The Trial Before the Municipal Court
The same day they arrived in Nauvoo the municipal court convened, and a requisition was made on Reynolds to return the writ, but he refused to recognize the summons, whereupon the Prophet petitioned the court for a writ of habeas corpus to be directed to Reynolds, commanding him to bring his prisoner before the court. The summons was issued and Reynolds complied with the attachment and delivered the Prophet into the hands of the marshal of the city. That afternoon President Smith addressed the people at great length, declaring that he would not peacefully submit again to such ill-treatment. While he was speaking Reynolds and Wilson with a lawyer named Davis, of Carthage, left for that place threatening to raise the militia and come again and take President Smith out of Nauvoo.
Saturday, July 1, 1843, the court convened to examine the writ of habeas corpus. Messrs. Cyrus Walker, Shepherd G. Patrick, Edward Southwick and a Mr. Backman defended Joseph Smith while Attorney Mason was counselor for Reynolds. Witnesses were examined and the case tried on its merits, Hyrum Smith, Parley P. Pratt, Brigham Young, George W. Pitkin, Lyman Wight and Sidney Rigdon giving testimony, at the conclusion of which the prisoner was discharged.
The Citizens of Lee County Thanked
July 1, 1843, a mass meeting of the citizens of Nauvoo was held in the assembly hall and it was “unanimously resolved that Messrs. Sager and Dixon, of the town of Dixon, and the citizens of Dixon, Pawpaw Grove, and Lee County, receive the warmest thanks for the firm patriotism, bold and decided stand taken against lawless outrage and the spirit of mobocracy, as manifested in the arrest or capture of General Joseph Smith, while on a visit to his friends in that district of country.”
Reynolds’ Further Attempt to Obtain Joseph Smith
The proceedings of the municipal court of Nauvoo in this case were promptly forwarded to Governor Ford, with affidavits from the attorneys and others bearing upon the case and the kindly treatment Reynolds and Wilson had received in Nauvoo. Judge James Adams came from Carthage with the information that Reynolds and Wilson were exciting the people there to mobocracy, and petitioning the governor for a posse forcibly to take Joseph Smith, on the grounds that he had been unlawfully taken out of their hands. A remonstrance against the Carthage proceedings was prepared and forwarded to Carthage by Messrs. Southwick and Patrick, and a petition was sent to Governor Ford praying him not to issue any more writs.
Governor Ford refused to comply with the request of Sheriff Reynolds, and subsequently, when Governor Reynolds of Missouri requested him to call out the militia—a method they had of doing in Missouri—to retake Joseph Smith, Governor Ford replied that Joseph Smith had been tried before the municipal court of Nauvoo on a writ of habeas corpus, and discharged from arrest. He, as governor, had fully executed the duty which the laws imposed, and had not “been resisted either in the writ issued for the arrest of Smith or in the person of the officer appointed to apprehend him,” and the constitution would not permit him to take such action, as the Missouri official proposed.
The Case of O. P. Rockwell
Orrin Porter Rockwell, who was accused as the principal in the shooting of ex-Governor Boggs, went into retirement with the Prophet when Governor Ford issued papers for his extradition. He traveled east as far as New Jersey where he remained for some time. Following the discharge of President Joseph Smith by Judge Pope, Rockwell concluded to return to Nauvoo, evidently by way of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. In St. Louis he was recognized by Elias Parker who had him placed under arrest, March 4, 1843. They carried him to Independence in chains, where he was placed under bonds in the sum of five thousand dollars, which they knew he could not raise, as no person outside of Missouri would be accepted by the court as bondsman. In the custody of the notorious Joseph H. Reynolds, sheriff of Jackson County, he was cast into prison bound hand and foot. Here he remained a prisoner for eight months. March 15, 1843, the Prophet wrote: “I prophesied in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that Orrin Porter Rockwell would get away honorably from the Missourians.”