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City of Nauvoo v. C. L. Higbee et al., Nauvoo, IL, Mayor’s Court, 26 April 1844
Willard Richards, clerk of the municipal court, inscribed the docket entry for each appeal using the appellant’s name first and identifying the city of Nauvoo as the respondent. Although not used by Richards in this case, abbreviations for ad sectam were often used when reversing the order of parties on record. (Docket Entry, 2 May–ca. 3 June 1844 [City of Nauvoo v. C. L. Higbee]; Docket Entry, 2 May–ca. 3 June 1844 [City of Nauvoo v. C. A. Foster]; Docket Entry, ca. 3 June 1844 [City of Nauvoo v. R. D. Foster–A].)
On 7 May 1844, Robert D. Foster acquired “an opposition printing press.” On 10 May, Foster, along with his brother Charles, Chauncey L. Higbee, and other dissenters, published a prospectus for the Nauvoo Expositor, a newspaper dedicated to opposing the church and its teachings. (JS, Journal, 7 May 1844; Nauvoo Expositor Prospectus [Nauvoo, IL: ca. 10 May 1844], copy at CHL.)
Nauvoo Expositor Prospectus. Nauvoo, IL: ca. 10 May 1844. Copy at CHL.
Nauvoo Stake High Council Minutes, 20 and 24 May 1842, 1–2.
Nauvoo High Council Minutes, 1839–1845. CHL. LR 3102 22.
“The Mormons and Their Prophet—Legislation at Nauvoo—The Temple,” New-York Daily Tribune, 27 Jan. 1844, [1]; JS, Journal, 7 Mar. 1844.
New York Weekly Tribune. New York City. 1841–1866.
Charles A. Foster, Nauvoo, IL, Letter to the Editor, 29 Apr. 1844, Warsaw (IL) Signal, 8 May 1844, [3]. JS evidently based his initial order for Rockwell to arrest Augustine Spencer on an 1841 Nauvoo ordinance that criminalized “ridiculing abusing, or otherwise depreciating another in consequence of his religion” and declared the convicted offender “a disturber of the public peace.” The ordinance further made it the duty of the mayor to have “all such violators” arrested, “either with or without process.” It is unknown why JS asked Rockwell, who is not known to have been a law officer at that time, to arrest Spencer. (Nauvoo City Council Minute Book, 1 Mar. 1841, 13; Pleas, ca. 27 May 1844 [C. A. Foster v. JS and Coolidge].)
Warsaw Signal. Warsaw, IL. 1841–1853.
John P. Greene, “All Is Peace at Nauvoo among the Saints,” Nauvoo Neighbor, 1 May 1844, [3]; Charles A. Foster, Nauvoo, IL, Letter to the Editor, 29 Apr. 1844, Warsaw (IL) Signal, 8 May 1844, [3]; Pleas, ca. 27 May 1844 [C. A. Foster v. JS and Coolidge].
Nauvoo Neighbor. Nauvoo, IL. 1843–1845.
Warsaw Signal. Warsaw, IL. 1841–1853.
John P. Greene, “All Is Peace at Nauvoo among the Saints,” Nauvoo Neighbor, 1 May 1844, [3].
Nauvoo Neighbor. Nauvoo, IL. 1843–1845.
JS, Journal, 26 Apr. 1844. Summarizing the trial, Willard Richards wrote in JS’s journal that he tried “at once R. D. Foster. Chauncy L. Higbee. & charls Foster.—for resisting the auhoities [authorities] of the city.” William W. Phelps, clerk of the mayor’s court, wrote to notify the municipal court that the defendants had appealed the mayor’s decision in “the case of The city of Nauvoo vs Chauncy L. Higbee Charles A. Foster Robert D. Foster.” (Notice of Appeal, 2 May 1844.)
