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Bill of Damages, 4 June 1839

Source Note

JS, Bill of Damages, , Adams Co., IL, 4 June 1839; handwriting of ; eight pages; JS Collection, CHL. Includes redactions, use marks, docket, and archival marks.
Two bifolia measuring 12¼ × 7½ inches (31 × 19 cm). The document was folded for transmission and perhaps for filing. At some point, its leaves were numbered in graphite. In the 1840s or early 1850s, church historian docketed the upper left corner of the first leaf: “Joseph’s Bill of Damages | vs. Missouri June 4 | 1839”. Later, the two bifolia were fastened together with a staple, which was subsequently removed. The document has marked soiling and some separation along the folds. An archival marking—“d 155”—was inscribed in the upper right corner of the first leaf.
Following its completion, the bill of damages was temporarily in the possession of and other church scribes, who in June and July 1839 revised and expanded the document for publication. The bill of damages was possibly among the documents a Latter-day Saint delegation carried to in winter 1839–1840. If so, the document was included with the “additional documents” that were in the custody of the Senate Judiciary Committee from 17 February 1840 to circa 24 March 1840, after which the documents were retrieved by the church delegation. The document has probably remained in continuous institutional custody since that time, as indicated by ’s inscription of a copy in JS History, 1838–1856, volume C-1, in 1845 and by the docket and archival marking that were subsequently added to the document.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Richards served as church historian from December 1842 until his death in 1854. (JS, Journal, 21 Dec. 1842; Orson Spencer, “Death of Our Beloved Brother Willard Richards,” Deseret News, 16 Mar. 1854, [2].)

    Deseret News. Salt Lake City. 1850–.

  2. [2]

    The scribes may have added the use marks when preparing the document for publication. (See Historical Introduction to “Extract, from the Private Journal of Joseph Smith Jr.,” July 1839.)

  3. [3]

    Journal of the Senate of the United States, 17 Feb. 1840, 179; 23 Mar. 1840, 259–260; Elias Higbee, Washington DC, to JS, [Commerce, IL?], 24 Mar. 1840, in JS Letterbook 2, p. 105; see also Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 391–394.

    Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, Being the First Session of the Twenty-Sixth Congress, Begun and Held at the City of Washington, December 2, 1839, and in the Sixty-Fourth Year of the Independence of the Said United States. Washington DC: Blair and Rives, 1839.

    Bushman, Richard Lyman. Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. With the assistance of Jed Woodworth. New York: Knopf, 2005.

  4. [4]

    Jessee, “Writing of Joseph Smith’s History,” 441; JS History, vol. C-1, 948–952. Bullock may have added the use marks after he finished copying the document in 1845, and Richards may have added the docket around the same time. The archival marking was added in the twentieth century.

    Jessee, Dean C. “The Writing of Joseph Smith’s History.” BYU Studies 11 (Summer 1971): 439–473.

Historical Introduction

On 4 June 1839, JS prepared a bill of damages describing his suffering and losses during the 1838 conflict in and his subsequent imprisonment. This document was one of several hundred that prepared in an effort to seek redress from the federal government for their losses in Missouri. In March 1839, while JS was imprisoned in the in , Missouri, he wrote to the Saints in , instructing them to document “all the facts and suffering and abuses put upon them by the people of this state [Missouri] and also of all the property and amount of damages which they have sustained.” JS explained in a letter to his wife that after documenting the damages, church members should “apply to the Court.” The Saints subsequently altered this strategy, deciding in early May to send to to present Congress with church members’ claims for redress. That month, Latter-day Saints began in earnest to write affidavits, most of which were sworn before local government officials, describing church members’ suffering and detailing the loss of life and property.
JS prepared his bill of damages on 4 June 1839 during a visit to church members in , Illinois. JS’s regular scribe, , was not in Quincy at the time, so assisted JS with the document. Thompson had prior experience as a scribe for the church and had recently been assigned to write a history of the church’s persecutions in . This assignment may have contributed to JS’s decision to work with Thompson on the bill of damages. The earliest extant version of the manuscript, featured here, is lengthy and fairly polished, suggesting there was at least one earlier draft.
The bill of damages begins with a brief description of JS’s travels from , Ohio, to and his experiences in Missouri during summer 1838. The document then focuses on the October 1838 conflict with anti-Mormons in Missouri, including the expulsion of the Latter-day Saints from Carroll County and the Saints’ aggressive military operations to defend themselves in . In his description of the operations, JS highlighted the participation of state militia leaders—Brigadier Generals and Hiram Parks as well as Colonel of the regiment of the state militia—while deemphasizing the actions of the Latter-day Saints’ “armies of Israel.” The bill also covers the state militia’s occupation of , as well as the incarceration of JS and others during winter 1838–1839, including unfair treatment of the prisoners, their attempts to obtain hearings, and their escape to in April 1839. The document concludes with a list of damages and expenses totaling $100,000. Unlike the vast majority of affidavits that Latter-day Saints made in 1839, JS’s bill of damages was not sworn before a government official.
In June and July 1839, penciled in changes to the text of the bill of damages, apparently in preparation for publication. Since these changes were probably made for a purpose distinct from the intention of the original document, these revisions are not reproduced here. Thompson’s changes, as well as other revisions and additions, were included in the bill of damages when it was published as “Extract, from the Private Journal of Joseph Smith, Jr.” in the July 1839 issue of the church periodical Times and Seasons.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Letter to Edward Partridge and the Church, ca. 22 Mar. 1839.

