Reminiscences of Latter-day Saints : giving an account of much individual suffering endured for religious conscience

Front matter

Gift of A. Gordon Kiitiba.ll Family

LIBRARY

Brigham Young University Americana Collection BX

Preface

Books are rapidly multiplying in this age of enlightenment and civilization. The taste for reading is also on the increase in a corresponding ratio. Hence there seems to be a demand for almost every new volume that makes its appearance. Works historical, scientific, philosophical, political, religious, poetic, and even fictitious — each have their admirers, and the contents of such, and many other works, are liberally read and criticised while they are fresh from the printing press.

In presenting this little volume, the author considers his effort a very humble one. No pretensions are made to that elegance of diction which adorns the pages of many able writers. His object has been to relate facts without undue embellishment of fancy. The incidents — pleasant and disagreeable — are given as we understand them, without exaggeration.

This book answers a long cherished desire of the author, only in part. It will require a second volume to complete the reminiscences of his own experience and that of many reliable persons, to which he has access; and such a volume may be forthcoming at no very distant day, if a generous public shall receive with favor our present humble effort. The Author.

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Chapter I

Youth and Early Memories — Age and its Superior Condition — Latter-day Saints have Manifested their Loyalty. — The Gospel Restored. — The Book of Mormon Brought Forth. — Truth Whispers out of the Dust. - - - Page 9.

Chapter II

Who his Parents Were. — How They Embraced the Gospel. — Zion’s Camp. — The Cholera. — Conspiracy Against the Prophet. — Lay the Corner Stone of a Temple and the Devil Rages. ------ - Page 26.

Chapter III

Statement of Mis. L. Wr. Kimball. — Her Marriage with Joseph the Prophet. — Her Subsequent Marriage to Heber C. Kimball. — Her Testimony Concerning Mrs. Vilate Kimball. — A Strong Testimony Borne by her. - Page 37.

Chapter IV

Imprisonment of David Osborn by a Missouri Mob. — Cornelius Gillum as a Delaware Chief. — Wants to Decide the Conflict by a fight with Lyman Wight. The Women and Children to be Saved, and the Men Shot. — Trouble at the Galietin Election. — A Company goes to Defend Adam-ondi-Ahman. Page 54.

Chapter V

John Hammer’s Statement. — Massacre at Harm's Mill. — Seventeen Killed and Buried in a Well. — The Dead Robbed of Clothes. — Strange Presentiment. — A Pillar Resembling Blood. — A Light Wagon and a Blind Plorse. — With Scanty Supplies they leave the State in Winter. - Page 66.

Chapter VI

Go to Liberty. — The Country Filled with False Rumors. — Governor Boggs Legalizes the Mob. — Joseph Smith and Others Betrayed. — Sentenced to be Shot. Taken to Independence. — Tried at Richmond. — Sent to the Liberty Jail. — Befriended by Neighbors. — Melancholy Death. — Attempted Escape. — Final Escape to Illinois. - -- -- -- -- Page 76.

Chapter VII

Go to Far West. — City and Houses Deserted. — Ancient of Days to Sit at Di-

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CONTENTS.

ahman. — The Land Holy. — Center Stakes to be Rebuilt. — His Father’s Home. A Voice Heard. — Goes to Illinois. — Marries a Young Widow. — Starts a Paper.— Moves to Nauvoo. ------ . Page 97.

Chapter VIII

The Prisoners Meet their Families and Friends. — True Affection. — Bad to Love a Murderer. — Joseph Energetic. — Land Purchased. — Nauvoo Prosperous. — Gathering Place Prepared. — Escape from the Columbia J ail. — Present Claims to Congress. — Elders go on Missions. — Boggs Assassinated. — Joseph’s Arrests. The Martyrdom. .... - - Page 109.

Chapter IX

Settled with the Saints. — Men Kidnapped. — Taken to Missouri, Imprisoned and Maltreated. — Some Wicked Men in Illinois. — The Potency of a Mother’s Love. Her Death. — Wishes of the Dying Expressed. — Beautiful in Death. — Buried With the Saints. — Sights from the Lone Tree. - - - Page 13 1.

Chapter X

Go on a Mission. — The Rapids. — An Intrusive Lawyer. — Ejected by a Dream. In a Strange City. — A Lonesome and Dark Hour. — Find Friends and Breakfast.— Beauties of the New Day. — Life and Death Alternate. — Find Saints. — Return Home. — Apostates Trouble the Prophet. — Bennett Exposed. — Death of Joseph Precipitated . .... - - Page 145.

