The version of this resolution published by the Nauvoo Neighbor substitutes the word “office” for “establishment.” The Nauvoo Expositor’s printing office was in Nauvoo’s third (southeastern) municipal ward in lot 4 of block 19 of the Wells addition (on the north side of Mulholland Street between Woodruff and Page streets). (“For the Neighbor,” Nauvoo Neighbor, Extra, 17 June 1844, [1]; “For the Neighbor,” Nauvoo Neighbor, 19 June 1844, [3].)

Nauvoo Neighbor. Nauvoo, IL. 1843–1845.

William Blackstone, an influential English legal commentator, divided nuisances into two classes: “public or common nuisances,” which affect an entire community, and “private nuisances,” which affect an individual. The act incorporating Nauvoo, also called the Nauvoo charter, granted the city council the power “to make regulations to secure the general health of the inhabitants, to declare what shall be a nuisance, and to prevent and remove the same.” On 10 June 1844, the city council also declared an old barn on Hyde Street a nuisance and ordered it to be removed. (Blackstone, Commentaries, vol. 2, bk. 3, p. 170, italics in original; Act to Incorporate the City of Nauvoo, 16 Dec. 1840; Minutes, 10 June 1844; Alanson Ripley et al. to Nauvoo City Council, Petition, Nauvoo, IL, 10 June 1844, Nauvoo, IL, Records, CHL; Nauvoo City Council Minute Book, 10 June 1844, 212.)

Blackstone, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England: In Four Books; with an Analysis of the Work. By Sir William Blackstone, Knt. One of the Justices of the Court of Common Pleas. In Two Volumes, from the Eighteenth London Edition. . . . 2 vols. New York: W. E. Dean, 1840.

Nauvoo, IL, Records, 1841–1845. CHL.

JS, as mayor, asked alderman Harris to chair, or preside over, the 10 June city council meeting. (Minutes, 10 June 1844.)