  2. [2]

    Letter to Emma Smith, 21 Mar. 1839.

  3. [3]

    Historical Introduction to Letter from Sidney Rigdon, 10 Apr. 1839; Minutes, 4–5 May 1839.

  4. [4]

    See, for example, James Newberry, Affidavit, Adams Co., IL, 7 May 1839; Joseph Dudley, Affidavit, Adams Co., IL, 11 May 1839; Phebee Simpson Emmett, Affidavit, Adams Co., IL, 14 May 1839, Mormon Redress Petitions, 1839–1845, CHL.

    Mormon Redress Petitions, 1839–1845. CHL. MS 2703.

  5. [5]

    JS, Journal, 27 May–8 June 1839.

  6. [6]

    Mulholland was in Commerce, Illinois, during JS’s visit to Quincy in late May and early June 1839. (JS, Journal, 27 May–8 June 1839; Mulholland, Journal, 19 May–8 June 1839.)

    Mulholland, James. Journal, Apr.–Oct. 1839. In Joseph Smith, Journal, Sept.–Oct. 1838. Joseph Smith Collection. CHL. MS 155, box 1, fd. 4.

  7. [7]

    “Extracts of the Minutes of Conferences,” Times and Seasons, Nov. 1839, 1:15; Authorization for Almon Babbitt et al., ca. 4 May 1839; Snow, Journal, 1838–1841, 50–54.

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

    Snow, Erastus. Journals, 1835–1851; 1856–1857. CHL. MS 1329, box 1, fds. 1–3.

  8. [8]

    For more information on the “armies of Israel,” see Introduction to Part 3: 4 Nov. 1838–16 Apr. 1839.

  9. [9]

    “Extract, from the Private Journal of Joseph Smith Jr.,” Times and Seasons, July 1839, 1:2–9.

Asterisk (*) denotes a "featured" version, which includes an introduction and annotation. *Bill of Damages, 4 June 1839 History, 1838–1856, volume C-1 [2 November 1838–31 July 1842] “History of Joseph Smith” “History of Joseph Smith”

Page [4]

weather which was extreemly cold a large Snow Storm having just fallen: In this state of affairs arrived at and was at the House of went [when] the intelligence was brought that the mob were burning Houses &c and also when women and childrren were flocking into the village for safety: <​who held a commission 59th Regiment under his command​> asked him what steps should be taken He told him that he must immediately call out his men and go and put them down: Immediately preparations were made to raise a force to Quell the mob, and unto and ascertaining what that we were determined to bear such treatment no longer, but to make a vigourous effort to subdue them and likewise being informed of the orders of , broke up their encampment and fled some of the inhabitants in the immediate neighbourhood who seeing no prospect of driving us by force resorted to stratagem and actually set fire to their own Houses after having removed their property and effects and then sent sent information to stating that our Brethren were committing depredations and destroying their property burning houses &c &
On the retreat of the mob from I return home to on my arrival there I understood that a mob had commenced hostilities in the Borders of had taken some of our People prisoners burnt some houses and had done considerable damage— Immediately under who was ordered out by to go against them and about day light next morni[n]g came up with them: upon the approach of our people they fired upon them and after discharging their pieces fled with great precipitation. In this affray fell a victim to that spirit of mobocracy which has prevailed to <​ " " 1st " " " "​>
<​ Brigadier General 2nd Brigade 3 Division of the Malitia​> [p. [4]]
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Document Information

Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Bill of Damages, 4 June 1839
ID #
462
Total Pages
8
Print Volume Location
JSP, D6:492–505
Handwriting on This Page
  • Robert B. Thompson

Footnotes

  1. [22]

    About six inches of snow fell on 17 October 1838. (Foote, Autobiography, 21 Oct. 1838, 30.)

    Foote, Warren. Autobiography, not before 1903. Warren Foote, Papers, 1837–1941. CHL. MS 1123, fd. 1.

  2. [23]

    According to Parks’s account, he arrived on 18 October 1838, after the Latter-day Saints’ military operations commenced. (Hiram Parks, Richmond, MO, to David R. Atchison, 21 Oct. 1838, copy, Mormon War Papers, MSA.)

    Mormon War Papers, 1838–1841. MSA.

