws. Chicago: Charles C. Chapman, 1880.
Father Snow may have been Oliver Snow, who was apparently living in Walnut Grove Township, Knox County, Illinois, in 1842, after moving from Nauvoo in June. Walnut Grove Township was approximately seventy-five miles northeast of Nauvoo. Snow evidently also held land in Ramus, Illinois. (Eliza R. Snow, Journal, 29 June 1842; Beecher, “Leonora, Eliza, and Lorenzo,” 67; JS, Journal, 28 Feb. 1842.)
Snow, Eliza R. Journal, 1842–1844. CHL. MS 1439.
Beecher, Maureen Ursenbach. “Leonora, Eliza, and Lorenzo: An Affectionate Portrait of the Snow Family.” Ensign, June 1980, 65–69.
The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles had issued an epistle in the 2 May 1842 issue of the Times and Seasons asking “all the saints abroad” to donate money for the construction of the Nauvoo temple. (Brigham Young et al., “An Epistle of the Twelve,” Times and Seasons, 2 May 1842, 3:767.)
A 24 September 1842 entry in JS’s journal stated that “old Mr [Joseph] Murdock & Lady” visited him that day. Four days later, Murdock purchased thirty-five acres of land from JS. (JS, Journal, 24 Sept. 1842; Trustees Land Book B, 28 Sept. 1842, 15.)