The Revised and Enhanced History of Joseph Smith by His Mother

Hyrum Smith gives sworn statement of the trials, tribulations, abuses, and privations of the Saints in Missouri. Mob action at Far West, Diahman, DeWitt, and Haun’s Mill. Missouri militia marches on Far West to lay siege to the city. Joseph, Hyrum, and others are taken prisoner and marched to Independence, Richmond, and Liberty. Sufferings and privations of these leaders and the Saints in general are enumerated. Joseph and others spend six months under guard and in prison. Sufferings of the brethren in Liberty Jail. More than twelve thousand Saints are driven from Missouri. Brethren are aided in escaping.

March 1838 to April 1839

Editors’ Note:  If you did not get a chance to read Chapter 48, Part 1, click here.  For Chapter 48, Part 2, click here. For Chapter 48, Part 3, click here.

Part 4

“In the course of three or four days after that time, Judge Turnham came into the jail in the evening and said he had permitted Mr. Rigdon to get bail, but said he had to do it in the night and unknown to any of the citizens or they would kill him, for they had sworn to kill him if they could find him. And as to the rest of us, he dared not let us go, for fear of his own life as well as ours. He said it was d——d hard to be confined under such circumstances; for he knew we were innocent men, and he said the people also knew it; and that it was only a persecution and treachery, and the scenes of Jackson County acted over again for fear that we would become too numerous in that upper country. He said the plan was concocted from the governor down to the lowest judge, and that that Baptist priest, Riley, was riding into town every day to watch the people, stirring up the mind of the people against us all he could, exciting them and stirring up their religious prejudices against us for fear they would let us go. Mr. Rigdon, however, got bail, and made his escape to Illinois.

“The jailer, Samuel Tillery, Esq., told us also that the whole plan was concocted by the governor, down to the lowest judge, in that upper country early in the previous spring, and that the plan was more fully carried out at the time that General Atchison went down to Jefferson City with Generals Wilson, Lucas, and Gilliam, the self-styled ‘Delaware Chief.’ This was sometime in the month of September, when the mob were collected at DeWitt in Carroll County. He also told us that the governor was now ashamed of the whole transaction, and would be glad to set us at liberty if he dared to do it. ‘But,’ said he, ‘you need not be concerned, for the governor has laid a plan for your release.’ He also said that Esquire Birch, the state’s attorney, was appointed to be circuit judge, on the circuit passing through Daviess County, and that he (Birch) was instructed to fix the papers, so that we would be sure to be clear of any incumbrance in a very short time.

“Sometime in April we were taken to Daviess County, as they said, to have a trial. But when we arrived at that place, instead of finding a court or jury, we found another inquisition, and Birch, who was the district attorney—the same man who was the one of the court-martial when we were sentenced to death—was now the circuit judge of that pretended court, and the grand jury that was empaneled were all at the massacre at Haun’s Mill, and lively actors in that awful, solemn, disgraceful, cool-blooded murder; and all the pretense they made of excuse was, they had done it because the governor ordered them to do it.

“The same men sat as a jury in the daytime and were placed over us as a guard in the nighttime. They tantalized us and boasted of their great achievements at Haun’s Mill and at other places, telling us how many houses they had burned, and how many sheep, cattle, and hogs they had driven off belonging to the ‘Mormons,’ and how many rapes they had committed, and what kicking and squealing there was... , saying that they lashed one woman upon one of the d——d ‘Mormon’ meeting benches, tying her hands and her feet fast, and sixteen of them abused her as much as they had a mind to, and then left her bound and exposed in that distressed condition. These fiends of the lower regions boasted of these acts of barbarity and tantalized our feelings with them for ten days. We had heard of these acts of cruelty previous to this time, but we were slow to believe that such acts had been perpetrated. The lady who was the subject of this brutality did not recover her health to be able to help herself for more than three months afterwards.

“This grand jury constantly celebrated their achievements with grog and glass in hand like the Indian warriors at their war dances, singing and telling each other of their exploits in murdering the ‘Mormons,’ in plundering their houses and carrying off their property. At the end of every song they would bring in the chorus, ‘... Mormons! we have sent them to hell.’ Then they would slap their hands and shout, ‘Hosanna! Hosanna! Glory to God!’ and fall down on their backs and kick with their feet a few moments. Then they would pretend to have swooned away into a glorious trance, in order to imitate some of the transactions at camp meetings. Then they would pretend to come out of the trance, and would shout and again slap their hands and jump up, while one would take a bottle of whiskey and a tumbler and turn it out full of whisky and pour down each other’s necks, crying, ‘...Take it; you must take it!’ And if anyone refused to drink the whiskey, others would clinch him and hold him, whilst another poured it down his neck; and what did not go down the inside went down the outside.

“This is a part of the farce acted out by the grand jury of Daviess County, whilst they stood over us as guards for ten nights successively. And all this in the presence of the great Judge Birch, who had previously said, in our hearing, that there was no law for the ‘Mormons’ in the state of Missouri. His brother was there acting as district attorney in that circuit, and if anything, was a greater ruffian than the judge.

