Footnotes
JS left Washington DC for Philadelphia on 21 December 1840. Rigdon arrived in Philadelphia around 14 January 1840. (Historian’s Office, JS History, Draft Notes, 21 Dec. 1839, 70; 14 Jan. 1840, 2.)
Historian’s Office, JS History, Draft Notes, 27 Jan. 1840, 2; Letter from Elias Higbee, 9 Mar. 1840; Fleming, “Early Mormonism in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey,” 78.
Fleming, Stephen J. “‘Sweeping Everything Before It’: Early Mormonism in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey.” BYU Studies 40 (2001): 72–104.
Coray, Autobiographical Sketch, 17–19.
Coray, Howard. Autobiographical Sketch, after 1883. Howard Coray, Papers, ca. 1840–1941. Photocopy. CHL. MS 2043, fd. 1.
Likely the letter to Rigdon that Higbee mentioned he was planning to write in his 26 February letter to JS. (Letter from Elias Higbee, 26 Feb. 1840.)
It is likely that Coray made an error in copying Rigdon’s letter into JS Letterbook 2 and that Rigdon had originally written “sue” here. In the conclusion of the church’s memorial to Congress, JS, Rigdon, and Higbee described the challenges the Saints faced in obtaining redress in the Missouri and federal courts: “But if they could apply to the courts of Missouri; whom shall they sue? The final order for their expulsion and extermination, it is true, was issued by the executive of the State; but is he amenable? and if so, is he not wholly irresponsible, so far as indemnity is concerned? Will not the great mass of our persecutors justify themselves under that order?” The compilers of the manuscript history of the church copied this word as “sue.” (Memorial to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, ca. 30 Oct. 1839–27 Jan. 1840; JS History, vol. C-1, 1041.)
Prior to his political career, Boggs had been a successful merchant in the fur trade. No evidence has been located that Boggs filed for bankruptcy or struggled to pay his debts. (Boggs, “Short Biographical Sketch of Lilburn W. Boggs,” 106–107; Mann, Republic of Debtors, 187.)
Boggs, William M. “A Short Biographical Sketch of Lilburn W. Boggs, by His Son.” Missouri Historical Review 4, no. 2 (Jan. 1910): 106–110.
Mann, Bruce H. Republic of Debtors: Bankruptcy in the Age of American Independence. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.