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Footnotes
JS, Journal, 13 Dec. 1841 and 21 Dec. 1842; Orson Spencer, “Death of Our Beloved Brother Willard Richards,” Deseret News (Salt Lake City), 16 Mar. 1854, [2].
Deseret News. Salt Lake City. 1850–.
Email, 5 June 2017, copy in editors’ possession.
Footnotes
Letter from James Arlington Bennet, 1 Sept. 1842; Letter to James Arlington Bennet, 8 Sept. 1842; James Arlington Bennet, Arlington House, Long Island, NY, to Willard Richards, Nauvoo, IL, 24 Oct. 1842; Willard Richards, Nauvoo, IL, to James Arlington Bennet, 20 Nov. and 22 Dec. 1842, draft; JS, Journal, 21–22 Dec. 1842; Richards, Journal, 21–22 Dec. 1842.
Richards, Willard. Journals and Papers, 1821–1854. CHL.
“The Mormans,” New York Herald (New York City), 23 Oct. 1842, [2]; “The Mormon Expose,” New York Herald, 4 Nov. 1842, [2].
New York Herald. New York City. 1835–1924.
John C. Bennett published The History of the Saints in mid-October 1842. (“Gen. Bennet’s Mormon Disclosures,” Daily Atlas [Boston], 15 Oct. 1842, [2].)
Boston Daily Atlas. Boston. 1844–1857.
JS, Journal, 15 and 17 Mar. 1843; JS, Nauvoo, IL, to James Arlington Bennet, Arlington House, Long Island, NY, 17 Mar. 1843, Simon Gratz Autograph Collection, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
Arlington House was the residence of James Arlington Bennet on Long Island, New York. (“Arlington House, Long Island,” Morning Herald [New York City], 1 Oct. 1839, [4].)
Morning Herald. New York City, NY. 1835, 1837–1840.
JS was lieutenant general of the Nauvoo Legion, a unit of the Illinois state militia. (Minutes, 4 Feb. 1841.)
See “Joseph Smith Documents from September 1842 through February 1843.” On 5 January 1843, Judge Nathaniel Pope of the United States Circuit Court for the District of Illinois found Missouri’s requisition to Illinois for JS’s extradition to be defective and thereupon discharged JS. (JS, Journal, 5 Jan. 1843; “Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Illinois,” Wasp, 28 Jan. 1843, [1]–[2].)
The Wasp. Nauvoo, IL. Apr. 1842–Apr. 1843.
In his inaugural address on 8 December 1842, newly elected Illinois governor Thomas Ford advocated the repeal of the act incorporating the city of Nauvoo, known as the Nauvoo charter. Following Ford’s remarks, the repeal of the charter became a topic of debate in the Illinois legislature, with a bill to repeal the charter being submitted to the legislature during late 1842 and early 1843. (Journal of the Senate . . . of the State of Illinois, 8 Dec. 1842, 33; Leonard, Nauvoo, 307.)
Journal of the Senate of the Thirteenth General Assembly of the State of Illinois, at Their Regular Session, Begun and Held at Springfield, December 5, 1842. Springfield, IL: William Walters, 1842.
Leonard, Glen M. Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, a People of Promise. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2002.
The last known letter that JS sent to James Arlington Bennet was dated 8 September 1842. In that letter, JS told Bennet, “I am at this time persecuted the worst of any man on the earth; as well as this people, here in this place; and all our sacred rights, are trampled under the feet of the mob.” He blamed the persecutions on Boggs and Missouri governor Thomas Reynolds as well as on Illinois governor Thomas Carlin, who had “denied the right of Habeus Corpus” to JS. (Letter to James Arlington Bennet, 8 Sept. 1842.)
John C. Bennett visited James Arlington Bennet in New York during August 1842. Following that visit, Willard Richards met with James Arlington Bennet and acquainted him with the details of the John C. Bennett affair. Richards reported to JS that James Arlington Bennet held John C. Bennett “in utter detestation.” Later approached by John C. Bennett for help “in arranging materials for publishing ‘an exposition of Mormon Secrets & practices,’” James Arlington Bennet refused to offer aid. In a letter to JS in September 1842, James Arlington Bennet provided additional details regarding John C. Bennett’s efforts to raise public opinion against JS and the Latter-day Saints. (Letter from Willard Richards, 9 Aug. 1842; Letter from James Arlington Bennet, 16 Aug. 1842; Letter from James Arlington Bennet, 1 Sept. 1842.)
