Nauvoo Land and Records

A view of the temple that Edward Ockey may have seen

from near his Nauvoo property (minus the Catholic church).

Looking east toward Edward Ockey's Nauvoo property.

The Billings property in Nauvoo.



The corner across the street from where

Phebe Ann Babcock Patten Bentley may have lived.

Our first stop as we arrived in Nauvoo on Tuesday afternoon (May 25th) was at the land and records office. I had previously looked up the land records for Titus Billings (my third great grandfather), Charles Patten (son of John), Mr. Bentley (Phebe Babcock Patten's second husband) and Edward Ockey (Randl's 2nd great grandfather). At the land and records office we picked up a copy of the original plat map of Nauvoo and an LDS sister missionary helped us locate the properties which were owned and/or rented by these people.

Nauvoo was originally divided into blocks, which in turn were divided into quarters, to provide lots for homes and gardens. In addition, the area surrounding Nauvoo (especially to the east) was divided into larger sections to be used for farming. We found that Edward Ockey had a lot in town north of the temple and also had two lots, one of four acres and one of acres, to the east of town (nearer to Carthage) for farming. From his own account we know that he put in fruit trees on one of these properties. He was a farmer in England, so he certainly would have farmed part of the land as well, but we don't know what crops he grew or on which properties he may have built homes. It's likely that he had a home in town and another, at least a small cabin, nearer to his farm land. His property is all privately owned now (and is still farmed) so we were only able to take a photo from a distance.

Mr. Bentley owned a lot kitty-corner from the last location of the printing office, on the corner of Main and Kimball Streets. There is now a parking lot on this property. There is no way to know if Phebe Ann actually lived on this piece of property, but it is nice to imagine her there.

On the northeast corner of Munson and Partridge Streets sits the original home of Heber C. Kimball and his wife Vilate. The home has been lovingly restored by his descendants and we were able to take a tour of it. Eunice Billings was a young girl in Nauvoo. Later in life she told the story of her mother being very ill at one time when her father was away and the family was living in Nauvoo (they seemed to move back and forth between Nauvoo and the Morley settlement south of Nauvoo). According to Eunice, Vilate Kimball was a great friend to Diantha and nursed her back to health. This story seems very plausible when you realize that the Billings family lived right across the street from the Kimballs, on the northwest corner of Munson and Partridge Streets. That lot is empty now, just covered with grass and trees, but it is easy to imagine a home, garden and outbuildings there.

If you stand at the corner of the Billings property and face north, you will see the lot behind the Kimball home on your right. This is where Charles Wetherby Patten and his wife Peggy lived (on the southeast corner of Hotchkiss and Partridge Streets). Peggy and Charles were probably originally in Montrose (on the Iowa side of the river) with John and Hannah and the rest of the family, but it seems that they were living in Nauvoo by the time construction started on the temple. Charles was one of a few full-time workers on the temple for the years that it was being built and his name shows up in many of the temple records. In the winter months of 1845-1846, when the temple was almost completed and the Saints were preparing to leave Nauvoo, Peggy Patten and Diantha Billings both served as ordinance workers in the upper rooms of the temple, assisting the many sisters who received temple ordinances at that difficult time.

Nauvoo is now a quiet little town, serene in its setting above the great Mississippi River, but in the early 1840s it was a busy center of commerce for several thousand people. The lawns were not as trim then, the streets not paved, but it is still possible to stand on the same ground upon which our ancestors walked and worked.