According to a later account by Lucy Mack Smith, Augustine Spencer had verbally abused JS and Hyrum Smith at the house of Augustine’s brother Orson Spencer. Orson told Augustine to stop the abuse or leave the house, after which a physical fight ensued between the two men. (Lucy Mack Smith, Biographical Sketches, 275–276.)
Smith, Lucy Mack. Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet and His Progenitors for Many Generations. Liverpool: S. W. Richards, 1853.
Jonathan Dunham. (Nauvoo City Council Rough Minute Book, 29 Dec. 1843, 30.)
Nauvoo City Council Rough Minute Books, 1841–1845. Nauvoo, IL. Records, 1841–1845. CHL. MS 16800, box 1, fds. 2-5.
Augustine Spencer was tried and convicted in JS’s mayor’s court, which functioned as a justice-of-the-peace court. According to the Nauvoo charter, “any decision or judgment of said mayor” could be appealed to the municipal court. The municipal court was composed of the mayor as chief justice and the aldermen as associate justices. (“Outrage,” Nauvoo Neighbor, 1 May 1844, [2]; An Act to Incorporate the City of Nauvoo [16 Dec. 1840], Laws of the State of Illinois [1840–1841], p. 55, secs. 16, 17.)
Nauvoo Neighbor. Nauvoo, IL. 1843–1845.
Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed by the Twelfth General Assembly, at Their Session, Began and Held at Springfield, on the Seventh of December, One Thousand Eight Hundred and Forty. Springfield, IL: William Walters, 1841.