Part 1: January 1844

At the beginning of January 1844, JS and the in , Illinois, were on high alert, fearing that violent mobs were poised to descend on the city. Throughout the month, JS and other city leaders attempted to decrease the mounting tension between the Saints and others in the region.

After a group of vigilantes from , , and kidnapped church member and his son in November and December 1843, tensions escalated between the Saints and their neighbors. In January 1844, JS continued his correspondence with Illinois governor regarding the growing unrest. JS had publicly mentioned the possibility of calling out the to protect the city, an act Ford advised against. JS defended his actions to Ford and requested additional protection from the state. Ultimately, however, JS wanted peace. Responding to calls from some county residents for the state to revoke ’s charter and confiscate state arms held by the Nauvoo Legion, Ford cautioned all citizens of , Illinois, to maintain order. In addition, JS and the Nauvoo City Council amended an ordinance that had allowed only JS to vend liquor by the drink to permit four other people—one in each of the city’s four municipal wards—to do the same. This action appears to have been part of an effort to correct the perceptions of some critics that JS wielded too much power in Nauvoo.

As he was navigating tensions in and western , JS continued to seek federal redress for the Saints’ lost property in . Two months earlier, he had written letters to five men expected to run for president of the in 1844, asking each what he would do to help the Latter-day Saints if elected. Three of the men—, , and —responded, but none of them committed to assist the Saints. On 2 January, JS wrote a response to Calhoun that denounced Calhoun’s devotion to the philosophy of states’ rights as dangerous for religious minorities and advocated for a strong federal government. Ultimately, with no presidential candidate willing to support the Latter-day Saints publicly, a church council met on 29 January and determined that the Saints should run their own independent candidate for the office. Accordingly, a group of church leaders, including the , nominated JS, and he accepted the nomination.

As was typical for JS at many points in his life, in January 1844 he was balancing church and civic responsibilities in . In addition, he paid considerable attention to his financial affairs in Nauvoo and elsewhere. JS received letters from church members and , who sought JS’s counsel concerning the steamboat Maid of Iowa. Jones was the boat’s captain, and JS and had leased their share of ownership to Hollister. Jones and Hollister disagreed about the management of the vessel, which was docked in in need of repairs. Jones and Hollister also needed money to pay debts recently incurred due to the poor management of the steamboat. Meanwhile, JS and the church still owned land in , Ohio. In early January 1844, JS received a letter from , his in , informing him that men were attempting to obtain portions of the land by having local authorities confiscate acreage because of unpaid taxes. The men then planned on buying that land back from the government at auction at a discounted rate. One of the leading proponents of these efforts was , a former church member who was renting JS’s farm in Kirtland. Coe had paid only a portion of the rent he owed and had neglected to pay taxes on the property, thereby exposing the farm to seizure. Coe also requested outright ownership of the farm from JS as payment for a debt he claimed JS owed him. Accordingly, JS wrote to both Coe and McBride in mid-January to answer their questions and give McBride further directions.

Part 1 comprises twenty-four documents. In addition to featuring the documents already described, this section of the volume includes a letter containing questions about the Book of Mormon, a discourse on the mission of the Old Testament prophet Elijah, and a letter regarding legal fees JS owed from an 1843 habeas corpus hearing. Part 1 also features a lease to for the , a document transferring guardianship of an estate to apostle , a letter from reporting on the happenings of the British mission, and a letter from a man seeking the whereabouts of his brother who had joined the church and moved to .