Chapter XI

Important Epoch. — The Test Comes. — Experience Necessary. — Men and Tribes Plonored. — The Tragedy. — Rigdon Calls a Meeting. — The Twelve Chosen Leaders. — Brigham Young Calls the Quorum of Priesthood. — The Work Hurried Forward. — Encounter at Warsaw. — Men Whipped. - - Page 161.

Chapter XII

The Church to Leave. — Friends in Illinois. — A Trackless Waste. — No Bridges. Rugged Passes. — Print the Hancock Eagle. — Editor Matlock. — Paper Discontinued..— Go to Keokuk. — Family Left. — Heavy Heart. — Mobbers on the Boat. — God’s Deliverance. — Appointed a Mission. - - Page 179.

Chapter XIII

Go to New York. — Doomed Ship. — Terrible Storms. — God’s Power Made Manifest.— Reach my Native Shore. — Poetic Lines to the Author by Eliza R. Snow Smith. — Conclusion. ------- Page 200.

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Chapter I

Youth and Early Memories. —Age and its Superior Condition.— The True Gospel Persecuted in all Ages of the World. — Latter-day Saints have Manifested their Loyalty.— The Gospel Restored.— The Book of Mormon Brought Forth.— Truth Whispers out of the Dust-

After being identified for a term of about fifty-three years with the Latter-day Saints, it is but reasonable to suppose that the writer should have occasion to use the pen in calling back to memory reminiscences which are associated with the past history of the Church. There are hours and moments in the lives of all, both male and female, which are passed in undisturbed meditation, roaming back over the paths of life. Incidents, both pleasurable and painful, are called from out the dim past, and stand before us in memory. As they pass in review the emotional powers alternate with gratifying or regretful sensations according as the circumstances were pleasing or unpleasant in their transpiring conditions. It is ever more pleasing to look upon a pleasant than a gloomy picture, but necessity produces both phases, as realities do not lose their identity, but ever occupy the place in the niche of time as they had during their real existence. It is always pleasant to go back to childhood — to the halcyon days of youth; for there are found the scenes of purity and innocence, un mixed with the taints of sin and error. There are the sports and hilarities in which playmates mingled, whose familiar voices gave out the gladsome shouts of exultant transports or the jocund song of mirthful glee warbled from lips untutored in the deceptive artifices of maturer years. The green lawns where those games at ball were so exciting, and where the kite was sent upward towards the vault of heaven, and where we wrestled down our cousins and chosen playmates and they wrestled us down in turn; and the streams where we drew forth the shining fish or rowed the skiff along its dappled shores; and the meadows where we listened to the unwritten music of the bobolink and hunted for the robin’s nest; — to all these youthful haunts memory goes back from the sober abodes of age and gathers up from those early scenes the bouquets which friendship gathered when the heart knew no sordid longings and the soul was brim full of fun and jollity. Alas, those days of youth have ever been too exquisite to last long. Its cup of joy was full to the brim while we quaffed it. The sun of life shone upon it from a cloudless sky, but as that orb mounted towards the zenith, storm-clouds dimmed its brightness, here and there, and ere that sun is set and the oblivious shadows gather a s a

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prelude to the tomb; then, as the bowed and trembling limbs of age lean upon the staff, the mind journeys back to those primev.al joys and dwells upon the happy scenes which came before the bprthens of life weighted us down with perplexities and sorrows. Though age has made its impress upon the form; though the limbs tremble, the face be wrinkled and activity Iras departed; yet as those halcyon sports come back in memory, the bedimmed eye grows bright with a fire like that of youth and the aged veteran feels the momentary inspirations of his boyhood’s life again. The blissful vision passes from him; for as he attempts to move, he finds that the agility of youth has long since departed and his limbs are fettered by the infirmities of time. He is young and active no more; but if he is older, he is wiser. Though he cannot skip away with the fleetness of a boy, his mind is matured in the school of experience and he can reason as a sage. The review of that early life reminds him of a life to come; of the morning of the resurrection, when his bent form will resume an erect posture, when his limbs will receive the activity of eternal youth, and the bloom of immortality glow in the countenance and beam forth from the eye with the radiance of angelic felicity. At that period, the matured mind of the patriarch is prepared to grasp the situation and cope with principle. The temporal body may have become frail and rickety through the years of the past, yet the faculties of the spiritual organism that dwells within the mortal house has been maturing and only waits to be freed from the tenement of clay to exhibit its powers of rapid motion that will far outstrip the nimbleness of his earthly boyhood.

