Subpoena, 14 September 1842 [State of Illinois v. C. L. Higbee]
Source Note
on behalf of , Subpoena, to Sheriff [], for Margaret Nyman, Matilda Nyman, Sarah Miller, and , , Hancock Co., IL, 14 Sept. 1842, State of IL v. C. L. Higbee (Hancock Co., IL, Circuit Court 1842); printed form with manuscript additions in handwriting of ; docket printed with manuscript additions by , [], Hancock Co., IL, [14 Sept. 1842]; notations printed with manuscript additions presumably by Henry Marks, , IL, 17 Sept. 1842; two pages; location unknown; photocopy in possession of Richard and Pamela Price.
This document was filed at the , Illinois, circuit court in 1842. It apparently remained in the custody of the circuit court until at least 1979. By 1998, the two subpoenas issued by the circuit court for this case were in a “packet of documents” containing an assortment of “many papers which had to do with Joseph [Smith]” that had been “recently taken to Salt Lake City, Utah, but had been returned.” The context for the removal of these documents from the court and their return is unclear. Although clerks informed Richard and Pamela Price that “all of the Joseph Smith papers” had been recently microfilmed and were possibly available through The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, no microfilm that includes this subpoena has been located at the Family History Library or Church History Library.
The image featured here is a photocopy of the original document obtained by the Prices in 1968.
Price and Price, Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy, 1:158. Church representatives returned many circuit court documents to Hancock County, Illinois, in 1986. Photocopies of the documents were retained by the Church Historical Department (now CHL), but none of them are affiliated with this case. (Turley, Victims, 346.)
Price, Richard, and Pamela Price. Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy: Volume 1. Independence, MO: Price Pub. Co., 2000.
Turley, Richard E., Jr. Victims: The LDS Church and the Mark Hofmann Case. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992.
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF . TO THE OF SAID , Greeting:
WE COMMAND YOU TO SUMMON Margaret J. Nyman Matilda Nyman, Sarah Miller & if to be found in your , personally to be and appear before the Circuit Court of said , at the Court House, in , on the 3d day of October in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty two to testify, and the truth to speak, in relation to a certain matter in controversy, now depending in the said Court, between The People of of the State of —— Plaintiffs and —— [blank] Defendant[blank] at the instance of the said laying aside all pretences and excuses whatsoever, under penalty of what the law directs. And make due return of this writ, and of the manner in which you execute the same.
WITNESS, , Clerk of our said Circuit Court, at , this 14th day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-two