Nauvoo City Council Minute Book, 1 Mar. 1841, 12–13. Documents produced for Higbee’s and the Fosters’ appeals to the municipal court simply noted that the three men had been convicted of violating unspecified city ordinances. However, when Charles A. Foster brought a civil suit against JS and Joseph W. Coolidge in the Hancock County Circuit Court, alleging that they had falsely imprisoned and injured him on 26 April 1844, defense attorneys filed as evidence certified copies of the ordinances relating to religious societies and public meetings and referenced both ordinances in defense pleas. (Notice of Appeal, 2 May 1844; Docket Entry, 2 May–ca. 3 June 1844 [City of Nauvoo v. C. L. Higbee]; Docket Entry, 2 May–ca. 3 June 1844 [City of Nauvoo v. C. A. Foster]; Docket Entry, ca. 3 June 1844 [City of Nauvoo v. R. D. Foster–A]; Pleas, ca. 27 May 1844 [C. A. Foster v. JS and Coolidge]; Nauvoo City Council Minute Book, 1 Mar. 1841, 12–13; Ordinance, 1 Mar. 1841–E, Thomas Bullock Copy; Ordinance, 1 Mar. 1841–D, Thomas Bullock Copy.)
Notice of Appeal, 2 May 1844. The Nauvoo charter specified that appeals of convictions in the mayor’s court for breaches of city ordinances would be heard in the municipal court. (Act to Incorporate the City of Nauvoo, 16 Dec. 1840.)
JS, Journal, 3 June 1844; Nauvoo Municipal Court Docket Book, 102; Act to Incorporate the City of Nauvoo, 16 Dec. 1840.
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.
Motion, ca. 24 Oct. 1844 [City of Nauvoo v. C. A. Foster]; Motion, ca. 24 Oct. 1844 [City of Nauvoo v. R. D. Foster–A]; Motion, ca. 24 Oct. 1844 [City of Nauvoo v. C. A. Foster]; Motion, ca. 23 Oct. 1844 [City of Nauvoo v. R. D. Foster–A]; see also Act to Incorporate the City of Nauvoo, 16 Dec. 1840.
Docket Entry, Dismissal, 21 Oct. 1845 [City of Nauvoo v. C. A. Foster]; Docket Entry, Dismissal, 21 Oct. 1845 [City of Nauvoo v. R. D. Foster–A]. Although the Illinois legislature had disincorporated the city of Nauvoo in January 1845, the following April the area’s residents voted to incorporate a town under the state’s general incorporation law. It was presumably this entity that sent an attorney to represent its interests at the October term. Nauvoo’s leadership may have opted to seek dismissal of the suits against the Fosters because Latter-day Saint leaders were by that time preparing to depart the city and were perhaps uninterested in prolonging the suits. In addition, after an outbreak of violence between church members and their antagonists in September 1845, the church’s opponents requested Illinois judge Norman H. Purple to not convene the October 1845 session of the Hancock County Circuit Court on the grounds that holding court might provoke further hostilities. Although Purple ultimately presided at the session as scheduled, the heightened tensions may have influenced Nauvoo’s leadership to seek dismissal of the suits against the Fosters. (An Act to Repeal the Act Entitled “An Act to Incorporate the City of Nauvoo,” Approved December 16, 1840 [29 Jan. 1845], Laws of the State of Illinois, pp. 187–188; Clayton, Journal, 15 Apr. 1845; see also An Act Further Defining the Powers and Duties of Trustees of Incorporated Towns [31 Jan. 1835], Public and General Statute Laws of the State of Illinois, pp. 384–385, sec. 1; Administrative Records, Volume 1, Introduction to Part 3: Sept.–Oct. 1845; and Council of Fifty, “Record,” 4 Oct. 1845.)
Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed by the Fourteenth General Assembly, at Their Regular Session, Began and Held at Springfield, December 2nd, 1844. Springfield, IL: Walters and Weber, 1845.
Clayton, William. Journals, 1842–1845. CHL.
The Public and General Statute Laws of the State of Illinois: Containing All the Laws . . . Passed by the Ninth General Assembly, at Their First Session, Commencing December 1, 1834, and Ending February 13, 1835; and at Their Second Session, Commencing December 7, 1835, and Ending January 18, 1836; and Those Passed by the Tenth General Assembly, at Their Session Commencing December 5, 1836, and Ending March 6, 1837; and at Their Special Session, Commencing July 10, and Ending July 22, 1837. . . . Compiled by Jonathan Young Scammon. Chicago: Stephen F. Gale, 1839.
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