Footnotes
Coray, Autobiographical Sketch, 2, 4–5, 17, 19. The letter immediately preceding this one in JS Letterbook 2 is dated 28 August 1840. (Letter from Thomas Burdick, 28 Aug. 1840.)
Coray, Howard. Autobiographical Sketch, after 1883. Howard Coray, Papers, ca. 1840–1941. Photocopy. CHL. MS 2043, fd. 1.
On 19 February 1839, the Illinois General Assembly approved an act incorporating the “Des Moines Rapids Rail Road Company.” The rail line, proposed by commissioners Daniel Witter, Calvin Warren, Isaac Galland, and Mark Aldrich, would have run along the Mississippi River between Commerce and Warsaw, Illinois, allowing goods to be transported year round past the Des Moines rapids. (“Our Town and County,” Western World [Warsaw, IL], 13 May 1840, [2]; “The Des Moines Rapids,” Western World, 10 June 1840, [2]; “Des Moines Rapids Rail Road Company,” Western World, 17 June 1840, [3].)
Western World. Warsaw, IL. 1840–1841.
In his 25 July letter to JS and Rigdon, Bennett proposed meeting in Springfield, Illinois, on the first Monday in December. (Letter from John C. Bennett, 25 July 1840.)
According to Nauvoo sexton William D. Huntington, the most common cause of death in the area between summer 1839 and summer 1845 was malaria—most commonly identified at the time as “ague,” “fever,” or “chill fever.” Rigdon had contracted the disease by late October 1839, when he, JS, Orrin Porter Rockwell, and Elias Higbee departed Nauvoo for Washington DC to seek federal assistance in obtaining redress for losses the Saints had suffered in Missouri. (Woods, “Cemetery Record of William D. Huntington, Nauvoo Sexton,” 156–157; Historian’s Office, JS History, Draft Notes, 29–31 Oct. 1839, 66.)
Woods, Fred E. “The Cemetery Record of William D. Huntington, Nauvoo Sexton.” Mormon Historical Studies, 3, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 131–163.