When the mortal existence commenced upon mother earth, he was born a helpless child, perhaps the most dependent for care and tender watching of all creatures that breathe the breath of life. When he comes forth in the resurrection, he will resume the full stature of his mortal growth, and the gracefulness of his movement will be superior in point of interest to that which is exhibited in childhood, where the beauty and the sprightliness, at best, are but the endowments that belong to the mortal state. Though the head maybe “white as wool,” vet the glow of immortality will radiate such an indiscribable halo of splendor, that the beautiful locks that adorn the youthful heads of mortals will be eclipsed by comparison. The aged who stand close to the sunset of life, and totter along towards the brink of the tomb, if they could but have a momentary view of the condition of the righteous as they will appear in the resurrection of the just, when “mortality shall put on immortality,” they would not look back with longing desires to the days of their youth; but with eagerness and fond anticipations would long for the change to come when the spirit will be free from mortality, and, at the appointed time, take upon itself the powers and bloon} of immortality, to revel in eternal youth and be partakers of joys ineffable.

But, says one, how are we to obtain a knowledge of the future concerning those things which have an existence beyond the grave? How is mortal man to rend the veil and receive a satisfactory knowledge concerning those things for which the finite mind has such a longing and which we cannot enter upon the full enjoyment of until this mortal shall put on immortality? These blessings belong to the precious gifts of the gospel which was

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preached anciently Christ and His Apostles, and which has been revealed to Joseph Smith in this our day. This is the gospel spoken of in the fourteenth chapter and sixth and seventh verses ef Revelations: “And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people. Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come: and worship Him that made heaven and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.” This mighty angel, seen by John the Revelator, has left the courts of glory; has descended to the earth in the nineteenth century and revealed the glad tidings to be preached to a fallen world. It is the same that was preached anciently, but, being rejected by the inhabitants of the earth, was finally taken up into the heavens and retained there until the set time came when the Almighty was to commence His great latter-day work; a work which is to restore all things as at the beginning and gather the elect from the four quarters of the earth. It had been taken from the earth because man rejected it and shed the blood of those who preached it. How very strange it is that the children of men will so harden their hearts against the truth — the plan which the God of heaven has devised for the salvation of the human race — as to not only turn a deaf ear to it, but to actually fight against and imbrue their hands in the blood of those chosen and authorized to preach it and administer in its ordinances. This gospel, if properly observed, furnishes evidences of its divine authenticity. In contradistinction to all other religious beliefs entertained at the time it was made known to Joseph

Smith, it is a gospel of revelation. Those who obey the gospel in our day, have the promise of knowing whether its doctrines are of God or of man, while those who do not obey it have not got this promise. It is a conceded truth that like causes produce like results. It is generally admitted by religionists that the gospel taught by the Apostles in the days of Christ was true. Jesus, soon after His crucifixion, said to His Apostles: “All power is given unto me in heaven" and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” Here let us ask, how were the Apostles and the doctrines they taught received by the people? In almost every city or country Ayhere they made a proclamation of the gospel they and their doctrines met with opposition, and often the people used mob violence to silence them, that, if possible, their doctrines might not be promulgated among the people. Jesus, the Redeemer, the Lord of glory, was crucified, and many of His Apostles were put to death and many of the Saints fell as martyrs for the truth. In Jerusalem they were strictly commanded not to teach in this (Christ’s) name. “Then Peter and the other Apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.” (Acts v: 28, 29.) They no doubt were looked upon by the people as enemies to the commonwealth and disturbers of the peace; but the gospel they had embraced was a gospel of revelation, which made known to them the will of heaven concerning their ministry, and they chose to be obedient to the commandment which Christ gave them concerning

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their earthly mission. Through the medium of this gospel it was made known to Peter that Jesus was the Christ; and when Peter made this declaration, Jesus answered and said unto him: “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona;

* for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” (St. Matthew, xvi: 17, 18.) Thus we see it was a gospel of revelation which the ancients taught, and when that was to be restored in the latter days it was still to be a gospel of revelation, for Peter, on the day of Pentecost, said: “This is that which was spoken by the Prophet Joel: And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith Gtod, I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams, and on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my spirit; and they shall prophesy.” (Acts ii: 16, 18.) We are now living in the last days, when God is pouring out His spirit, and the blessings spoken of by Peter are being enjoyed by those who have yielded obedience to the gospel. Dreams and visions are enjoyed; the servants and handmaidens of the Almighty are made to prophesy under the influence of the spirit of God. Because they do these things, as was the case anciently, and preach the gospel in the power and demonstration of that spirit, we are made to drink from the same bitter cup of persecution as was placed to the lips of the formerday Saints. Ever since the Book of Mormon was brought to light through the agency of Joseph Smith and was by him translated by the gift and power of God, the Christian world has been diligent in persecuting the Latter-day Saints. It began with the Prophet Joseph simultaneous with his obtaining possession of the plates of gold from which the Book of Mormon was by him translated. Before he reached home, after taking them from Cumorah, he was beset by a mob and knocked down. Notwithstanding this, he thought in his then inexperience, that all good men, and especially the ministers of religion, would hail his message with joy; hut to his astonishment they were filled with rage and beset him with mobs, fabricated lies, vilified his character and sought to crush every effort made by him to bring the eternal truths entrusted tp him by the God of heaven, to the knowledge of his fellow man.

