Letter from Horace Hotchkiss, 1 April 1840
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Source Note
, Letter, , New Haven Co., CT, to JS, [, Hancock Co., IL], 1 Apr. 1840. Featured version copied [between mid-Apr. and June 1840] in JS Letterbook 2, pp. 123–125; handwriting of ; JS Collection, CHL. For more complete source information, see the source note for JS Letterbook 2.
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Historical Introduction
On 1 April 1840, , a land speculator from , wrote to JS in , Illinois, regarding potential land purchases. Hotchkiss had addressed a letter to JS in two weeks earlier, believing JS was still in the eastern . After learning that JS had returned to , Hotchkiss wrote this 1 April letter, in which he offered to sell to JS and the additional land in central and western and conveyed his sympathy regarding the Senate Committee on the Judiciary’s negative recommendation on the Latter-day Saints’ petition for redress to Congress. The previous year, Hotchkiss and his business partners, and , had sold to the church all of their property in the Commerce area. Aware of the rapid influx of Mormons to Illinois, Hotchkiss offered in this April 1840 letter to sell properties in the area of , Illinois, and in the region of Henry and Mercer counties, further up the and northeast of Commerce. No response from JS is known to exist, and the Saints did not purchase the land that Hotchkiss offered to sell.The original letter is apparently not extant. copied the version featured here into JS Letterbook 2, likely sometime between the third week of April and the end of June 1840.
Footnotes
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2
Historical Introduction to Memorial to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, ca. 30 Oct. 1839–27 Jan. 1840; Report of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 4 Mar. 1840.
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4
Coray, Autobiographical Sketch, 17, 19.
Coray, Howard. Autobiographical Sketch, after 1883. Howard Coray, Papers, ca. 1840–1941. Photocopy. CHL. MS 2043, fd. 1.
Document Transcript
Footnotes
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1
Though this letter and others that Hotchkiss wrote to his business partners and to JS are either addressed or postmarked from Fair Haven, Connecticut, Hotchkiss’s residence was a mile or two away in New Haven. (Bonds from Horace Hotchkiss, 12 Aug. 1839–A and B.)
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2
Higbee wrote to Hotchkiss on 24 March 1840 and enclosed a copy of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary’s report regarding the rejection of the Saints’ memorial for redress. (Letter from Elias Higbee, 24 Mar. 1840; Report of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 4 Mar. 1840.)
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3
See Psalm 146:3.
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4
The Committee on the Judiciary’s report to the Senate recommended that the Mormons should “seek relief in the courts of judicature of the State of Missouri, or of the United States, which has the appropriate jurisdiction to administer full and adequate redress for the wrongs complained of, and doubtless will do so fairly and impartially.” (Report of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 4 Mar. 1840.)
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5
As an alternative to appealing to the United States or Missouri courts for redress, the Committee on the Judiciary suggested that “the petitioners may, if they see proper, apply to the justice and magnanimity of the State of Missouri—an appeal which the committee feel justified in believing will never be made in vain by the injured or oppressed.” The committee was presumably proposing that the Saints petition Missouri’s executive rather than the state’s judiciary. (Report of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 4 Mar. 1840.)
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6
Due to continued ill health, Rigdon remained in Philadelphia after JS left the city. Rigdon left Philadelphia for New Jersey on 5 March 1840 and wrote to JS on 3 April that he intended to return to Philadelphia. (Historian’s Office, JS History, Draft Notes, 14 Jan. 1840, 2; Letters from Elias Higbee, 9 and 24 Mar. 1840; Letter from Sidney Rigdon, 3 Apr. 1840.)
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7
The 17 April 1840 issue of the Peoria Register and North-Western Gazetteer reported that “about 300 houses have been put up in Nauvoo since last October,” and “the increase of population by immigration is very great. Our informant states that several families arrive every day.” (“Latest from the Mormons,” Peoria [IL] Register and North-Western Gazetteer, 17 Apr. 1840, [2].)
Peoria Register and North-Western Gazetteer. Peoria, IL. 1837–1843.
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8
Hotchkiss, Tuttle, and Gillet owned lands near Springfield in Sangamon and Logan counties. Gillet and some of his extended family resided at Lake Fork, Logan County, northeast of Springfield. (Horace Hotchkiss, New York, to John Gillet, 7 Nov. 1846; John Gillet, Nauvoo, IL, to Smith Tuttle, Fair Haven, CT, 15 July 1844; John Gillet to Smith Tuttle, 1 Aug. 1841, Gillett Family Papers, 1736–1904, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, IL.)
Gillett Family Papers, 1736–1904. Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, IL.
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9
Others in western Illinois also advised purchasing lands in equal portions of timber and prairie. Land speculator Anthony Hoffman wrote to a former neighbor in New York: “It is always best for a Man, to pu[rcha]se a lot, part Prairie, and part, Timber, or one of each, which c[a]n easily be done. . . . A good Prairie lot near Timber is worth from 3 to $4[.]00. and lower in proportion to its distance from Timber, just so with a Timber lot, whether far from, or near Prairie.” (Anthony M. Hoffman, Rushville, IL, to John Reid, Argyle, NY, 1 Nov. 1833, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, IL.)
Hoffman, Anthony. Letter, Rushville, IL, to John Reid, Argyle, NY, 1 Nov. 1833. Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, IL.
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10
Ebenezer Robinson and Don Carlos Smith were the editors of the church’s monthly periodical, Times and Seasons. The subscription rate was only one dollar per year, but the printed terms offered one free volume of the paper to anyone who sent an advance payment of ten dollars for enlisting ten subscribers. This policy may explain Hotchkiss’s rationale for offering to send ten dollars. (Masthead, Times and Seasons, Apr. 1840, 1:96.)
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.