Footnotes
“Emigration Movements,” Millennial Star, Mar. 1842, 2:155; “Emigration,” Millennial Star, Oct. 1842, 3:112; Andrew Jenson, “Church Emigration,” Contributor, Oct. 1891, 441, 444–448.
Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star. Manchester, England, 1840–1842; Liverpool, 1842–1932; London, 1932–1970.
Jenson, Andrew. “Church Emigration.” Contributor 12, no. 12 (Oct. 1891): 441–450.
No reliable count of Nauvoo’s population during the 1840s exists. Different estimates of the city’s population range from 12,000 to 15,000. In January 1843, for instance, JS estimated the population was about 12,000. Nearly three years later, however, an actual count of city residents reported a population of only 11,057. (Black, “How Large Was the Population of Nauvoo?,” 91–94; JS, Journal, 5 Jan. 1843; “Mobocracy,” Times and Seasons, 15 Nov. 1845, 6:1031; “Nauvoo,” Times and Seasons, 1 Oct. 1842, 3:936.)
Black, Susan Easton. “How Large Was the Population of Nauvoo?” BYU Studies 35, no. 2 (1995): 91–94.
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
Godfrey, “Crime and Punishment in Mormon Nauvoo,” 198–212. Available evidence does not suggest higher crime rates in Nauvoo than in surrounding areas with comparable populations, but critics of JS and the church denounced Nauvoo as crime ridden, causing city authorities to try to reassure observers that order reigned there.
Godfrey, Kenneth W. “Crime and Punishment in Mormon Nauvoo, 1839–1846.” BYU Studies 32 (Winter and Spring 1992): 195–228.
“Laws and Ordinances of the City of Nauvoo,” Wasp, 8 Feb. 1843, [1]–[2]. In the Wasp version of the laws and ordinances, section 1 in the second division omits the word “Alley,” which appears in the fair copy of the ordinance. The draft version of the ordinances indicates that that word was later added as an insertion and therefore did not appear in the original version of the ordinance. (“Laws and Ordinances of the City of Nauvoo,” 30 Jan. 1843, Nauvoo, IL, Records, CHL.)
Reflecting the city’s growth, this ordinance apparently departed from section 17 of the act incorporating the city of Nauvoo, which stipulated that “the Mayor shall have exclusive jurisdiction in all cases arising under the ordinances of the corporation, and shall issue such process as may be necessary to carry out said ordinances into execution and effect.” (Act to Incorporate the City of Nauvoo, 16 Dec. 1840.)
On 1 March 1841, the council passed an ordinance allowing the election of a city engineer, market master, weigher and sealer, and collector. This section expanded the number of municipal officers and made them more accountable to the city council by granting the council authority to appoint individuals to those offices. (Minutes, 1 Mar. 1841.)
The language of the 1 March 1841 ordinance expanding the number of municipal officers permitted the appointment of “one surveyor and Engineer.” The following week, on 8 March, Alanson Ripley was appointed “City Surveyor.” (Minutes, 1 Mar. 1841; Nauvoo City Council Minute Book, 8 Mar. 1841, 15.)
A “market master” was a city authority charged with the regulation of the public market. Stephen Markham was appointed market master on 8 March 1841. (Beniger, Control Revolution, 162; Nauvoo City Council Minute Book, 8 Mar. 1841, 15.)
Beniger, James R. The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986.
In the nineteenth century, towns in the United States frequently appointed a sealer, whose job was to ensure that correct weights and measures were maintained. The act to incorporate the city of Nauvoo empowered the city council “to establish standard weights and measures, and regulate the weights and measures to be used in the city.” In March 1841, Theodore Turley was appointed as city weigher and sealer. In January 1842, Turley asked for additional instructions regarding the position, prompting the Nauvoo City Council to pass an “Ordinance to regulate Weights and Measures” in March 1842. (Of Weights and Measures, Revised Statutes of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, chap. 30, p. 290, sec. 12; Act to Incorporate the City of Nauvoo, 16 Dec. 1840; Nauvoo City Council Minute Book, 8 Mar. 1841, 15; 5 Mar. 1842, 62–65, underlining in original; Nauvoo City Council Rough Minute Book, 15 Jan. 1842, 7.)
The Revised Statutes of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Passed November 4, 1835; To Which Are Subjoined, an Act in Amendment Thereof, and an Act Expressly to Repeal the Acts Which Are Consolidated Therein, Both Passed in February 1836. . . . Compiled by Theron Metcalf and Horace Mann. Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, 1836.
William D. Huntington was appointed city sexton on 4 September 1841. (Nauvoo City Council Minute Book, 4 Sept. 1841, 21.)
Shadrach Roundy was the captain of the night watch for Nauvoo during August 1842. (Pay Order to Shadrach Roundy, 27 Aug. 1842, JS Collection, CHL.)
The Nauvoo charter provided for a supervisor of streets. The city council appointed Austin Cowles to the position in February 1841 and replaced Cowles with James Allred in March 1841. (Act to Incorporate the City of Nauvoo, 16 Dec. 1840; Minutes, 3 Feb. 1841; Minutes, 1 Mar. 1841.)
Pharaoh, faro, or farobank was a nineteenth-century gambling card game popular in the United States and western Europe. States and municipalities commonly outlawed the game. (Novak, People’s Welfare, 159–160, 256nn54–55; see also, for example, Of Nuisances and the Good Government of the City, Laws and Ordinances of the Common Council of the City of Albany, chap. 22, pp. 111–112 [second numbering], sec. 6; and An Act relative to Crime and Punishment [10 Feb. 1831], Revised Laws of Indiana, p. 193, sec. 64.)
Novak, William J. The People’s Welfare: Law and Regulation in Nineteenth-Century America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
Laws and Ordinances of the Common Council of the City of Albany, Revised and Revived, December, 1837. To Which Are Prefixed, the Charter of the City of Albany, and the Several State Laws Relating to the Said City. Albany, NY: Common Council of the City of Albany, 1838.