Case File Wrapper, circa October 1842 [State of Illinois v. C. L. Higbee]
Source Note
Case File Wrapper, [, IL, ca. Oct. 1842], State of IL v. C. L. Higbee (Hancock Co., IL, Circuit Court 1842); docket and notations in unidentified handwriting; one page; location unknown; photocopy in possession of Richard and Pamela Price.
This wrapper was filed at the , Illinois, circuit court in 1842 and contained the seven loose court documents for this case. It apparently remained in the custody of the circuit court until at least 1979. By 1998, the wrapper was in a “packet of documents” containing an assortment of “many papers which had to do with Joseph [Smith]” that had been “recently taken to Salt Lake City, Utah, but had been returned.” The context for the removal of these documents from the court and their return is unclear. Although clerks informed Richard and Pamela Price that “all of the Joseph Smith papers” had been recently microfilmed and were possibly available through The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, no microfilm that includes this subpoena has been located at the Family History Library or Church History Library.
The image featured here is a photocopy of the original document obtained by the Prices in 1968.
Price and Price, Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy, 1:158. Church representatives returned many circuit court documents to Hancock County, Illinois, in 1986. Photocopies of the documents were retained by the Church Historical Department (now CHL), but none of them are affiliated with this case. No other court documents have been returned to Hancock County by CHL staff or church representatives. (Turley, Victims, 346.)
Price, Richard, and Pamela Price. Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy: Volume 1. Independence, MO: Price Pub. Co., 2000.
Turley, Richard E., Jr. Victims: The LDS Church and the Mark Hofmann Case. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992.