In winter 1838–1839, the Latter-day Saints were forced to leave and found refuge in nearby and . In April 1839, church leaders took steps to purchase land for the Saints around , Illinois. The earliest transactions for land in Illinois occurred on 30 April 1839 and were conducted by designated agents for the church, and , who arranged to purchase land from and land speculator . Months later, in August, the church’s , composed of JS, , and , transacted more land purchases. The First Presidency reached agreements with land speculator and his partners to purchase nearly five hundred acres in and around Commerce, where the Saints would build the city of .

In 1839 and 1840 after the church had arranged to purchase these lands, church leaders began offering the land to the Saints for them to purchase. Several members did so, often paying for the land on credit with promissory notes. In January 1841, the church took steps to become incorporated in , and JS was elected trustee-in-trust for the church. As trustee, JS became responsible for the church’s finances, and the land purchased by the church in 1839 was a significant part of the church’s debts and assets. JS centralized church lands in 1841, transferring lands purchased by agents or the to himself as trustee to hold on behalf of the church. JS also became responsible for selling land. Clerks working in the trustee’s office helped JS create and maintain the necessary records to track land purchases. was the first clerk to serve in this capacity, drafting deeds and recording land sales. acted as an agent for JS and the church, overseeing land sales in as well as other financial matters. further professionalized the trustee’s land office and worked to organize the record keeping.

In August 1839, when the reached their agreement with , they did not have $110,000 to pay for the four hundred acres of land they had contracted to purchase. Instead, they created a payment schedule, signing forty-two promissory notes consisting of two annual installments of $1,500 each, one paid to Hotchkiss and one paid to his partners and , for the next twenty years and two final notes to each party for $25,000 due in 1859. This meant that in the 1840s, the church was still indebted for the land church leaders had contracted to purchase and to which the church did not yet have title. Initially, when Saints and other interested parties came to JS to purchase land, they did not get a warranty deed or title to the land. In place of a deed, the trustee’s office provided purchasers with a bond for the land, promising a warranty deed once they held title and the purchaser had made the agreed-upon payments. Many Saints opted to pay the amount they owed for land on credit through a series of payments to the trustee; they therefore signed promissory notes for their payments in conjunction with their bond. In some instances, not all of these documents have survived and only a bond or one or more of the promissory notes accompanying the purchase is extant. Further documentation for lots purchased in was created by . In his capacity as an agent for the church, Sherwood created documents called “Town Lot Orders,” which reserved a specific lot or lots for an individual or family. These documents were made in conjunction with land purchases from the church’s trustee.

While some of the Latter-day Saints who purchased land from JS as trustee in the early 1840s were able to make their payments and purchase the land, many were not. These Saints purchased their land on credit, opting for installment payments that extended their payments significantly into the future, sometimes by five or ten years and often without any initial payment. Furthermore, the church faced the economic demands of caring for poor members, including by providing them with homes and land. In a report on land sales, estimated that around $40,000 worth of land had been given to widows and other impoverished members of the church who he noted “will not be able to pay.” A report prepared by agents of the church in 1841 showed the amount of land given to the poor had increased to $45,000. Because church members were often unable to pay for the land they received, church leaders had difficulty making their promised payments to , , and others. JS occasionally expressed some frustration in his sermons and other public discourses in , as he encouraged members of the church to purchase land from him as trustee rather than from other land owners. When land was purchased from JS and the church, he could use that money to repay the church’s debts on the land. When members purchased land from other landholders, it kept needed funds from church leaders.

JS and church leaders focused their initial community-building efforts on , which quickly grew into a sizable city. But JS had ambitions to expand further and to establish additional settlements for the Saints throughout . Although he had already taken steps to build communities outside Nauvoo, he articulated this desire in a March 1843 discourse, describing Nauvoo as the hub of a wheel and other communities, like the Illinois towns of , , and , as spokes that would provide opportunities to advance missionary work and extend the influence of the church. Because of JS’s interest in establishing more Latter-day Saint communities, land speculators sought him out and attempted to sell him land, sometimes in areas unfamiliar to him. In some instances, the land turned out to be undesirable or, in the case of , Illinois, ultimately uninhabitable. JS also purchased numerous tracts of land throughout on behalf of the church, and the land was then subdivided and sold as farms for church members. Church members also regularly transferred land to JS as tithing or donations to the church. These deeds often designated that the land was given or transferred to JS as trustee-in-trust and used legal language to denote that the land was a gift made “for and in consideration of the love and good will they bear to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints” and “for the sum of one dollar.”

Many of the land transactions documented here relate to JS’s position as trustee for the church, selling land to Saints and other interested parties. However, JS also purchased land in and around for his family and businesses. JS owned several lots in Nauvoo as well as a farm located about a mile east of the city. In some transactions, land was deeded to or the Smith children rather than directly to JS. JS also deeded land to his children possibly in an effort to provide an inheritance for them. However, under the legal principle of coverture, lands deeded to JS’s wife or children would still legally belong to JS. Despite JS’s attempts to separate personal and church assets, these divisions were not always clear, and after JS’s death in June 1844, disputes over the ownership of some of the properties JS held as trustee led to a significant falling-out between Emma Smith and church leaders.