Footnotes
From the end of May to mid-October, the city council met only on 12 July and 4 September. (Nauvoo City Council Minute Book, 20–22.)
Docket Entry, between 25 Oct. and ca. 29 Nov. 1841, State of Illinois v. Eagle (Nauvoo Mayor’s Ct. 1841), in Nauvoo Mayor’s Court Docket Book, 12.
On 23 October 1841, JS proposed a resolution that four houses in Nauvoo be declared nuisances. One of the houses was to be removed by Monday, 25 October—“a small frame House upon the Hill, near, the Temple Lot,” kept by John Eagle and Pulaski Cahoon, son of prominent Latter-day Saint Reynolds Cahoon. However, a later JS history states that the action did not take place until 30 October, when JS, “in obedience to an order from the Mayor . . . called out two Companies of the Nauvoo Legion, and removed a Grog shop, kept by Pulaski S. Cahoon, which had been declared a nuisance by the City Council.” An article in the Times and Seasons described Cahoon’s shop as a small building kept “for the purpose of transacting the business of a Grocer.” In other words, the shop traded in tea, sugar, spices, coffee, liquors, and fruits. The article noted the public’s disapprobation with the business and indicated that the building was a “lonely wreck of folly.” Although Cahoon is not named here, JS was evidently submitting Cahoon’s petition requesting the city council to cover the damages caused by the destruction. (Nauvoo City Council Minute Book, 23 Oct. 1841, 24; JS History, vol. C-1, 1242; “The Neusance,” Times and Seasons, 15 Nov. 1841, 3:599; Nauvoo City Council Rough Minute Book, 23 and 30 Oct.; 1 Nov. 1841, 25–30, 33–34; Docket Entry, between 25 Oct. and ca. 29 Nov. 1841, State of Illinois v. Eagle [Nauvoo Mayor’s Ct. 1841], in Nauvoo Mayor’s Court Docket Book, 12.)
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
When the Nauvoo City Council met two days later, on the evening of 1 November, Pulaski Cahoon presented his petition “claiming Damages for the House which was removed on the Hill as a Nuisance.” The council approved the “acts of the Mayor, as respects the removal & destruction of the Nuisance” and denied Cahoon’s petition. Although the city council denied the petition, the mayor’s court honored a $30 bill of damages submitted by Cahoon and John Eagle, which partially offset the initial fine. (Nauvoo City Council Minute Book, 1 Nov. 1841, 28; Nauvoo City Council Rough Minute Book, 1 Nov. 1841, 33–34; Docket Entry, between 25 Oct. and ca. 29 Nov. 1841, State of Illinois v. Eagle [Nauvoo Mayor’s Ct. 1841], in Nauvoo Mayor’s Court Docket Book, 12.)