Avery Case—a Reminiscence of Missouri Days.
By letter from J. White, deputy sheriff of Clark county, Missouri, I learn that Mr. Daniel Avery is in Marion county prison, without trial. The sheriff requests several men to go there as witnesses. It is evidently a trap to get some more of our people into their power. When I was in prison in Missouri, my witnesses were arrested before they got into court to testify, except one, who was kicked out of the court by an officer, Lieutenant Cook, who damned him, and ordered some of his company to shoot him. After which, the State's attorney, Birch, turned to me tauntingly, saying, "Why the hell don't you bring on your witnesses?" and Judge King laughed at my discomfiture. The Saints have had enough of Missouri mob justice.
Monday, 11. The following affidavit will show that some of the citizens of Illinois are so far fallen and so much governed by mobocratic influence as to assist the Missouri wretches in their hellish designs:—
Affidavit of Sission Chase—The Avery Case.
STATE OF ILLINOIS,
HANCOCK COUNTY. ss.
On the 11th day of December, 1843, came Sission A. Chase before me Aaron Johnson, a Justice of the Peace of said county; and, after being duly sworn, deposeth and saith that the crime of kidnapping has been committed in Hancock County; and on the 2nd day of this present December, 1843, at the house of Schrench Freeman, about four miles and a half south of Warsaw, in said county, your said affiant heard a man by the name of John Elliot say that he was going a shooting turkeys. When asked what he was going to shoot them with, he showed a brace of pistols and a large hickory cane. Your affiant observed that he thought he could not kill turkeys with such weapons; and the said Elliot said that there was a certain cock he meant to take before night, and they would do for that. He, the said Elliot, went off, and your affiant did not see him till Sunday evening the 3rd, when your affiant asked the said Elliot if he had caught his turkey; and he replied, yes, the one he was after—a Mormon Elder. Your affiant then asked him who he was; and he said, Daniel Avery. Your affiant then asked the said Elliot what had been done with said Avery; and he said we put him on to a horse, tied his legs, and guarded him to the river, from whence, about ten o'clock at night, we took him into Clark county, Missouri, for stealing a horse four years ago, where they would try him; and if found guilty, they would then take him into another county, where there was a jail, as there was none in Clark county. On the 4th day of December, I asked him if they had writs or authority to take Mr. Avery. He replied, we all had writs. On the 5th, said Elliot said he expected to get into difficulty on account of this scrape; but if any Mormon makes any business with me, I will shoot him. And further your affiant says not.
SISSION A. CHASE.
Subscribed and sworn to this 11th day of December, 1843, before me
AARON JOHNSON, J. P.
Which I sent to the Governor, with this letter:—
Letter—Joseph Smith to Governor Ford.
NAUVOO, December 11, 1843.
SIR:—I herewith forward your Excellency another affidavit on the subject of the late kidnapping, and shall continue [to do] the same as they come to hand, expecting your cordial co-operation in the premises that the laws may be magnified and made honorable, and our lives held precious, our friends saved from jeopardy, and the captives freed.
Respectfully, I have the honor to be
Your obedient servant,
JOSEPH SMITH.
Nauvoo's Police Force Enlarged.
Meetings were held and resolutions passed in all the wards of the city, requesting the city council to raise a company of forty men to act as police.
Last night, two ruffians, whose names are unknown, went to the house of Brother Richard Badham—a farmer living on the prairie, robbed the house of $4.50, threatened his life, stabbed him in the abdomen, when part of his caul gushed out. Dr. John M. Bernhisel dressed his wounds today, and he thinks there is a prospect of his recovering.
Tuesday, 12.—In office at nine a.m., and wrote a letter to my uncle:—