JS, Motion, to Nauvoo City Council, [, Hancock Co., IL], 5 Mar. 1842; handwriting of JS; one page; Nauvoo, IL, Records, 1841–1845, CHL. Includes redactions, endorsement, and docket.
Single leaf measuring 3¼ × 7⅝ inches (8 × 19 cm). The motion was inscribed in blue ink on one side of a slip of paper that was apparently hand cut from a larger sheet. The verso is blank. The slip of paper was folded once horizontally.
The document bears an endorsement in the handwriting of as well as a docket in the lower left corner of the recto probably also in the handwriting of Sloan, who served as city recorder from 1841 to 1843. The motion was presumably kept among Nauvoo city records. In 1845 the city of Nauvoo was disincorporated. Many if not most of the city records were listed in an inventory that was produced by the Church Historian’s Office (now CHL) in 1846, when they were packed up with church records that were taken to the Salt Lake Valley. Subsequent inventories of church records in Salt Lake City indicate continuous institutional custody.
“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. Enrolled Acts of the General Assembly, 1818–2012. 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.
Historical Introduction
On 5 March 1842 , Illinois, vice mayor JS proposed a motion to the Nauvoo City Council regarding the behavior of the city’s children on the Sabbath. The motion was one of at least three JS drafted in his own handwriting and submitted to the council on this date. The motion proposed that parents not allow their children to run loose throughout the city on Sundays. Infractions were to result in a fine of five dollars per offense. The city council passed the motion as a resolution by unanimous vote, after which the mayor, , signed the resolution and recorder inscribed the resolution in the city council proceedings volume. The original motion is featured here.
I Move that the inhabitents of this shall keep their children at home <except on lawful business> on Sundays and from skayting on the ice and from marauding upon their neighbours property and any persons refuseing to do the same shall pay five dollers fine for every offence for the same &c