“John C. Elliott, Slayer of Joe Smith, the Mormon Saint”
The Republican, Hamilton, Ohio, August 29, 1892.
This long Hamilton article was located through a FamilySearch Memories item. It predates Stephen D. Cone's 1896 published biography by four years and provides an earlier printed Hamilton account of Elliott's life.
Research copy of the August 29, 1892 Hamilton newspaper article as surfaced through FamilySearch Memories. Original newspaper provenance and repository should be confirmed for final publication credit.
What this article adds
The article brings several Elliott threads together in one Hamilton source: his local law-enforcement career, federal Fugitive Slave Act enforcement, the 1857 confrontation involving Alfred J. Anderson and Hamilton's African Methodist community, his family tragedy, his Civil War service, and the local tradition connecting him to the death of Joseph Smith.
It also names Sidney Rigdon in its Mormon-history discussion. Sidney was the brother of Hamilton physician Dr. Loammi Rigdon, who is independently important to this project's investigation of Mark Campbell McMaken's “Dr. Rigden” reference. The article's nineteenth-century claims about Mormon origins are treated as period assertions, not as established historical fact.
1892 article, Cone, and Wicks & Foister
The 1892 article is especially useful because it appeared before Cone's 1896 Biographical and Historical Sketches. Many details overlap, which raises a research question: did Cone draw from this article, did the article draw from material later used by Cone, or were both preserving the same Hamilton oral and documentary tradition?
Wicks and Foister later used Cone alongside Illinois court records, contemporary Mormon and anti-Mormon newspapers, affidavits, and other archival sources to reconstruct Elliott's role in western Illinois. Their 2005 work makes Elliott a significant figure in the broader political interpretation of Joseph Smith's death.
The Hamilton UGRR project separates these layers. A contemporary record, an 1892 local biography, Cone's 1896 recollection, and a 2005 historical argument do not carry the same evidentiary weight.
What we are checking next
- Locate the original newspaper issue or microfilm scan and confirm the exact masthead, page, column, and article text.
- Compare the 1892 article line by line with Cone's 1896 Elliott biography.
- Verify Elliott's 1856 family deaths through newspaper, cemetery, probate, or civil records.
- Obtain the underlying military record confirming Elliott's October 1862 death and burial.
- Separate contemporary evidence about Carthage from later claims about who fired the fatal shot.