This Book of Mormon is a translation from gold plates upon which was kept the record or history of the once enlightened and powerful Nephite nation, which sprang from the family of Lehi, who left Jerusalem by command of God 600 years before Christ, which company landed on the coast of Chili, in South America, and after becoming numerous there, many thousands of them came to North America, where they were greatly blessed of the Lord as long as they kept His commandments; but, running into wickedness and forgetting God, were finally overpowered by the Lamanites and slain, their nationality thus becoming extinct. This book also contains the fullness of the gospel which was understood and preached by that people in the days of their humility. The Church of Christ was organized among them, with Apostles and Prophets, the same as in the days of the Savior, and the same as it is now organized by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In consequence of that book containing the precious truths of the gospel which had not been preached upon the earth for ages, the prince

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of darkness, who has from the beginning been the arch enemy of Christ, excited the children of men, especially the priests, to wage a warfare against Joseph Smith and all those who became co-laborers with him in giving publicity to what is called the new and everlasting gospel. Yet it is not a new gospel, but it is the old gospel brought to light again, that was declared by the ancient apostles under the instructions of Christ. In relation to the coming forth of this sacred record we kindly invite those to whom these things are new, to read the twentyninth chapter of Isaiah. The fourth verse of that chapter reads as follows: “And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy voice shall be as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thv speech shall whisper out of the dust.” The Nephite nation was “brought down” and after the lapse of ages their record was taken from the place of its safe deposit, translated and published, and thus did they “speak out of the ground” and their “speech” was “low out of the dust.” All this the majority of the religious world reject. They will not receive these things, and have made war upon those who have embraced them. The God of heaven, who sees the end from the beginning, foresaw that this would be the case, hence the fourteenth verse of the chapter alluded to is couched in the following significant language: “Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder; for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.” These last quoted words of the Prophet Isaiah have had and are still having an actual and most wonderful fulfillment. The work which has resuited from the restoration of the gospel and bringing to light the sacred truths of the Book of Mormon, has really been a “marvelous work and a wonder.” The true blaze of gospel light that it has enkindled in the hearts of the honest among all peoples has caused the wisdom of the wise (in their own conceit) to perish and the understanding of the prudent to be hid.

In writing thus lengthily upon this portion of our subject, it is our wish to show that a declaration of the gospel by the righteous, in any age of the world, is followed with persecution from the bigoted and ungodly portion of mankind. To speak directly of our time, the real and only cause that can rightfully be assigned for the persecution that has followed the proclamation of the gospel, is that it is heaven’s truth; or that it is an association of glorious truths that are new to the inhabitants of the earth in the nineteenth century — truths that tare not entertained by the sects of the age and form no part of their tenets. One of the fundamental principles of the gospel of Christ is direct revelation and this all the sects ignore. They do not believe that the Almighty has communicated His will to man since the ancient worthies fell asleep, and yet the Bible tells us that “The Lord God will do nothing but will reveal His secrets to His servants the prophets.” (Amos hi: 7.) The people who ignore revelation, according to this passage, and deny the existence of prophets in their midst, are left to grope their way in darkness, strangers to the will of the Father concerning them. They have no prophets to receive the will of the Lord for them and these (the prophets,) are the class of men specified to whomlhe Lord will reveal “His secrets.” They neither believe in revelation from God nor in His

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prophets. Yet this is the order that the Lord has again established as well as in ancient times, and because of this the wicked rage and imagine vain things; and because they cannot find arguments sufficiently logical to controvert the doctrines of the Latter-day Saints, they have resorted to mobocracy and violence against our people from the very first and have continued to persecute and deprive us of our rights up to the present time.

