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Letter to Richard Blennerhassett, 17 March 1843

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Letter to Richard Blennerhassett, 17 March 1843

Source Note

[JS], Letter, , Hancock Co., IL, to , [, St. Louis Co., MO], 17 Mar. 1843. Featured version drafted 17 Mar. 1843; handwriting of ; one page; Truthiana, 1843, CHL. Includes dockets.
Single leaf measuring 13 × 8½ inches (33 × 22 cm). Before inscribing the letter to featured here, —using the pseudonym of “Viator”—wrote the final page of a draft of a 17 March 1843 letter to the Boston Bee on this leaf. Richards used the verso of the draft letter to the Bee to draft the letter to Blennerhassett. The document was folded for filing. The document has undergone conservation.
added dockets for the two letters on both sides of the leaf. The document was presumably retained among the church’s records. In 1983 it was processed as part of the holdings of the Church Historical Department (now CHL). The early dockets and later processing suggest that it has remained in continuous institutional custody.

Footnotes

  1. See the full bibliographic entry for Truthiana, 1843, in the CHL catalog.

Historical Introduction

On 17 March 1843, JS composed a letter in , Illinois, for , an attorney in , regarding the arrest, incarceration, and forthcoming trial of . Blennerhassett had written to leader on 7 March offering to defend Rockwell, who was being held in state custody on the charge of having attempted to assassinate former governor in May 1842. The attorney apparently learned of Rockwell’s situation from an estranged Latter-day Saint, attorney Joseph Wood, although Blennerhassett did not mention Wood in the letter to Whitney. Blennerhassett, an Irish immigrant, was admitted to the bar in 1835 and was considered one of the best criminal attorneys in St. Louis by 1842.
received ’s 7 March 1843 letter in by 17 March, when Whitney delivered it to JS at JS’s home at 4:00 p.m. After reviewing Blennerhassett’s missive, JS immediately dictated a response to his scribe . The draft includes emendations in the handwriting of Willard Richards, which may have been dictated by JS or made by Richards, acting on assignment. Richards presumably made a fair copy of the letter that was sent to Blennerhassett. Letters took approximately a week to travel between Nauvoo and . JS asked Blennerhassett to read the letter to and requested that Blennerhassett write back regarding any further developments in Rockwell’s case. No response to JS’s letter is known. Ultimately, the prominent attorney represented Rockwell. The letter sent to Blennerhassett is apparently not extant. The draft of the letter, preserved among church records, is featured here.

Footnotes

  1. Richard Blennerhassett, St. Louis, MO, to Newel K. Whitney, Nauvoo, IL, 7 Mar. 1843, Newel K. Whitney, Papers, BYU; see also Historical Introduction to Letter from Isaac Galland, 11 Mar. 1843; and “Part 1: March 1843.”

    Whitney, Newel K. Papers, 1825–1906. BYU.

  2. Letter from Isaac Galland, 11 Mar. 1843; Letter from Joseph Wood, 14 Mar. 1843.

  3. See Scharf, History of Saint Louis, 2:1477; Letter from Isaac Galland, 11 Mar. 1843; and Letter from Joseph Wood, 14 Mar. 1843.

    Scharf, J. Thomas. History of Saint Louis City and County, from the Earliest Periods to the Present Day: Including Biographical Sketches of Representative Men. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1883.

  4. JS, Journal, 17 Mar. 1843.

  5. For example, Blennerhassett mailed his 7 March 1843 letter on 10 March, and it arrived in Nauvoo by 17 March. (Richard Blennerhassett, St. Louis, MO, to Newel K. Whitney, Nauvoo, IL, 7 Mar. 1843, Newel K. Whitney, Papers, BYU.)

    Whitney, Newel K. Papers, 1825–1906. BYU.

  6. See Transcript of Proceedings, 18 Nov. 1843, State of Missouri v. Rockwell (Clay Co. Cir. Ct. 1843), [6], Historical Department, Nineteenth-Century Legal Documents Collection, CHL.

    Historical Department. Nineteenth-Century Legal Documents Collection, ca. 1825–1890. CHL. CR 100 339.

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Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Letter to Richard Blennerhassett, 17 March 1843
ID #
5089
Total Pages
2
Print Volume Location
JSP, D12:62–66
Handwriting on This Page
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