The Rise and Fall of Nauvoo

by B. H. Roberts

It was rumored in Nauvoo about the middle of the month of May, 1842, that ex-Governor Boggs, of Missouri, had been assassinated by an unknown hand, at his residence in Independence, Jackson County, Missouri. The ex-governor, however, did not die from the wounds he received, but recovered in the course of several days. The assault made upon him by his enemy, whoever he might be, occurred on the sixth of May, in the year above named. He was seated in a room by himself, when some person discharged a pistol loaded with buckshot, through the adjoining window. Three of the shot took effect in his head—one of which, it was said, penetrated his brain. His son, hearing the shot, burst into the room and found him in a helpless condition. The pistol from which the shot was fired was found under the window, and there, too, were the footprints of the would-be assassin.

No sooner was the news of the affair heard than speculation was rife as to the parties who had perpetrated the deed; and in consequence of the infamous part taken by Boggs in driving the Saints from the State of Missouri, during the period that he was governor, it was not long before "Joe Smith and the Mormons" were accused of the deed. The Quincy Whig, in its issue of May 21st, said:

There are several rumors in circulation in regard to the horrid affair; one of which throws the crime upon the Mormons, from the fact, we suppose, that Mr. Boggs was governor at the time, and in no small degree instrumental in driving them from the State. Smith, too, the Mormon Prophet, as we understand, prophesied a year or so ago, his death by violent means. Hence, there is plenty of foundation for rumor.

To this statement the Prophet Joseph wrote a reply and sent it to the editor of the Whig, Mr. Bartlett:

DEAR SIR—In your paper of the 21st inst., [May] you have done me manifest injustice, in ascribing to me a prediction of the demise of Lilburn W. Boggs, Esq., ex-governor of Missouri, by violent hands. Boggs was a candidate for the State senate, and, I presume, fell by the hand of a political opponent, with his hands and face yet dripping with the blood of murder; but he died^[[1]] not through my instrumentality. My hands are clean and my heart pure, from the blood of all men.

As soon as Boggs recovered sufficiently, he went before Samuel Weston, a justice of the peace at Independence, and one of the characters that some of my readers of "The Missouri Persecutions" will remember as taking part in driving the Saints from their homes in Jackson County—before him Boggs made affidavit that he had reason to believe, from evidence and information then in his possession, that "Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet, was accessory before the fact of the intended murder," and therefore applied to Thomas Reynolds, governor of Missouri, to make a demand on the governor of Illinois, to deliver Joseph Smith up to some person authorized to receive him on behalf of the State of Missouri, to be dealt with according to law.

Governor Reynolds promptly granted the request and made the demand on the governor of Illinois for the surrender of Joseph to one E. R. Ford, who was appointed the agent of Missouri to receive him. In making the demand, Governor Reynolds said:

Whereas it appears * * * that one Joseph Smith is a fugitive from justice, charged with being accessory before the fact, to an assault with intent to kill, made by one O. P. Rockwell, on Lilburn W. Boggs, in this State [Missouri]; and is represented to the executive department of this State as having fled to the State of Illinois; Now, therefore, I, * * * do by these presents demand the surrender and delivering of the said Joseph Smith, etc., etc.

We have given this extract for the requisition verbatim, because, in the first place, the affidavit of Boggs, upon the strength of which Governor Reynolds made his demand for the surrender of Joseph Smith, does not claim that he was a fugitive from justice, or that he had fled from the State of Missouri to Illinois; but on the contrary, the affidavit says that he was a "citizen or resident of Illinois," hence the statement of fact in the affidavit was not sufficient to justify the demand for Joseph Smith to be surrendered to Missouri. A person resident in a State may not be delivered up to the authorities of another State for alleged offenses, unless it is represented that he has fled from the State making the demand for his surrender, to escape from justice. This charge was not made by Boggs in his affidavit, which was Governor Reynolds' only authority for making the demand. But in what Boggs failed, Governor Reynolds made up; and upon his own responsibility, charged in his demand on Illinois that Joseph Smith was "a fugitive from justice," and had "fled to Illinois;" a statement that was at once untrue, and wholly gratuitous on the part of the executive of Missouri, and proves him to be a willing persecutor of the innocent. Secondly, it was this assumption on the part of Reynolds that did much towards making the demand on Illinois void. But more of this anon.

Governor Carlin, of Illinois, respected the demand of Missouri, and issued a warrant for the arrest of O. P. Rockwell as principal and Joseph Smith as accessory before the fact, in an assault with intent to kill, upon ex-Governor Boggs. The papers were placed in the hands of the deputy sheriff of Adams County, who, with two assistants, at once repaired to Nauvoo, and on the eighth of August, 1842, arrested the above named parties. There was no evasion of the officers, but the municipal court of Nauvoo, at once, on the application of the parties arrested, issued a writ of habeas corpus, requiring the officers having the prisoners in charge, to bring them before that tribunal, in order that the legality of the warrant under which they were arrested might be tested. This the sheriff refused to do, as he claimed that the municipal court had no jurisdiction in the case, but he left the prisoners in the care of the city marshal, without, however, leaving the original writ upon which alone they could be held; and the deputy sheriff and his assistants returned to Quincy; the prisoners being turned loose to go about their business.