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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 [2]

this mill is also with in two Mil[e]s of — the above Property I will Sell Low, or I will take in a pas[t] dues the Latter I wold perfur as hard times has Rendered It imposebell for me to finish the mill. after its costing me over 25 Hundered Dollers— I am well a wair that a forchan can be made at this place by a littel moore improvement
I beleve you to be a man of Desernment and I wold be glad you wold make it convenent to call & see for your Self, but if this wold not be convenet [convenient] for you, perhaps you can Sand [send] your .
their is many advantadges too tedious to mention hoping you will make Sute for yourself to see it I Shall close my letter
pleas wright on the Recept of this Letter and Say What you may likley conclude on the Subject
you will exscues me for the liberty I have taken in addressing you thus
I am Sir yours
Respectfully
Mr Joseph Smith [p. [2]]
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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. [2]

    Griffey may have been referring to the ongoing economic depression that followed the financial panic of 1837 and was still affecting the United States. Alternatively, he may have been referring only to personal financial hardships, since he had also suffered financial trouble before the 1837 panic. For example, he lost all his property in Virginia in the mid-1830s when he had “to pay a large security debt.” (Biographical Review of Des Moines County, Iowa, 101.)

    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.

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