Minutes, 6 December 1842 [City of Nauvoo v. Davis for Slander of Miles]
Source Note
Nauvoo mayor’s court, Minutes, , Hancock Co., IL, 6 Dec. 1842, City of Nauvoo v. Davis for Slander of Miles (Nauvoo, IL, Mayor’s Court 1842); handwriting of ; notation and docket by , [, Hancock Co., IL], [6 Dec. 1842]; two pages; Nauvoo, IL, Records, CHL. Includes notation and docket.
Single leaf, measuring 6¼ × 7⅝ inches (16 × 19 cm) and ruled with nineteen horizontal blue lines, now heavily faded. The document is cut on the right side of the recto and torn on the bottom edge. The document was trifolded and docketed for filing.
The minutes contain a notation and dockets by , who served as city recorder and clerk of the Municipal Court from 1841 to 1843. It was presumably kept among Nauvoo city records. In 1845 the city of Nauvoo was disincorporated. Many if not most of the city records were likely included in the various collections of city records listed in an inventory produced by the Church Historian’s Office (later Family and Church History Department) in 1846, when they were packed up along with church records and taken to the Salt Lake Valley. The city records are also listed in inventories of church records created in 1855, 1878, and circa 1904. The Nauvoo, Illinois, records collection was arranged and cataloged by the Family and Church History Department (now CHL) in 2006. The document’s likely inclusion with the city records listed in early church inventories and its inclusion in the Nauvoo, Illinois, records collection in 2006 indicate continuous church custody since 1845.
“Officers of the City of Nauvoo,” Times and Seasons, 15 Dec. 1841, 3:638; “Municipal Court of the City of Nauvoo,” Times and Seasons, 1 July 1843, 4:244.
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
“An Act to Repeal the Nauvoo Charter,” 14th General Assembly, 1844–1845, Senate Bill no. 35 (House Bill no. 42), Illinois General Assembly, Enrolled Acts of the General Assembly, 1818–2012, Illinois State Archives, Springfield.
Illinois General Assembly. Bills, Resolutions, and Related General Assembly Records, 1st–98th Bienniums, 1819–2015. Illinois State Archives, Springfield.
“Inventory. Historian’s Office. 4th April 1855,” [1]–[2]; “Index of Records and Journals in the Historian’s Office 1878,” [11]; “Index to Papers in the Historians Office,” ca. 1904, 7, Historian’s Office, Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904, CHL.
Historian’s Office. Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904. CHL. CR 100 130.
This notation by James Sloan, indicating that these men collected their fees for acting as witnesses, is likely not related to the 6 December trial. Although Gravel served as a witness against Davis at this trial, the other two men did not. However, all three men were witnesses at the 3 December 1842 trial against Davis in the municipal court. That court’s docket book indicates that they all collected their witness fees at the same time during the 3 December trial. (Nauvoo Municipal Court Docket Book, 13 [second numbering].)
Nauvoo Municipal Court Docket Book / Nauvoo, IL, Municipal Court. “Docket of the Municipal Court of the City of Nauvoo,” ca. 1843–1845. In Historian's Office, Historical Record Book, 1843–1874, pp. 51–150 and pp. 1–19 (second numbering). CHL. MS 3434.
Docket written transversely on the page in the handwriting of James Sloan.