During the time that Lilburn W. Boggs served as governor of the state of Missouri (1837-1841), he was required to live at Jefferson City, the capitol of the state. He then returned to live in Independence at a site on Spring Street (seen in these images).
Boggs was elected to the Missouri State Senate in 1842. He was shot through an open window while reading in the Spring Street home. Orrin Porter Rockwell, a lifetime friend of the Prophet Joseph Smith, was arrested, tried and, after nine months in jail, acquitted of the crime in 1843.
A tradition, documented by Max H. Parkin, notes that Boggs had a coughing attack while serving in the state legislature. It was then that he coughed out a lead ball with which he had been shot. According to the Missouri State Archives, “Senator Boggs survived the attempted assassination and four years later left Missouri for California. Among the company on the wagon train with Boggs and his family were most of the emigrants who separated from the group to form the Donner Party.”