  3. [24]

    Wight was commissioned as a colonel of the Caldwell County regiment of the state militia when he resided in the county in 1837. Wight’s commission did not give him authority in the Daviess County regiment of the state militia, which was commanded by Colonel William Peniston, an antagonist of the Latter-day Saints. (Lyman Wight, Mountain Valley, TX, to Wilford Woodruff, [Salt Lake City], 24 Aug. 1857, p. 5, Historian’s Office, Histories of the Twelve, 1856–1858, 1861, CHL; William Peniston, Daviess Co., MO, to Lilburn W. Boggs, 21 Oct. 1838, copy, Mormon War Papers, MSA; Baugh, “Call to Arms,” 385.)

    Historian’s Office. Histories of the Twelve, 1856–1858, 1861. CHL. CR 100 93.

    Mormon War Papers, 1838–1841. MSA.

    Baugh, Alexander L. “A Call to Arms: The 1838 Mormon Defense of Northern Missouri.” PhD diss., Brigham Young University, 1996. Also available as A Call to Arms: The 1838 Mormon Defense of Northern Missouri, Dissertations in Latter-day Saint History (Provo, UT: Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History; BYU Studies, 2000).

  4. [25]

    Scholars of the 1838 conflict estimate that between twenty-five and fifty Daviess County buildings were burned, mostly by Latter-day Saint vigilantes. Warren Foote, a sympathetic non-Mormon who later joined the church, recounted that in response to the Saints’ military operations in Daviess County, some Missourians “set their own houses afire, and ran into the adjoining counties, and declared that the ‘Mormons’ had driven them out, and burned their houses &c. This they done to excite the people against the Mormons, in order to get them to join them in their persecutions.” (Baugh, “Call to Arms,” 215; LeSueur, 1838 Mormon War in Missouri, 124; Foote, Autobiography, 21 Oct. 1838, 30–31; see also Hyrum Smith, Testimony, Nauvoo, IL, 1 July 1843, p. 7, Nauvoo, IL, Records, CHL; Corrill, Brief History, 38; and Pulsipher, “Zerah Pu[l]siphers History,” 8.)

    Baugh, Alexander L. “A Call to Arms: The 1838 Mormon Defense of Northern Missouri.” PhD diss., Brigham Young University, 1996. Also available as A Call to Arms: The 1838 Mormon Defense of Northern Missouri, Dissertations in Latter-day Saint History (Provo, UT: Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History; BYU Studies, 2000).

    LeSueur, Stephen C. The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1987.

    Foote, Warren. Autobiography, not before 1903. Warren Foote, Papers, 1837–1941. CHL. MS 1123, fd. 1.

    Nauvoo, IL. Records, 1841–1845. CHL. MS 16800.

    Pulsipher, Zerah. “Zerah Pu[l]siphers History,” no date. In Zerah Pulsipher, Record Book, ca. 1858–1878. Zerah Pulsipher, Papers, ca. 1848–1878. CHL. MS 753, fd. 1.

  5. [26]

    On 21 October 1838, Daviess County sheriff William Morgan and Colonel William Peniston wrote descriptions of the recent Latter-day Saint military operations. The following day, other Daviess County residents dictated affidavits to Justice of the Peace Adam Black, who forwarded the statements to Governor Lilburn W. Boggs. (William Morgan, Affidavit, Daviess Co., MO, 21 Oct. 1838, copy; William Peniston, Daviess Co., MO, to Lilburn W. Boggs, 21 Oct. 1838, copy; Thomas Martin, Affidavit, 22 Oct. 1838, copy; James Stone, Affidavit, 22 Oct. 1838, copy; Samuel Venable, Affidavit, 22 Oct. 1838, copy; Jonathan J. Dryden, Affidavit, 22 Oct. 1838, copy, Mormon War Papers, MSA.)

    Mormon War Papers, 1838–1841. MSA.

  6. [27]

    On 23 October 1838, Ray County militia commander Captain Bogart received authorization to “range the line” between Ray County and Caldwell County. Bogart evidently exceeded his authorization by entering Caldwell County, harassing Latter-day Saints, and taking Mormon prisoners. According to Parley P. Pratt and Rigdon, Hinkle was not present when news of Bogart’s actions reached Far West. Hinkle claimed that he was at his home at the time and was unaware of these developments until the following morning. Pratt recounted that Captain John Killian, who commanded the Far West men in Hinkle’s absence, ordered Patten and his men to go to Crooked River. Apparently Patten also led the company at Crooked River in his capacity as a cavalry commander in the church’s “war department.” (See Introduction to Part 3: 4 Nov. 1838–16 Apr. 1839; Pratt, History of the Late Persecution, 33; Sidney Rigdon, Testimony, Nauvoo, IL, 1 July 1843, pp. [12]–[13], Nauvoo, IL, Records, CHL; and George M. Hinkle, Testimony, Richmond, MO, Nov. 1838, pp. [40]–[41], in State of Missouri, “Evidence.”)

    Nauvoo, IL. Records, 1841–1845. CHL. MS 16800.

  7. [28]

    TEXT: The line of text identifying Parks’s office, brigade, and division was apparently inserted before the line of text identifying Doniphan’s office, brigade, and division; the ditto marks refer to the text below.

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