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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 [7]

holding out the inducement that we were to be reinstated to our former priviledges: but instead of being taken to we were taken to w[h]ere we immured in Prison and bound in— Chains. After we were thus situated we were under the charge of of who suffered us to be abused in every manner which the people thought propper: our situation at this time was truly painful: we were taken before the Court of inquiry but in consequence of the proceedi[n]g of the mob and there threats we were not able to get such witnesses as would have been servicable. Even those we had were abused by the states attorney in at the Court and were not permitted to be examind by the Court as the laws direct——
We were committed to and petitio[n]ed to for a writ of but on account owening [owing] to the prejudice of the Jailor all communication was entirely cut off however at lengthe we succeeded in getting a petition conveyed to the Judge but he neglected <​to​> paying any attention to it for Fourteen days and kept us in suspence: he then ordered us to appear before him but he utterly refused to hear any of our witnesses which we had been at great trouble in providing— Our Laweys [lawyers] likewise refused to act being afraid of the people: <​We likewise petitioned to and to the Judges of the Supreme Court but withe the same success— they utterly refused——​>
Our vittuals were of the coarsest kind and served up in a manner which was disgusting after bearing up under repeated injuries we were removed to under a strong guard we were then arraigned before the grand Jury who were mostly intoxicated: who indicted us me and the the rest of my companions for Treason [p. [7]]
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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. [40]

    When the prisoners arrived in Richmond, Missouri, on 9 November 1838, they were placed in a room in “an old log house.” They were bound together the following day “with three trace chains and seven padlocks . . . until [they] were all chained together about two feet apart.” For the remainder of the month, they remained chained together and slept on the floor. (Lyman Wight, Journal, in History of the Reorganized Church, 2:296–297; Pratt, History of the Late Persecution, 52.)

    The History of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. 8 vols. Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1896–1976.

  2. [41]

    Pratt described one night when the prisoners “listened for hours to the obscene jests, the horrid oaths, the dreadful blasphemies and filthy language of guards” as they “recounted to each other their deeds of rapine, murder, robbery, etc.” committed against the Latter-day Saints in Caldwell County. (Pratt, History of the Late Persecution, 52; Pratt, Autobiography, 228, 229.)

    Pratt, Parley P. The Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, One of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Embracing His Life, Ministry and Travels, with Extracts, in Prose and Verse, from His Miscellaneous Writings. Edited by Parley P. Pratt Jr. New York: Russell Brothers, 1874.

  3. [42]

    Hyrum Smith recalled that the prisoners submitted the names of sixty potential defense witnesses; only seven ultimately testified. Several Latter-day Saints recounted that officers of the court harassed and abused the defense witnesses.

  4. [43]

    For more information on the January 1839 habeas corpus hearing, see Introduction to Part 3: 4 Nov. 1838–16 Apr. 1839.

  5. [44]

    TEXT: The line running through “with the same success” may not signify a cancellation; instead, the line may be intended to separate the insertion from the main text.

  6. [45]

    On 9 March 1839, Hyrum Smith wrote a petition for a writ of habeas corpus; though directed to King, it apparently was never submitted. In mid-March, JS and the other prisoners wrote separate petitions directed to the Missouri Supreme Court, but the requests were denied. (Hyrum Smith, Petition, Liberty, MO, 9 Mar. 1839, CHL; Historical Introduction to Petition to George Tompkins, between 9 and 15 Mar. 1839.)

    Smith, Hyrum. Petition, Liberty, MO, 9 Mar. 1839. CHL.

  7. [46]

    Wight recalled that the prisoners were fed “with a scanty allowance, on the dregs of coffee and Tea from the [jailer’s] own Table and fetching the provisions in a basket in which the chickens had roosted the night before without being cleaned.” (Lyman Wight, Testimony, Nauvoo, IL, 1 July 1843, p. 30, Nauvoo, IL, Records, CHL.)

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

  8. [47]

    From 6 to 8 April 1839, Clay County sheriff and jailer Samuel Hadley, deputy jailer Samuel Tillery, and several other men escorted the prisoners from Liberty to Gallatin for a session of the Daviess County Circuit Court. (Hyrum Smith, Diary, 6–8 Apr. 1839.)

    Smith, Hyrum. Diary, Mar.–Apr. 1839, Oct. 1840. CHL. MS 2945.

  9. [48]

    The men were indicted around 10 April 1839 for treason against the state of Missouri. (Daviess Co., MO, Circuit Court Record, Apr. 1839, bk. A, 58, Daviess County Courthouse, Gallatin, MO; Indictment, [Honey Creek Township, MO], ca. 10 Apr. 1839, State of Missouri v. Gates et al. for Treason [Daviess Co. Cir. Ct. 1839], Historical Department, Nineteenth-Century Legal Documents Collection, CHL; see also Baugh, “We Took Our Change of Venue,” 61–65.)

    Daviess County, Missouri. Circuit Court Record, vol. A, July 1837–Oct. 1843. Daviess County Courthouse, Gallatin, MO.

    Baugh, Alexander L. “‘We Took Our Change of Venue to the State of Illinois’: The Gallatin Hearing and the Escape of Joseph Smith and the Mormon Prisoners from Missouri, April 1839.” Mormon Historical Studies 2, no. 1 (2001): 59–82.

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