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Letter from William Griffey, 18 May 1843

Source Note

, Letter, , Des Moines Co., Iowa Territory, to JS, , Hancock Co., IL, 18 May 1843; handwriting and signature presumably of ; two pages; Helen Vilate Bourne Fleming, Collection, CHL. Includes address and docket.
Bifolium measuring 10⅛ × 7⅝ inches (26 × 19 cm). The document was trifolded twice in letter style, addressed, and sealed with a red adhesive wafer. It has undergone archival conservation.
The letter was docketed by , who served as JS’s scribe from 1842 to 1844. The letter was in a collection of papers held by Helen Vilate Bourne Fleming, a descendant of and . The collection was passed down to Fleming’s descendant Helen Marian Fleming Petersen. Shortly after Petersen’s death in February 1988, one of her children found this letter and other items in a box in Petersen’s home. By December 1988 the materials had been donated to the Church Historical Department (now CHL).

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]

    See the full bibliographic entry for Helen Vilate Bourne Fleming, Collection, 1836–1963, in the CHL catalog.

Historical Introduction

On 18 May 1843, , a merchant and justice of the peace from , Iowa Territory, wrote to JS in , Illinois, offering to sell him a farm with a sawmill. The farm was approximately two miles east of Burlington, across the in , and about three miles north of , Illinois, where JS purchased thirty-nine lots for a new Latter-day Saint settlement three months earlier. Shokokon offered good transportation access as it was the terminus of a stagecoach line that went from , Illinois, to the Mississippi River. It also provided access to riverboats and lumber transit on the river. Griffey had learned that JS and the church had purchased part of Shokokon and intended to improve the area. Because Nauvoo had too few mills to support its own growth, Griffey may have also surmised that JS and the needed mills to help develop Nauvoo. Griffey offered to sell JS the sawmill frame and dam that he was building in the Shokokon area. Griffey noted in his letter to JS that financial difficulties made it impossible for him to finish building his mill. He asked JS to write back to report his decision about the transaction.
was less than thirty miles upriver from , so this 18 May letter likely reached JS within a few days. However, the letter does not have any postal markings, and there is no evidence of when JS received it or of JS responding to . The letter was later passed down among descendants of Nauvoo resident and Latter-day Saint and , his wife, confirming that it reached Nauvoo. A 22 May 1843 entry in JS’s journal notes that JS delivered three letters to unidentified recipients. It is possible that one of those was sent in response to Griffey’s letter of inquiry.
By mid-May 1843, JS may have begun to realize that was not the best place for settlement. Lydia Ackerman Knapp, who relocated to Shokokon with her family in 1843, later wrote that soon after they moved there, “we all had the ague and feaver and continued to be sick the hul [whole] summer.” In September 1843, stated that Shokokon was located “in a perfect swamp, and that the place was not fit for a settlement.”

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    See Wiley, History of Monongalia County, West Virginia, 580; Biographical Review of Des Moines County, Iowa, 101; Obituary for Leannah Griffey Madera, Wisconsin Territorial Gazette and Burlington Advertiser, 24 Mar. 1838, [3]; “Appointments of the Governor,” Wisconsin Territorial Gazette and Burlington Advertiser, 25 Nov. 1837, [3]; and 1840 U.S. Census, Des Moines Co., Iowa Territory, 74.

    Wiley, Samuel T. History of Monongalia County, West Virginia, from Its First Settlements to the Present Time with Numerous Biographical and Family Sketches. Kingwood, WV: Preston, 1883.

    Biographical Review of Des Moines County, Iowa: Containing Biographical and Genealogical Sketches of Many of the Prominent Citizens of To-Day and Also of the Past. Chicago: Hobart Publishing, 1905.

    Wisconsin Territorial Gazette and Burlington Advertiser. Burlington, Wisconsin Territory. 1837–1838.

    Census (U.S.) / U.S. Bureau of the Census. Population Schedules. Microfilm. FHL.

  2. [2]

    See Deed from Robert and Mary Crane McQueen, 20 Feb. 1843; JS, Journal, 23 Feb. 1843; Warren Co., IL, Deed Records, 1817–1908, vol. 2, pp. 344–345, microfilm 1,392,671, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL; and History of Mercer and Henderson Counties, 888–889. On 4 March 1843, JS spoke of Shokokon as a crucial part of the church’s ongoing settlement of western Illinois. He stated, “There is a wheel. this is the Hub we will drive the fir[s]t spoke in Ramus 2d— Laharpe. 3d Shokokon. 4. Lima that is 1/2 the wheel.” (JS, Journal, 4 Mar. 1843.)

    U.S. and Canada Record Collection. FHL.

    History of Mercer and Henderson Counties: Together with Biographical Matter, Statistics, etc. . . . Chicago: H. H. Hill and Co., 1882.

  3. [3]

    See Reynolds, “Ecclesiastical Economics,” 144–145.

    Reynolds, R. Philip. “Ecclesiastical Economics: Some Financial Considerations of Mormon Settlement in Illinois.” John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 32, no. 2 (Fall/ Winter 2012): 132–148.

  4. [4]

    Many suffered financial losses in the economic depression of the early 1840s. (See JS, Journal, 21 Feb. 1843.)

  5. [5]

    JS, Journal, 22 May 1843.

  6. [6]

    Coulson, Autobiography, 5.

    Coulson, Lydia Ackerman Knapp. Autobiography, 1880. Photocopy. CHL.

  7. [7]

    JS History, vol. E-1, 1731; see also History of Mercer and Henderson Counties, 888–889.

    History of Mercer and Henderson Counties: Together with Biographical Matter, Statistics, etc. . . . Chicago: H. H. Hill and Co., 1882.

Page [1]

May 18th 1843
Mr Joseph Smith
Deir Sir having bin informd that you have bought a part of and intend to improve the Same and I having a good farm and a Saw mill a bought [about] 2½ or 3 miles above on the Same Sid[e] of the and beleving it wo[u]ld be to your advantadge to b[u]y me out I have thought propper to mak[e] Known to you the above fact, together with the following facts [illegible] I have a good fram[e] up 50 foot by 25 wid the Dam & forebay all compleat one Saw Redy to Run with the acceptian of the Water Wheel the fram is calculated for 1 Saw & 2 Run of Burs and in the midst of plenty of good timber & plenty of it abought a Secksan [section] of land belonging to the premises thay as yeat all government Lands— Lumber can at all times be Boated or Rafted from the mill to and any Boat that can Run this can at all times go with in one Hundered and fifty yards of the mill [p. [1]]
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Document Information

Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Letter from William Griffey, 18 May 1843
ID #
1486
Total Pages
4
Print Volume Location
JSP, D12:313–315
Handwriting on This Page
  • William Griffey

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Griffey had some previous experience with sawmills. He went into business with Solomon Sherfey and “operated a sawmill on Flint Creek and one in Illinois.” However, the business did not last long. In 1838, Griffey and Sherfey issued a notice of separation in a Burlington newspaper. (Biographical Review of Des Moines County, Iowa, 101; “Dissolution,” Wisconsin Territorial Gazette and Burlington Advertiser, 28 Apr. 1838, [3].)

    Biographical Review of Des Moines County, Iowa: Containing Biographical and Genealogical Sketches of Many of the Prominent Citizens of To-Day and Also of the Past. Chicago: Hobart Publishing, 1905.

    Wisconsin Territorial Gazette and Burlington Advertiser. Burlington, Wisconsin Territory. 1837–1838.

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