“After all their ten days of drunkenness, we were informed that we were indicted for ‘treason, murder, arson, larceny, theft, and stealing.’ We asked for a change of venue from the county to Marion County, but they would not grant it, but they gave us a change of venue from Daviess to Boone County, and a mittimus was made out by the pretended Judge Birch, without date, name, or place.

“They fitted us out with a two-horse wagon and horses, and four men, besides the sheriff, to be our guard. There were five of us. We started from Gallatin in the afternoon, the sun about two hours high, and went as far as Diahman that evening, and stayed till morning. There we bought two horses of the guard, and paid for one of them in our clothing which we had with us, and for the other we gave our note.

“We went down that day as far as Judge Morin’s, a distance of some four or five miles. There we stayed until the morning when we started on our journey to Boone County, and traveled on the road about twenty miles distance. There we bought a jug of whiskey, with which we treated the company, and while there the sheriff showed us the mittimus before referred to, without date or signature, and said that Judge Birch told him never to carry us to Boone County, and never to show the mittimus ‘and,’ said he, ‘I shall take a good drink of grog, and go to bed, you may do as you have a mind to.’ Three others of the guard drank pretty freely of whiskey, sweetened with honey; they also went to bed, and were soon asleep, and the other guard went along with us and helped to saddle the horses.

“Two of us mounted the horses, and the other three started on foot, and we took our change of venue for the state of Illinois, and, in the course of nine or ten days, we arrived in Quincy, Adams County, Illinois, where we found our families in a state of poverty, although in good health, they having been driven out of the state previously, by the murderous militia, under the exterminating order of the executive of Missouri. And now the people of that state, a portion of them, would be glad to make the people of this state believe that my brother Joseph has committed treason, for the purpose of keeping up their murderous and hellish persecution; and they seem to be unrelenting and thirsting for the blood of innocence, for I do know, most positively, that my brother Joseph has not committed treason, nor violated one solitary item of law or rule in the state of Missouri.

“But I do know that the ‘Mormon’ people, en masse, were driven out of that state after being robbed of all they had, and they barely escaped with their lives, as well as my brother Joseph, who barely escaped with his life. His family also were robbed of all they had, and barely escaped with the skin of their teeth, and all of this in consequence of the exterminating order of Governor Boggs, the same being confirmed by the legislature of that state.

“And I do know, so does this court, and every rational man who is acquainted with the circumstances, and every man who shall hereafter become acquainted with the particulars thereof will know, that Governor Boggs, and Generals Clark, Lucas, Wilson, and Gilliam, also Austin A. King, have committed treason upon the citizens of Missouri and did violate the Constitution of the United States and also the constitution and laws of the state of Missouri and did exile and expel, at the point of bayonet, some twelve or fourteen thousand inhabitants from the state and did murder some three or four hundreds of men, women, and children in cold blood, and in the most horrid and cruel manner possible; and the whole of it was caused by religious bigotry and persecution, because the ‘Mormons’ dared to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences, and agreeable to his divine will, as revealed in the scriptures of eternal truth, and had turned away from following the vain traditions of their fathers and would not worship according to the dogmas and commandments of those men who preach for hire and divine for money and teach for doctrine the precepts of men, expecting that the Constitution of the United States would have protected them therein.

“But notwithstanding the ‘Mormon’ people had purchased upwards of two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of land, most of which was entered and paid for at the land office of the United States in the state of Missouri; and although the President of the United States has been made acquainted with these facts and the particulars of our persecutions and oppressions by petition to him and to Congress, yet they have not even attempted to restore the ‘Mormons’ to their rights, or given any assurance that we may hereafter expect redress from them. And I do also know most positively and assuredly, that my brother Joseph Smith, has not been in the state of Missouri since the spring of the year 1839. And further this deponent saith not.”

Hyrum Smith

 

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Notes:

Sometime around the end of January, 1839, Sidney Rigdon was let out of jail on habeas corpus. The mob had sworn that if any of them got out of the jail they would be killed. It appears that the intention of the mob was to kill Sidney, yet, as Joseph recorded, “through the friendship of the sheriff, Mr. Samuel Hadley, and the jailor, Mr. Samuel Tillery, he was let out of the jail secretly in the night... ; and being solemnly warned by them to be out of the state with as little delay as possible, he made his escape. Being pursued by a body of armed men, it was through the direction of a kind Providence that he escaped out of their hands, and safely arrived in Quincy, Illinois.” (History of the Church 3:264.)

The prisoners were removed from Liberty Jail, as noted, on Saturday, April 6, 1839.

The “drinking song” was so full of profanity, and the use of God’s name taken so many times in vain, much of the text has been deleted from the original so as not to take away from the spirit of the reading of the text.

William Bowman, ex-sheriff of Daviess County, was one of the guards of the Prophet and his companions in their change of venue. Bowman was later charged with complicity in the escape of the brethren (by providing them with horses), and “was dragged over the square by the hair of the head” and evidently, at this or a later time, was ridden on an iron rail until he was dead. Apparently the man who headed the mob that killed William Bowman was Obadiah Jennings, the same who, with Nehemiah Comstock, led the slaughter at Haun’s Mill. (See History of the Church 3:321–22; Manuscript History of Brigham Young, 1846–1847, ed. Elden Jay Watson [Salt Lake City: Elden Jay Watson, 1971], pp. 558–59.)