Footnotes
Coray, Autobiographical Sketch, 2, 4–5, 17, 19. The letter immediately preceding this one in JS Letterbook 2 is dated 28 August 1840. (Letter from Thomas Burdick, 28 Aug. 1840.)
Coray, Howard. Autobiographical Sketch, after 1883. Howard Coray, Papers, ca. 1840–1941. Photocopy. CHL. MS 2043, fd. 1.
JS may have forgotten that he had apparently met Bennett eight years earlier. William E. McLellin noted in his journal that he spent 11 January 1832 “talking with a Mr Bennett a Campbellite Priest. I took him on my slay and Thursday and Friday I brought him to Hiram [Ohio] to see Jos & Sidney, Friday eve he talked considerable with Br Joseph.” (McLellin, Journal, 11–13 Jan. 1832, 13; see also Smith, Saintly Scoundrel, 56.)
McLellin, William E. Journal, 18 July–20 Nov. 1831. William E. McLellin, Papers, 1831–1836, 1877–1878. CHL. MS 13538, box 1, fd. 1. Also available as Jan Shipps and John W. Welch, eds., The Journals of William E. McLellin, 1831–1836 (Provo, UT: BYU Studies; Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994).
Smith, Andrew F. The Saintly Scoundrel: The Life and Times of Dr. John Cook Bennett. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997.
In all three of Bennett’s July 1840 letters to JS and Rigdon, Bennett referred to having written JS during the “Mormon War” in Missouri—probably during early 1839. No correspondence from Bennett to JS prior to his 25 July 1840 letter has been located. (Letters from John C. Bennett, 25, 27, and 30 July 1840; Bennett, History of the Saints, 14; Proclamation, 15 Jan. 1841.)
Bennett, John C. The History of the Saints; or, an Exposé of Joe Smith and Mormonism. Boston: Leland and Whiting, 1842.
A lengthy memorial that church leaders submitted to the United States Congress in January 1840 requested redress for losses incurred in Missouri and declared that the hostility toward the Saints was based on their religious beliefs. (Memorial to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, ca. 30 Oct. 1839–27 Jan. 1840.)
Bennett expressed his enthusiastic desire to move to Nauvoo in all three of the letters he wrote to JS and Rigdon during the last week of July. (Letters from John C. Bennett, 25, 27, and 30 July 1840.)
In spite of Bennett’s repeated expressions of interest in continuing to practice medicine after moving to Nauvoo, little evidence suggests he was an actively practicing physician during his years there. (Letters from John C. Bennett, 25 and 27 July 1840; Smith, Saintly Scoundrel, 65.)
Smith, Andrew F. The Saintly Scoundrel: The Life and Times of Dr. John Cook Bennett. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997.