Footnotes
The Nauvoo City Council had been meeting at Hyrum Smith’s office in Nauvoo since 23 October 1841. (See Nauvoo City Council Minute Book, 16 and 23 Oct. 1841, 23–24.)
See Nauvoo City Council Rough Minute Book, 13 Nov. 1841, 39–40. It is possible that this official ledger book is one of the “books of record” that Sloan in an earlier meeting had requested the city council purchase. At the 13 November meeting, described in the minutes featured here, the council agreed to provide record books and other clerical supplies to Sloan. (Nauvoo City Council Minute Book, 6 Nov. 1841, 28–29; Hyrum Smith and John P. Greene, Committee Report, Nauvoo, IL, [between 6 and 13 Nov. 1841], Nauvoo, IL, Records, CHL.)
Other Midwestern cities compensated their mayors at different rates around this time: Quincy, Illinois, provided an annual salary of $250; Chicago, Illinois, provided a salary of $500; and Cleveland, Ohio, paid its mayor $100. (Collins and Perry, Past and Present of the City of Quincy, 82; An Act to Amend “an Act to Incorporate the City of Chicago” [27 Feb. 1841], Laws of the State of Illinois [1840–1841], p. 58, sec. 1; “A Statement of the Receipts & Expenditures of the City of Cleveland,” Cleveland Daily Herald, 24 Apr. 1841, [1].)
Collins, William H., and Cicero F. Perry. Past and Present of the City of Quincy and Adams County, Illinois. Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing, 1905.
Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed by the Twelfth General Assembly, at Their Session, Began and Held at Springfield, on the Seventh of December, One Thousand Eight Hundred and Forty. Springfield, IL: William Walters, 1841.
Cleveland Herald. Cleveland. 1843–1853.
According to James Sloan’s rough minutes, councilor John Barnett suggested an amendment to this ordinance “by striking out a part of the Ordce [ordinance], but it could not be done at that stage of the proceeds.” (Nauvoo City Council Rough Minute Book, 13 Nov. 1841, 39.)
This ordinance may have arisen from the city council’s recent decision to deem Pulaski Cahoon’s grog shop a nuisance and from previous city ordinances and resolutions dealing with liquor and prohibition. Section 11 of the Nauvoo city charter gave the city council power to make all ordinances “they may deem necessary for the peace, benefit, good order, regulation, convenience, and cleanliness, of said city.” The text of this ordinance was published in the 1 December 1841 issue of the Times and Seasons. (Minutes, 30 Oct. 1841; Minutes, 3 Feb. 1841; Minutes, 12 July 1841; Act to Incorporate the City of Nauvoo, 16 Dec. 1840; “An Ordinance concerning Vagrants, and Disorderly Persons,” Times and Seasons, 1 Dec. 1841, 3:622.)
“Corporation” refers to the city and its government.
Richards is here referring to a resolution passed at the previous meeting of the city council: “That the City Assessor be instructed to assess all property both real & personal within the City Limits, which is taxable by the State, for state, or County purposes.” (Nauvoo City Council Minute Book, 6 Nov. 1841, 29.)