Much indeed has been written and published, by many authors, relative to the past history of the Latter-day Saints. The world has been made acquainted, through the agency of the press, with the leading features of the persecutions this people have endured for their religion; but a wonderful amount of perseeutive history remains yet to be chronicled. Much has laid in retirement in the knowledge of men and women who, at the most, have only made minutes upon their private journals, while many others have not even done so much, and allowed the facts of their personal experience — the whippings, drivings, burnings, plunderings and murders entailed upon them by mobs — to remain silently upon the tablets of the memory. Very many of such individuals are to-day tottering upon the brink of the grave, and wrhen they fall to sleep their history will slumber with them. It is a pity they should thus pass away without contributing their store of evidence to the bulk that might be left on record in aid of a cause that should be fully written up, and the facts transmitted to succeeding generations.

The years that have intervened since Joseph Smith received the first visitations of heavenly messengers and the plates of the Book of Mormon were delivered to and translated by him by the gift and power of God, have been full of tribulation and peril for Joseph himself, and for all who believed his testimony and embraced the gospel which the Lord revealed through his agency. The object of the writer is that this little volume may be an aid in an object which, to his mind, seems of great importance, believing that, to a great extent at least, men are finally to be judged out of the books that are and will be written. His requests have been responded to 'cheerfully as far as he has solicited the account of individual experiences, and, over their own signatures, their statements and testimonies will be read with interest by thousands after such witnesses have been gathered to a glorious home where their relentless persecutors will never have the privilege — without sore repentance and obedience to the truth — of intruding their presence.

The writer is an American citizen, born in the glorious land of the free, and he enjoys the right secured by the valorous deeds of patriotic ancestors of writing and printing at pleasure, an account of the perils his friends have nobly endured for worshipping Almighty God according to their honest convictions. He lives in the country made illustrious by the virtues of a Washington and his compatriots, who were compeers in arms through the Revolution which broke off the British yoke and freed this land from the domination of kings and foreign despots. From the day of those wonderful achievements, tyrants from beyond the seas have held no dominion upon our shores, and the most dangerous political oppressors here have grown up under the very shadow of the flag of freedom. Many of these boast of Christianity, of piety and of political and religious tolerance. It is lamentable that some such men as these are really the de-

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scendants of those early patriots. It is strange that they — reared among the institutions of this great Republic — have become political tyrants and religious bigots, and have dimmed the lustre of the fame which still shines upon the deeds of the Puritan fathers. It is painful to know that sons of America have made a blot upon the escutcheon of their country, and given the lie to the foreign belief that the oppressed of tyrants can find at least religious freedom here. On the other hand it is gratifying that there are thousands still in this government whose bosoms swell with emotions of philanthropy and patriotism, ready to defend the chartered rights of the Constitution and imitate the heroic and just examples set by those early defenders of human rights. May their souls be infused with that spirit of freedom that inspired the hearts and nerved the arms of our forefathers, for while such men live there will be a hope for our country. While such men lift their voices, there will be good desires for the perpetuity of freedom; and the helpless, the innocent, the honest and the true, will find advocates for their cause. And such men will always' be found in this Republic. This land is consecrated to liberty by the sacred blood of the fathers, among whose descendants will be found, through the coming years, those who inherit that love for the human race which nerved and strengthened the ancient arms that struck down forever the oppressive schemes of British kings.

It is falsely, cruelly changed that the Latter-day Saints have no real, full-souled sympathy with the perpetuity of American institutions. A more unfounded charge could not be made, or a greater libel forged than this. The history of our people, for more than half a century, stands out in bold rebuke of such a slander. They have patiently endured the persecutions of wicked men banded against them in mobs because, in the land that boasts of religious toleration, they believed in a God of revelation and in a religion possessing those elements of truth and consistency proclaimed by the Apostles in the meridian of time. Joseph Smith proclaimed, and this people embraced, a new revealed faith which struck at the fallacies and dogmas of ages, against which the sects could not successfully battle with arguments; hence they led on the mobocratic element and schemed against us with political demagogues. They have plundered our houses; committed our homes to the devouring element; murdered our friends and driven the aged, the sick and helpless through the dreary winter storms. They have robbed this people of the accumulated comforts of honest toil; forced them at times into destitution; violated the chastity of helpless females; fastened the chains forged for convicts upon their most honorable leaders; and as a crowning evil have, .latterly, sought to disfranchise our community and take away the local government which they have so nobly achieved in Utah. All these wrongs and many not enumerated, have been patiently endured by this people. They have suffered it all without rebellion and without even resistance, save in a few instances, where self defence has been forced upon them. They have paid millions of money into the United States treasury for land, and with the patents for much of it now in their new-made homes, they are exiled and banished, while others plow in peace and eat the products of its strength. They have ever honored the political, military and all the governmental institutions of their