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Letter from Seth Richards, 31 January 1842

Source Note

Seth Richards, Letter, Bentonsport, Van Buren Co., Iowa Territory, to JS,
Nauvoo

Principal gathering place for Saints following expulsion from Missouri. Beginning in 1839, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints purchased lands in earlier settlement of Commerce and planned settlement of Commerce City, as well as surrounding areas....

More Info
, Hancock Co., IL, 31 Jan. 1842; handwriting presumably of Seth Richards; one page; photocopy in Zenos Gurley, Correspondence and Miscellaneous Documents, ca. 1839–1844, Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake City. Includes address, postal notations, docket, and archival marking. Transcription from photocopy.
This letter was likely inscribed on a bifolium, as were many other contemporary letters sent to JS. The photocopy shows that the letter was trifolded twice in letter style, addressed, sealed with an adhesive wafer, and postmarked. There is wafer residue on either side of the address panel. The letter was later refolded for filing.
The document was docketed by
Willard Richards

24 June 1804–11 Mar. 1854. Teacher, lecturer, doctor, clerk, printer, editor, postmaster. Born at Hopkinton, Middlesex Co., Massachusetts. Son of Joseph Richards and Rhoda Howe. Moved to Richmond, Berkshire Co., Massachusetts, 1813; to Chatham, Columbia Co...

View Full Bio
, who served as JS’s scribe from December 1841 until JS’s death in June 1844 and served as church historian from December 1842 until his own death in March 1854.
1

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].


Comprehensive Works Cited

Deseret News. Salt Lake City. 1850–.

The location of the original document is unknown. The photocopy of the document used for transcription was donated to the Utah State Historical Society around 1961. An archival inscription, written in the right margin of the photocopy, reads “Gift of SA Murdock.”
2

A photocopy of a different document in the same folder at the Utah State Historical Society has an inscription in the same ink that reads: “Original note in possession of SA Murdock, SLC[,] copied 12-11-61,” suggesting that the copy of the Richards letter was made and donated at the same time. (See JS to Lyman Hineman, Promissory Note, Nauvoo, IL, 4 Mar. 1844, Zenos Gurley, Correspondence and Miscellaneous Documents, ca. 1839–1844, Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake City.)


Comprehensive Works Cited

Gurley, Zenos. Correspondence and Miscellaneous Documents, ca. 1839–1844. Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake City.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    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–.

  2. [2]

    A photocopy of a different document in the same folder at the Utah State Historical Society has an inscription in the same ink that reads: “Original note in possession of SA Murdock, SLC[,] copied 12-11-61,” suggesting that the copy of the Richards letter was made and donated at the same time. (See JS to Lyman Hineman, Promissory Note, Nauvoo, IL, 4 Mar. 1844, Zenos Gurley, Correspondence and Miscellaneous Documents, ca. 1839–1844, Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake City.)

    Gurley, Zenos. Correspondence and Miscellaneous Documents, ca. 1839–1844. Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake City.

Historical Introduction

On 31 January 1842
Iowa Territory

Area acquired by U.S. in Louisiana Purchase, 1803. First permanent white settlements established, ca. 1833. Organized as territory, 1838, containing all of present-day Iowa, much of present-day Minnesota, and parts of North and South Dakota. Population in...

More Info
merchant and land owner Seth Richards wrote a short letter to JS in
Nauvoo

Principal gathering place for Saints following expulsion from Missouri. Beginning in 1839, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints purchased lands in earlier settlement of Commerce and planned settlement of Commerce City, as well as surrounding areas....

More Info
, Illinois, offering to sell land and a charter for a dam near Bentonsport, Van Buren County, Iowa Territory. A former resident of
Massachusetts

One of original thirteen colonies that formed U.S. Capital city, Boston. Colonized by English religious dissenters, 1620s. Population in 1830 about 610,000. Population in 1840 about 738,000. Joseph Smith Sr. born in Massachusetts. Samuel Smith and Orson Hyde...

More Info
, Richards moved in 1837 to Iowa Territory, where he operated a mercantile store in
Fort Madison

Fort established in area, fall 1808. Fort evacuated and torched, 3 Sept. 1813, to prevent capture by Indians. Area settled, 1832, and surveyed, June 1835. Significant center of trade, manufacturing, and shipping on Mississippi River. Established as Lee Co...

More Info
with his partner George Howe; the pair later moved the store to Bentonsport, located nearly thirty miles northwest of Nauvoo.
1

Hall, America’s Successful Men of Affairs, 666; Ellery and Bowditch, Pickering Genealogy, 509; Biographical and Historical Record of Clarke County, Iowa, 231.


