Hotchkiss wrote to JS on 7 February 1842 regarding approximately 140 acres in New Jersey that James Ivins offered to sell to Hotchkiss, Smith Tuttle, and John Gillet on behalf of the church. The purchase price of $3,200 was to be applied toward the $6,000 in interest the church currently owed Hotchkiss and his partners. In the letter, Hotchkiss reiterated his interest in acquiring the property and noted that he had not heard from Ivins after agreeing with JS to make the purchase. (Letter from Horace Hotchkiss, 7 Feb. 1842.)

Crane’s letter to JS is apparently not extant, and neither is any correspondence from Barton Robinson or Charles Modesitt, who are mentioned later in the featured letter as having property to transfer. It is possible that these proposals for land trades were obtained through the efforts of church agents like Hyrum Smith and Isaac Galland during their missions or were sent directly to Nauvoo. A conference of the church in Nauvoo in October 1841 and a subsequent open letter from the Quorum of the Twelve recommended a new plan for paying the debts owed to Hotchkiss, Tuttle, and Gillet whereby church members would transfer land they owned elsewhere in the United States to the land speculating partnership in return for land of equal value from the church in or around Nauvoo. (Minutes and Discourse, 1–5 Oct. 1841; Brigham Young et al., “An Epistle of the Twelve,” Times and Seasons, 15 Oct. 1841, 2:567–570.)

Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.