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Affidavit from Daniel Avery, 28 December 1843
Source Note
Source Note
, Affidavit, before JS as mayor, , Hancock Co., IL, 28 Dec. 1843; handwriting of ; signature of ; certified by ; nine pages; JS Office Papers, CHL. Includes dockets, redactions, and notations.
Two bifolia and one loose leaf measuring 9¾ × 7¾ inches (25 × 20 cm). The upper left corners of the rectos of the bifolia and leaf are embossed with an elongated octagon containing the words “D & JAMES | SPRINGFIELD”, the insignia of a Springfield, Massachusetts, paper mill firm established by brothers David and John Ames in 1828. The bifolia and leaf were numbered 1–3, apparently at the time of inscription. The final page is blank except for the docket and notation made the following day. Upon completion, the affidavit was trifolded for storage. At some point, the leaves were stapled together in the upper left corner of the rectos. In 2018 the document underwent conservation to reattach the leaves of the bifolia.
, who served as JS’s scribe from 1843 to 1844, docketed the affidavit the day after its inscription. A few graphite redactions and markings were apparently made in 1855, when the document was copied into JS’s history. Sometime in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, an unidentified clerk in the Church Historian’s Office docketed the document a second time. Andrew Jenson, who began working in the Church Historian’s Office (now CHL) in 1891 and served as assistant church historian from 1897 to 1941, added his initials below Bullock’s docket. In 2012 the document was cataloged as part of the JS Office Papers at the CHL. The document’s early dockets and notation as well as its later inclusion in JS’s history and in the JS Office Papers by 2012 indicate continuous institutional custody.
Footnotes
- [1]
Whiting, “Paper-Making in New England,” 309; Gravell et al., American Watermarks, 235.
Whiting, William. “Paper-Making in New England.” In The New England States: Their Constitutional, Judicial, Educational, Commercial, Professional and Industrial History, edited by William T. Davis, vol. 1, pp. 303–333. Boston: D. H. Hurd, 1897.
Gravell, Thomas L., George Miller, and Elizabeth Walsh. American Watermarks: 1690–1835. 2nd ed. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 2002.
- [2]
See the full bibliographic entry for JS Office Papers, ca. 1835–1845, in the CHL catalog.
- [3]
Jessee, “Writing of Joseph Smith’s History,” 456.
Jessee, Dean C. “The Writing of Joseph Smith’s History.” BYU Studies 11 (Summer 1971): 439–473.
- [4]
JS History, vol. E-1, 1831–1833; Vogel, History of Joseph Smith, 1:c.
Vogel, Dan, ed. History of Joseph Smith and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: A Source and Text-Critical Edition. 8 vols. Salt Lake City: Smith-Pettit Foundation, 2015.
- [5]
Jenson, Autobiography, 192, 389; Cannon, Journal, 9 Feb. 1891; Jenson, Journal, 9 Feb. 1891 and 19 Oct. 1897; Bitton and Arrington, Mormons and Their Historians, 47–52.
Jenson, Andrew. Autobiography of Andrew Jenson: Assistant Historian of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. . . . Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1938.
Cannon, George Q. Journals, 1855–1864, 1872–1901. CHL. CR 850 1.
Jenson, Andrew. Journals, 1864–1941. Andrew Jenson, Autobiography and Journals, 1864–1941. CHL.
Bitton, David, and Leonard J. Arrington. Mormons and Their Historians. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1988.
- [6]
See the full bibliographic entry for JS Office Papers, ca. 1835–1845, in the CHL catalog.
Historical Introduction
Historical Introduction
On 28 December 1843, in , Illinois, swore an affidavit before JS as mayor recounting his kidnapping and imprisonment by a group of Illinoisans and Missourians and the legal proceedings he underwent in . Avery had been kidnapped by a mob on 2 December and carried to Missouri to face a manufactured charge of horse theft. After spending about three weeks in prison in Missouri awaiting trial, Avery obtained a writ of from the Clark County, Missouri, court and was discharged after a hearing on 25 December. He arrived in Nauvoo at “about dusk” the next day. Coming just one day after returned from his long imprisonment in , Missouri, Avery’s arrival in Nauvoo was heralded by JS and others in the city. In his journal, JS recorded that he “rejoiced exceedingly this day” because Rockwell and Avery were released and “Mo [Missouri] was again rid of the Brethn.”
Two days after his arrival in , went before JS as mayor and gave his statement for an affidavit. , clerk of the mayor’s court, wrote the affidavit as Avery presumably dictated it, and both Avery and Phelps signed the completed document. The next day, corrected the affidavit’s spelling and grammar. Bullock also made a copy of the affidavit and added a notation on the back of the document: “Copied for Governor.” This copy was presumably sent to governor as one of the “affidavits relative to the late Kidnapping” of Avery and his son, , included in a bundle of documents that Phelps sent to Ford on 30 December 1843.
The original affidavit was retained in , while the copy sent to is apparently not extant. The original affidavit, as corrected by , is featured here.