Comprehensive Works Cited

Hall, Henry, ed. America’s Successful Men of Affairs: An Encyclopedia of Contemporaneous Biography. Vol. 2. New York: New York Tribune, 1896.

Ellery, Harrison, and Charles Pickering Bowditch. The Pickering Genealogy: Being an Account of the First Three Generations of the Pickering Family of Salem, Mass., and of the Descendants of John and Sarah (Burrill) Pickering, of the Third Generation. Vol. 2. Cambridge, MA: University Press, John Wilson and Son, 1897.

Biographical and Historical Record of Clarke County, Iowa. . . . Chicago: Lewis, 1886.

In January 1839 the territorial legislature of Iowa authorized Richards, Howe, and another partner, Henry Eno, to build a dam on the
Des Moines River

More Info
between North Bentonsport and South Bentonsport.
2

An Act to Authorize Henry Eno and Others to Erect a Dam across the Des Moines River [17 Jan. 1839], Statute Laws of the Territory of Iowa, p. 362, sec. 1.


Comprehensive Works Cited

The Statute Laws of the Territory of Iowa, Enacted at the First Session of the Legislative Assembly of Said Territory, Held at Burlington, A. D. 1838–’39. Dubuque, Iowa Territory: Russell and Reeves, 1839. Reprint, Des Moines: Historical Department of Iowa, 1900.

Construction on the dam and its attending lock reportedly began the following year and continued until at least 1843.
3

Iowa Writers’ Program, Work Projects Administration, Bentonsport Memories, 10–11; An Act Allowing the Holders of a Charter to Erect a Dam across the Des Moines at Bentonsport . . . [16 Feb. 1843], Local Laws of the Territory of Iowa, chap. 82, p. 89.


Comprehensive Works Cited

Iowa Writers’ Program, Work Projects Administration. Bentonsport Memories. American Guide Series. [Bentonsport, IA]: Work Projects Administration, 1940.

Local Laws of the Territory of Iowa, Enacted at the Session of the Legislature Which Commenced on the First Monday of December, 1843 [1842]. Iowa City, Iowa Territory: Hughes and Williams, 1843.

In addition to undertaking mercantile and dam construction ventures, Richards and Howe purchased over five hundred acres of federal land in
Van Buren County

More Info
by December 1841.
4

Land Patents for George Howe and Seth Richards, 1 Dec. 1841, nos. 381, 641, 5639, 5642, General Land Office Records, Bureau of Land Management, Department of the Interior.


Comprehensive Works Cited

General Land Office Records. Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Department of the Interior. Digital images of the land patents cited herein are available at http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/.

In his letter Richards indicated that some Latter-day Saints desired to build a dam and mill on the
Des Moines River

More Info
. Though there is no extant evidence that
church

The Book of Mormon related that when Christ set up his church in the Americas, “they which were baptized in the name of Jesus, were called the church of Christ.” The first name used to denote the church JS organized on 6 April 1830 was “the Church of Christ...

View Glossary
members proposed to build a dam on the
Des Moines River

More Info
, individual church leaders had previously petitioned for or promoted the construction of dams on the
Mississippi River

Principal U.S. river running southward from Itasca Lake, Minnesota, to Gulf of Mexico. Covered 3,160-mile course, 1839 (now about 2,350 miles). Drains about 1,100,000 square miles. Steamboat travel on Mississippi very important in 1830s and 1840s for shipping...

More Info
.
5

In his 3 February 1841 inaugural address, Nauvoo mayor John C. Bennett recommended the construction of a dam on the Mississippi River, as well as of a canal that would extend into the city of Nauvoo. Later that month, Newel Knight, Levi Jackman, and Samuel Rolfe petitioned the Nauvoo City Council to allow them to build a dam in the Mississippi River near Nauvoo. (; Newel Knight, Levi Jackman, and Samuel Rolfe, Petition, 13 Feb. 1841, Nauvoo, IL, Records, CHL.)


Richards mailed the letter from Bentonsport; a docket by
Willard Richards

24 June 1804–11 Mar. 1854. Teacher, lecturer, doctor, clerk, printer, editor, postmaster. Born at Hopkinton, Middlesex Co., Massachusetts. Son of Joseph Richards and Rhoda Howe. Moved to Richmond, Berkshire Co., Massachusetts, 1813; to Chatham, Columbia Co...

View Full Bio
indicates it was received in
Nauvoo

Principal gathering place for Saints following expulsion from Missouri. Beginning in 1839, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints purchased lands in earlier settlement of Commerce and planned settlement of Commerce City, as well as surrounding areas....

More Info
, but no reply is apparently extant.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Hall, America’s Successful Men of Affairs, 666; Ellery and Bowditch, Pickering Genealogy, 509; Biographical and Historical Record of Clarke County, Iowa, 231.

