Letter to Horace Hotchkiss, 13 May 1842
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Source Note
JS, Letter, , Hancock Co., IL, to , , New Haven Co., CT, 13 May 1842; handwriting of ; three pages; Joseph Smith Papers, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum, Springfield, IL. Includes address, postal stamp, and postal notation.Bifolium measuring 7⅞ × 9¾ inches (20 × 25 cm). The document was trifolded twice for mailing, addressed, and sealed with wax. A trace of the wafer is visible on the verso of the second leaf. The second leaf has numerical calculations and notes in graphite that were made later in unidentified handwriting. The second leaf has separation and tearing along the length of the top fold.After the document was received by , its subsequent custodial history is unknown until 1937, when the Illinois State Historical Library purchased it from Goodspeed’s Bookshop (Boston, MA). After 1972, the library placed the letter and other documents to or from JS that were acquired over approximately thirty years into an artificial collection called the Joseph Smith Papers. In 2004, the Illinois State Historical Library was renamed the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.
Footnotes
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1
Correspondence between editors and manuscripts curator at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, IL, 15 May 2017, copy in editors’ possession.
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2
Correspondence between editors and manuscripts curator at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, IL, 15 May 2017, copy in editors’ possession.
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Historical Introduction
On 13 May 1842, wrote to on behalf of JS, responding to a letter Hotchkiss had sent in April regarding the payment of debts owed to him and his business partners. The 13 May letter was sent from , Illinois, to , Connecticut, which was close to where Hotchkiss resided. In JS’s letter, he informed Hotchkiss that he had decided to personally petition for bankruptcy under the nation’s bankruptcy act of 1841. This act, passed by the Congress in August 1841 to help alleviate the burden of debt that resulted from the financial panics of 1837 and 1839, allowed voluntary bankruptcy, which was initiated by the debtor rather than his creditors. JS had amassed significant debts because of endeavors in , Ohio, including the construction of the . Additional debts resulted from the confiscation of property and expulsion of the Latter-day Saints from and the purchase of land for the church in and from Hotchkiss and other land speculators. The ability to personally file for bankruptcy offered JS a means to have these debts forgiven.Although JS may have heard about the bankruptcy act after it was passed in 1841, he apparently did not decide to file for bankruptcy until April 1842, after he met with , a lawyer from , Illinois, and partner in the firm Ralston, Warren & Wheat. JS’s journal recounts that he met with Warren on Thursday, 14 April 1842, and then spent the next two days “busily engaged in making out a list of Debtors & invoice of Property to be passed into the hands of the assignee.” On the following Monday, 18 April, JS, in company with his brothers and and several other Latter-day Saints, traveled to , Illinois, to file the necessary petitions and depositions for their respective bankruptcy proceedings. A notice of JS’s petition for bankruptcy, likely submitted by his attorney, first ran in the 6 May 1842 issue of the Sangamo Journal and then in the 7 May 1842 issue of the local newspaper, the Wasp. After his intention to apply for bankruptcy was made public, JS likely recognized the need to inform of his decision. According to the new bankruptcy law, those who filed for bankruptcy were required to cease payments to creditors, which would obviously alter JS’s plan to settle his debts to Hotchkiss.In his 13 May letter to , JS noted that he had decided to apply for bankruptcy under financial duress and only after other options had been exhausted. JS reassured Hotchkiss that he was not attempting to defraud him or avoid payment and indicated that JS owned sufficient property to meet his creditors’ demands. But JS also emphasized that his creditors would be treated equally, as outlined by the bankruptcy act: each would be given a proportional amount of the funds raised from the sale of JS’s assets—and no creditor would be favored over another.This letter was mailed on 14 May 1842 and was likely received by shortly before he replied to JS on 27 May 1842 to express his concerns regarding repayment and JS’s decision to file for bankruptcy.
Footnotes
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2
See An Act to Establish a Uniform System of Bankruptcy [19 Aug. 1841], Public Statutes at Large, 27th Cong., 1st Sess., chap. 9, pp. 440–449.
The Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America, from the Organization of the Government in 1789, to March 3, 1845. . . . Edited by Richard Peters. 8 vols. Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1846–1867.
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3
For more information on the bankruptcy act of 1841, see “Joseph Smith Documents from May through August 1842.”
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4
See Application for Bankruptcy, ca. 14–16 Apr. 1842; and “Joseph Smith Documents from May through August 1842.”
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5
The firm of Ralston, Warren & Wheat was composed of partners James H. Ralston, Calvin A. Warren, and Almeron Wheat. A 5 April 1842 notice from the firm stated that one of the partners would be at Nauvoo and Carthage, Illinois, around 14 April 1842 and would take applications for bankruptcy. (“Ralston, Warren & Wheat, Attorneys at Law,” Wasp, 16 Apr. 1842, [3].)
The Wasp. Nauvoo, IL. Apr. 1842–Apr. 1843.
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JS, Journal, 18 Apr. 1842. The bankruptcy act of 1841 granted primary authority over bankruptcy proceedings to the federal district court, which for JS and other residents of Nauvoo was in Springfield, Illinois. However, the act stipulated that petitions and depositions could be filed before any commissioner appointed by the federal district court. This rule allowed the Saints to begin their application for bankruptcy in Carthage, about 25 miles away, instead of traveling to Springfield, which was 130 miles away. (An Act to Establish a Uniform System of Bankruptcy [19 Aug. 1841], Public Statutes at Large, 27th Cong., 1st Sess., chap. 9, pp. 445–446, sec. 5; Letter from Calvin A. Warren, ca. 23 June 1842.)
The Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America, from the Organization of the Government in 1789, to March 3, 1845. . . . Edited by Richard Peters. 8 vols. Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1846–1867.
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8
The notice was dated 28 April 1842. It ran only once in the Sangamo Journal but was published weekly for six consecutive weeks in the Wasp, from 7 May to 11 June 1842.
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9
See An Act to Establish a Uniform System of Bankruptcy [19 Aug. 1841], Public Statutes at Large, 27th Cong., 1st Sess., chap. 9, p. 442, sec. 2.
The Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America, from the Organization of the Government in 1789, to March 3, 1845. . . . Edited by Richard Peters. 8 vols. Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1846–1867.
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