Footnotes
- [1]
- [2]
- [3]
William W. Phelps, Nauvoo, IL, to Thomas Ford, Springfield, IL, 30 Dec. 1843, JS Office Papers, CHL.
of 10 Miles. Here I sued out a writ of , but the Jud<ge> remanded to <me> to prison. At Monticello my chains were taken off and I was at liberty (!) in the midst of a strong guard to view the town. Here a lawyer agreed to take me and my through Court (as the Missourians say) for a horse. Saw my in the prison: said he was forced At the point of a bowie Knife to Make an affidavit against me, but he Knew I was innocent. I tried to be left withe him in Jail, but no, I was complled to go to , where I arrived the next evening. The Sheriff thrust me into the dungeon without waiting to eat, warm or anything else. The next morning the blacksmith Came into the jail an<d> ironed me to <the middle of> a great chain that was fast to the floor— I Where I remained in the horrid gloom of a prison two weeks. From thence the deputy sheriff started with me chained upon the horse in this wise:— [p. [6]]
Source Note
Source Note
Document Transcript
Document Information
Document Information
Footnotes
Footnotes
Insertion in the handwriting of Thomas Bullock.
Insertion in the handwriting of Thomas Bullock.
- [18]
On 5 December 1843, Avery petitioned John W. Lewellen, the presiding judge of the Clark County court, for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that he believed “the testimony upon which he was so committed to be insufficient to justify such committal” and that he believed “his arrest & detention to be illegal & not warranted by the laws of the state.” After “a full examination of the proceedings” held that same day, Lewellen remanded Avery to jail “to await & abide such decree or other final judgment as may be rendered concerning him by the proper tribunal.” (Daniel Avery, Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus, Clark Co., MO, 5 Dec. 1843; John W. Lewellen, Order of Commitment, Clark Co., MO, [5 Dec. 1843], State of Missouri v. Daniel Avery [Clark Co. Cir. Ct. 1843], Clark County Circuit Clerk’s Office, Clark County Courthouse, Kahoka, MO.)
Clark County Circuit Clerk’s Office, Clark County Courthouse. Kahoka, MO.
- [19]
The lawyer was probably James Ellison, a prominent attorney from Lewis County. (History of Lewis, Clark, Knox and Scotland Counties, Missouri, 41; Stewart, History of the Bench and Bar of Missouri, 66, 469.)
History of Lewis, Clark, Knox and Scotland Counties, Missouri, from the Earliest Time to the Present, Together with Sundry Personal, Business, and Professional Sketches. . . . St. Louis: Goodspeed Publishing, 1887.
Stewart, A. J. D., ed. The History of the Bench and Bar of Missouri. With Reminiscences of the Prominent Lawyers of the Past, and a Record of the Law’s Leaders of the Present. St. Louis: Legal Publishing Co., 1898.
- [20]
Daniel Avery’s son Philander escaped from the Lewis County jail on 15 November 1843, but he was apparently rearrested and imprisoned shortly thereafter. He was ultimately released sometime before 20 December 1843. (John Dedman, Mittimus, [Clark Co., MO], 13 Nov. 1843, State of Missouri v. Philander Avery [Clark Co. Cir. Ct. 1843], Clark County Circuit Clerk’s Office, Clark County Courthouse, Kahoka, MO; Philander Avery, Affidavit, Nauvoo, IL, 20 Dec. 1843, JS Office Papers, CHL.)
Clark County Circuit Clerk’s Office, Clark County Courthouse. Kahoka, MO.
Insertion in the handwriting of Thomas Bullock.
- [21]
The Marion County jail in Palmyra, Missouri, was a two-story structure completed in 1837. Prisoners were kept in a lower dungeon room with walls “about four feet thick, made of two thicknesses of hewed logs with one foot of stone between them, and the outside brick.” (History of Marion County, Missouri, 203; Thompson, Prison Life and Reflections, 23, 28–29.)
History of Marion County, Missouri, Written and Compiled from the Most Authentic, Official and Private Sources. Including a History of Its Townships, Towns and Villages. . . . St. Louis: E. F. Perkins, 1884.
Thompson, George. Prison Life and Reflections; or, A Narrative of the Arrest, Trial, Conviction, Imprisonment, Treatment, Observations, Reflections, and Deliverance of Work, Burr and Thompson, Who Suffered an Unjust and Cruel Imprisonment in Missouri Penitentiary, for Attempting to Aid Some Slaves to Liberty. Oberlin, OH: James M. Fitch, 1847.
- [22]
According to a financial account submitted by Marion County sheriff J. J. Montgomery, Avery remained in the Marion County jail from 6 to 20 December 1843. (J. J. Montgomery, Claim, Palmyra, MO, 26 Dec. 1843, State of Missouri v. Daniel Avery [Clark Co. Cir. Ct. 1843], Clark County Circuit Clerk’s Office, Clark County Courthouse, Kahoka, MO.)
Clark County Circuit Clerk’s Office, Clark County Courthouse. Kahoka, MO.