Bond to Jane Miller, 6 March 1840
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Source Note
JS, , and , Bond for property in [], Hancock Co., IL, to Jane Miller, 6 Mar. 1840; printed form with manuscript additions in the handwriting of ; docketed by ; one page; Newel K. Whitney, Papers, BYU. Includes docket and archival marking.One leaf, measuring 12½ × 7½ inches (32 × 19 cm). The leaf was folded twice horizontally for filing.The bond and its accompanying promissory notes may have been submitted as a freewill offering or tithing to . Along with many other personal and institutional documents kept by Whitney, the document was inherited by his daughter Mary Jane Whitney, who married Isaac Groo. This collection was passed down in the Groo family and donated by members of the family to the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University between 1969 and 1974.
Footnotes
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Andrus et al., “Register of the Newel Kimball Whitney Papers, 1825–1906,” 5–6.
Andrus, Hyrum L., Chris Fuller, and Elizabeth E. McKenzie. “Register of the Newel Kimball Whitney Papers, 1825–1906,” Sept. 1998. BYU.
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Historical Introduction
The documents that follow (Bond to Jane Miller, 6 Mar. 1840, Promissory Note from Jane Miller, 6 Mar. 1840–A, Promissory Note from Jane Miller, 6 Mar. 1840–B, Promissory Note from Jane Miller, 6 Mar. 1840–C, Promissory Note from Jane Miller, 6 Mar. 1840–D, and Town Lot Order to Jane Miller, 6 Mar. 1840) pertain to a 6 March 1840 land transaction for a lot in the planned town of , Illinois. In 1839 leaders purchased on credit several tracts of land in the vicinity of , Illinois. After the land was surveyed, they prepared a plat for the town of Nauvoo, which would be formed from these purchases. The leaders then sold lots to church members and intended to use the funds from these sales (as well as other contributions from members) to pay the church’s land debts.In October 1839, the appointed council member to supervise these sales and in them represent the : JS, , and . Sherwood was supposed to transact the sales and then report them to JS and Hyrum Smith “when needful.” In these transactions, at least three types of documents were generated. One was a bond issued by the First Presidency whereby the three men promised to deed the land to the purchaser once the purchaser met the necessary monetary obligations. Since church leaders would not have free title to the land until they paid off their obligations to the previous landowners, the bond promised the buyer that JS, Rigdon, and Hyrum Smith would pay twice the amount of the purchase price if church leaders could not deliver title to the land. These Nauvoo land sales also involved promissory notes that reflected the purchaser’s promise to pay and the schedule of payment installments. In addition, Nauvoo town lot orders were created that described the land conveyed and the terms of the transaction. With a lot order, the buyer could take possession immediately, make improvements, and pay the real property taxes on that parcel of land. These types of documents were produced in numerous property transactions in Nauvoo in 1840; the documents featured here are representative of these transactions.Jane Miller was the purchaser in the land transaction associated with the documents presented here. Several women named Jane Miller appeared in church records during the era. An 1842 census of church members in the Nauvoo First Ward lists a Jane Miller living in block 5 with John J. Miller and George Miller, whose identities and relationships with Jane are not clear. Another 1842 list shows a Jane Miller living in block 16, which was the block to which the documents herein pertained. A Jane Miller was also listed as a member of the of Nauvoo in April 1842. In 1844 a Jane Miller married Alvin Mitchell in Nauvoo. It is unclear if any or all of these Jane Millers are the same Jane Miller named in this transaction.At the time of the transaction, a married woman participating in land sales in the generally needed her husband’s permission to do so, as a woman’s property was subsumed by her husband when they married. Because there is no record of a spouse in any of these documents, it is not likely that Miller was married at the time of the transaction. Miller may have been a widow, as were some of the other women for whom records of 1840 land transactions exist, or she may have been a single woman living in .It is unclear how involved JS was with this particular transaction because his actual signature does not appear on the copies of the documents featured here. On 6 March 1840, JS was in , Iowa Territory, attending a meeting of the high council there, although his attendance would not have precluded him from transacting business in at some other time that day. It is likely that he was at least aware of the transaction because the town lot order states that the terms of the deal were “left with Br Joseph.” , who was JS’s clerk and scribe and who apparently had also assumed the duties of clerk of land contracts after the death of , filled out the bond and promissory notes. Because the bond contains only the initials and not the signatures of the First Presidency, it appears to be a retained copy kept by the presidency; the promissory notes were signed by Miller after their preparation. At some point, the bond and promissory notes were given to , who was one of the in Commerce. JS evidently retained the town lot order, which was filed with his office papers.
Footnotes
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1
Leonard, Nauvoo, 57–59.
Leonard, Glen M. Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, a People of Promise. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2002.
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3
Nauvoo High Council Minutes, 21 Oct. 1839, 26.
Nauvoo High Council Minutes, 1839–1845. CHL. LR 3102 22.
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4
More examples of extant bonds, promissory notes, and town lot orders associated with Nauvoo land purchases during this period are available on this website.