    Hall, Henry, ed. America’s Successful Men of Affairs: An Encyclopedia of Contemporaneous Biography. Vol. 2. New York: New York Tribune, 1896.

    Ellery, Harrison, and Charles Pickering Bowditch. The Pickering Genealogy: Being an Account of the First Three Generations of the Pickering Family of Salem, Mass., and of the Descendants of John and Sarah (Burrill) Pickering, of the Third Generation. Vol. 2. Cambridge, MA: University Press, John Wilson and Son, 1897.

    Biographical and Historical Record of Clarke County, Iowa. . . . Chicago: Lewis, 1886.

  2. [2]

    An Act to Authorize Henry Eno and Others to Erect a Dam across the Des Moines River [17 Jan. 1839], Statute Laws of the Territory of Iowa, p. 362, sec. 1.

    The Statute Laws of the Territory of Iowa, Enacted at the First Session of the Legislative Assembly of Said Territory, Held at Burlington, A. D. 1838–’39. Dubuque, Iowa Territory: Russell and Reeves, 1839. Reprint, Des Moines: Historical Department of Iowa, 1900.

  3. [3]

    Iowa Writers’ Program, Work Projects Administration, Bentonsport Memories, 10–11; An Act Allowing the Holders of a Charter to Erect a Dam across the Des Moines at Bentonsport . . . [16 Feb. 1843], Local Laws of the Territory of Iowa, chap. 82, p. 89.

    Iowa Writers’ Program, Work Projects Administration. Bentonsport Memories. American Guide Series. [Bentonsport, IA]: Work Projects Administration, 1940.

    Local Laws of the Territory of Iowa, Enacted at the Session of the Legislature Which Commenced on the First Monday of December, 1843 [1842]. Iowa City, Iowa Territory: Hughes and Williams, 1843.

  4. [4]

    Land Patents for George Howe and Seth Richards, 1 Dec. 1841, nos. 381, 641, 5639, 5642, General Land Office Records, Bureau of Land Management, Department of the Interior.

    General Land Office Records. Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Department of the Interior. Digital images of the land patents cited herein are available at http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/.

  5. [5]

    In his 3 February 1841 inaugural address, Nauvoo mayor John C. Bennett recommended the construction of a dam on the Mississippi River, as well as of a canal that would extend into the city of Nauvoo. Later that month, Newel Knight, Levi Jackman, and Samuel Rolfe petitioned the Nauvoo City Council to allow them to build a dam in the Mississippi River near Nauvoo. (; Newel Knight, Levi Jackman, and Samuel Rolfe, Petition, 13 Feb. 1841, Nauvoo, IL, Records, CHL.)

Page [1]

Bentonsport Io. of Jan 31. 1842——
To Mr Jos. Smith—
Sir—
It has been sujested to me that some of your people would like to build an dam and mills some at some point on this
River

More Info
—
1

Bentonsport lies along the Des Moines River, which flows over five hundred miles from southern Minnesota to its confluence with the Mississippi River near Keokuk, Iowa.


We have a charter for a dam at this place
2

An Act to Authorize Henry Eno and Others to Erect a Dam across the Des Moines River [17 Jan. 1839], Statute Laws of the Territory of Iowa, pp. 362–363.


Comprehensive Works Cited

The Statute Laws of the Territory of Iowa, Enacted at the First Session of the Legislative Assembly of Said Territory, Held at Burlington, A. D. 1838–’39. Dubuque, Iowa Territory: Russell and Reeves, 1839. Reprint, Des Moines: Historical Department of Iowa, 1900.

which should like to have improoved— If such a scheem should be favourably received by any of your folks please have them come up and examine the primeses— I can secure to you the Charter and one twelfth part of the Town property and twenty acres of Land back of town should you or any of your people wish to purchase.
Please write me on the receipt of this——
I am very respy your obt servant——
S[eth] Richards [1/4 page blank] [p. [1]]
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Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Letter from Seth Richards, 31 January 1842
ID #
758
Total Pages
2
Print Volume Location
JSP, D9:134–135
Handwriting on This Page
  • Seth Richards

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Bentonsport lies along the Des Moines River, which flows over five hundred miles from southern Minnesota to its confluence with the Mississippi River near Keokuk, Iowa.

  2. [2]

    An Act to Authorize Henry Eno and Others to Erect a Dam across the Des Moines River [17 Jan. 1839], Statute Laws of the Territory of Iowa, pp. 362–363.

    The Statute Laws of the Territory of Iowa, Enacted at the First Session of the Legislative Assembly of Said Territory, Held at Burlington, A. D. 1838–’39. Dubuque, Iowa Territory: Russell and Reeves, 1839. Reprint, Des Moines: Historical Department of Iowa, 1900.

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