2004—7 July: Warsaw
0337WarsawSignew After finding such a pleasant welcome in Alexandria, Hepzibah and I found it natural to cross the river to quiet, sad Warsaw, Illinois, the next day. Not that I expected to encounter any relics of the struggle between the two settlements, a century and more ago.

Quite apart from that, several historical and even some family memories echo yet, hereabouts:
Isaac Decker, my great-great-grandpa, briefly bore in 1841 the unofficial and perhaps derisive title of “Mayor of Warsaw,” after Joseph Smith appointed him presiding officer of a temporary settlement of “Mormon” immigrants on these mud flats between the Mississippi and the Warsaw bluff.

They say he occupied a log cabin, the only actual structure among the tents here. The real Varsovians did not take kindly to squatters on their riverside property, and our folks soon moved on up the river to Nauvoo. 		0346Flatsew
0368CityHallew
City Hall and Police Headquarters 		The mob violence that killed Joseph and Hyrum Smith in 1844 had its headquarters in Warsaw, and prominent citizens of Warsaw were among the principal trouble-makers.

John Hay, later a private secretary to President Lincoln and a distinguished U. S. Secretary of State under McKinley and Roosevelt, grew up here and published a particularly unfriendly account of what we “Mormons” call the Martyrdom, and its aftermath.
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