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Platt, Nauvoo, 19. A later compiler of land transactions from records in the Nauvoo Land and Records office identified John J. Miller as Jane’s spouse. The George Miller listed here is possibly the same George Miller who became a bishop in Nauvoo in January 1841, but he was married to Mary C. Fry, and Jane does not appear to be a sibling. A John Miller had purchased lot 3 in block 27 on 27 February 1840 for $350. (Miller, “Study of Property Ownership: Nauvoo; Index,” 71; Revelation, 19 Jan. 1841 [D&C 124:20–21]; Mills, “De Tal Palo Tal Astilla,” 88; JS, Sidney Rigdon, and Hyrum Smith to John Miller, Bond, 27 Feb. 1840, Newel K. Whitney, Papers, BYU.)
Platt, Lyman De. Nauvoo: Early Mormon Records Series, 1839–1846. Vol. 1. Highland, UT, 1980.
Miller, Rowena J. “Study of Property Ownership: Nauvoo; Index, 1839–1850,” ca. 1965. In Nauvoo Restoration, Inc., Corporate Files, 1839–1992. CHL.
Mills, H. W. “De Tal Palo Tal Astilla.” Annual Publications Historical Society of Southern California 10 (1917): 86–174.
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“Abstracts Containing a Description of All City Lots,” [1842], 2, Nauvoo, IL, Records, CHL.
Nauvoo, IL. Records, 1841–1845. CHL. MS 16800.
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7
Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 28 Apr. 1842, 41, in Derr et al., First Fifty Years of Relief Society, 61; see also Ward, “Female Relief Society of Nauvoo,” 159.
Derr, Jill Mulvay, Carol Cornwall Madsen, Kate Holbrook, and Matthew J. Grow, eds. The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women’s History. Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2016.
Ward, Maurine Carr. “‘This Institution Is a Good One’: The Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, 17 March 1842 to 16 March 1844.” Mormon Historical Studies 3 (Fall 2002): 87–203.
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8
Nauvoo, IL, Marriage Record, [28].
Nauvoo, IL, Recorder. Marriage Record, 1842–1845. CHL.
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9
Salmon, Women and the Law of Property in Early America, xv. Beginning around 1839, laws were passed in several states providing married women with more independence in terms of property, but it does not appear such a law was on the Illinois statutes at this time. (Shammas, “Re-Assessing the Married Women’s Property Acts,” 9–11; see also An Act to Protect Married Women in Their Separate Property [24 Apr. 1861], Public Laws of the State of Illinois, 143.)
Salmon, Marylynn. Women and the Law of Property in Early America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986.
Shammas, Carole. “Re-Assessing the Married Women’s Property Acts.” Journal of Women’s History 6, no. 1 (Spring 1994): 9–30.
Public Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed by the Twenty-Second General Assembly, Convened January 7, 1861. Springfield, IL: Bailhache and Baker, 1861.
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10
For example, 1840 land transaction documents exist for Elizabeth Comins (or Cummins) Tyler, Hesterann Lyons, Caroline Murdock, Cyntha Baggs, Philinda C. Eldredge Merrick, and Maria Clark. Little information exists about some of these individuals, but it appears that at least Tyler, Baggs, and Merrick were widows. (Tyler, Autobiography, 5; Ward, “Female Relief Society of Nauvoo,” 98; Philindia Myrick, Affidavit, 9 Jan. 1840, Record Group 233, Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, National Archives, Washington DC.)
Tyler, Ruth Welton. Autobiography, no date. Biographical Sketches and Reminiscences of Daniel and Ruth Tyler. CHL.
Ward, Maurine Carr. “‘This Institution Is a Good One’: The Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, 17 March 1842 to 16 March 1844.” Mormon Historical Studies 3 (Fall 2002): 87–203.
Record Group 233, Records of the U.S. House of Representatives / Petitions and Memorials, Resolutions of State Legislatures, and Related Documents Which Were Referred to the Committee on Judiciary during the 27th Congress. Committee on the Judiciary, Petitions and Memorials, 1813–1968. Record Group 233, Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1789–2015. National Archives, Washington DC. The LDS records cited herein are housed in National Archives boxes 40 and 41 of Library of Congress boxes 139–144 in HR27A-G10.1.
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Letter from Emma Smith, 6 Dec. 1839; “Death of Col. Robert B. Thompson,” Times and Seasons, 1 Sept. 1841, 2:519–520.
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
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Mulholland was appointed a clerk over land contracts at the 21 October 1839 meeting of the Nauvoo high council. He died in November 1839. (Nauvoo High Council Minutes, 21 Oct. 1839, 25; “Obituary,” Times and Seasons, Dec. 1839, 1:32.)
Nauvoo High Council Minutes, 1839–1845. CHL. LR 3102 22.
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
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Document Transcript
Footnotes
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Four hundred dollars was twice the amount of the cost of the land, which was the normal amount for land transaction bonds.
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TEXT: All three instances of “L. S.” (locus sigilli, Latin for “location of the seal”) are printed within printed representations of seals.
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Docket in the handwriting of Robert B. Thompson.