At some point between 1831 and 1833, James Arlington Bennet evidently obtained a doctor of laws degree from an unknown institution and began publishing his book The American System of Practical Book-Keeping under the name of “James Bennett, A. & M. Attorney and Counsellor at Law.” Earlier editions of the book did not contain the designation. (Compare the title pages of the 1824, 1831, and 1833 printings of Bennet’s The American System of Practical Book-Keeping: Adapted to the Commerce of the United States in Its Domestic and Foreign Relations, Comprehending All the Modern Improvements in the Practice of the Art; and Exemplified in One Set of Books Kept by Double Entry, published by Collins and Hannay in New York.)
Bennet, James Arlington. The American System of Practical Book-Keeping, Adapted to the Commerce of the United States, in it Domestic and Foreign Relations, Comprehending All the Modern Improvements in the Practice of the Art, and Exemplified in One Set of Books Kept By Double Entry, Embracing Five Different Methods of Keeping a Journal. New York: Collins & Hannay, 1831.
In his September 1842 letter to JS, James Arlington Bennet explained that his wife, Sophia Smith Bennet, had received a letter from Emma Smith “containing a very lucid account of Dr John C. Bennett.” That letter is not extant. (Letter from James Arlington Bennet, 1 Sept. 1842.)
John C. Bennett’s former father-in-law was Joseph Barker Sr. of Marietta, Ohio. Barker’s letter to James Arlington Bennet is not extant and the content is uncertain, but it may have affirmed that his daughter Mary Barker Bennett had been abandoned by John C. Bennett. (Times and Seasons, 1 July 1842, 3:842.)
John C. Bennett arrived in Boston around 9 September 1842. He likely remained in the area until at least 15 October 1842, when his book was published by the Boston firm Leland and Whiting. James Arlington Bennet presumably wrote to him prior to the book’s publication. (“Mormonism Exposed,” Daily Atlas [Boston], 9 Sept. 1842, [2]; “Gen. Bennet’s Mormon Disclosures,” Daily Atlas, 15 Oct. 1842, [2].)
Boston Daily Atlas. Boston. 1844–1857.
See John C. Bennett, The History of the Saints; or, An Exposé of Joe Smith and Mormonism (Boston: Leland and Whiting, 1842).
Bennett, John C. The History of the Saints; or, an Exposé of Joe Smith and Mormonism. Boston: Leland and Whiting, 1842.
“Magnus Apollo” is Latin for “the Great Apollo,” a phrase that originated with Virgil. Nineteenth-century Americans and Europeans appropriated the phrase to describe various individuals of renown. (See Works of Virgil, 2:306; Smith, “Old Maid’s Legacy,” 7; Speech of David Pollock, 25; and Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 329.)
The Works of Virgil, Translated into English Prose, as Near the Original as the Different Idioms of the Latin and English Languages Will Allow. . . . 2 vols. London: F. C. and J. Rivington, 1821.
Smith, Richard Penn. “The Old Maid’s Legacy.” Lady’s Book 13 (July 1836): 7–17.
Speech of David Pollock, Esq., on the Summing Up of the Evidence of Traffic, Given before the Committee of the House of Commons, in Support of Sir John Rennie’s, or the Direct Line. The Direct London and Brighton Railway, Session 1836. London: W. Lewis, 1836.
Burrows, Edwin G., and Mike Wallace. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
The extent of John C. Bennett’s formal education is unknown. He claimed to have graduated from Ohio University, but extant records do not indicate either his attendance or graduation. He apprenticed in the field of medicine under his uncle Dr. Samuel Hildreth and passed a licensing examination before the Twelfth Medical Society in Ohio in November 1825. In 1833 and 1834, Bennett attempted to establish a college in Ohio called “The Classical, Literary, and Scientific Institution of Scioto Valley, for teaching the Arts and Sciences.” The Ohio House of Representatives passed a bill to create the school, but the state senate later rejected the bill on the basis of an unfavorable report. The report stated that Bennett was “the only individual who appear[ed] to take any interest” in passing the bill and that he had tried to sell diplomas to individuals in Ohio from a school he had proposed in Indiana. The Ohio Senate concluded that Bennett had “some Sinister Motive in view, in pressing the passage of the bill” to establish the school. (Smith, Saintly Scoundrel, 3–5; “To the Public,” Western Medical Reformer [Cincinnati], Extra, 8 Sept. 1845, 4–7, italics in original; see also S. A. L., Cleveland, OH, 1 July 1845, Letter to the Editors, Western Medical Reformer, June 1845, 13; and “Ohio Legislature,” Western Medical Reformer, Aug. 1845, 35.)
Smith, Andrew F. The Saintly Scoundrel: The Life and Times of Dr. John Cook Bennett. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997.
Western Medical Reformer. Cincinnati. 1840–1845.