Coming to the building now, Joshua leaped over the low picket fence and up onto the small porch. There was a sharp crash as the picket fence went down beneath the feet of the mob. Joshua raised his hands again and the crowd quieted momentarily. Emerging from the front entrance of the building was Sally Phelps, escorted by the man whom Joshua had sent inside and by Colonel Simpson, who had also gone in. She was holding a screaming infant, and two other small children, also crying, were clutching at her skirts. She was white faced, terrified almost into immobility. Simpson shoved her roughly into the arms of her husband, who had finally burst through the crowd to reach her side. Phelps led his family stumbling and sobbing across the yard and out into the street.
Joshua now turned to the crush of men that surrounded him. “All right,” he shouted in triumph, “I don’t want to see anything left standing. Do you hear me, boys! Nothing!”
He jumped back to get out of the way of the surging mass that poured into the building.
Mary Elizabeth Rollins was fifteen years old. At age ten, she with her widowed mother moved to Kirtland, Ohio, to live with her uncle, A. Sidney Gilbert. There, in October of 1830, she listened to the testimony of four missionaries who had come from New York. She, along with some of her family, was baptized.
Even at twelve, this was a remarkable young woman. When her family learned that Father Isaac Morley had a copy of the Book of Mormon in his possession, the only one in that part of the country at the time, Mary Elizabeth determined she wanted to see the book for herself. She went out to the Morley farm one afternoon to see if she could at least look upon it. When she saw it, she was so filled with a desire to read it that she begged Father Morley to let her take it home with her.
At first he refused, but she was so persistent, he finally agreed, on the condition that she return it before breakfast on the following day. She ran all the way home. “Oh, I have got the ‘Golden Bible,’” she exclaimed to her uncle. The family stayed up long into the night, taking turns reading the treasured book. At first light, Mary Elizabeth was up again. She set out in time to return the book to Father Morley as promised.
When she appeared at the Morleys’ with the book, Father Morley was kindly but a little condescending. “I guess you did not have a chance to read much in it,” he said to her. She opened the book and showed him how far they had gotten, then handed it to him. “Oh,” he said in surprise, “but I’ll bet you cannot tell me one word of what you have read.”
“To the contrary,” this little twelve-year-old said, and she proceeded to quote to him the first verse of the book, which she had memorized that morning, and then outlined for him the history of the family of Nephi. When she finished, Father Morley was staring. He held the book out to her. “Child,” he said with a new respect, “take this book home and finish it. I can wait.”
The Rollins family were among the number of Saints who emigrated to Missouri in 1831. They chose to build a small home in Independence rather than move out on the surrounding prairies. So it was that Mary Elizabeth Rollins and her twelve-year-old sister, Caroline, were on the streets of Independence this day as the mob of five hundred angry men stormed the printing offices and home of William W. Phelps. As the Saints scattered before the mob, there was no time for the two sisters to find their family. Like the others, Mary Elizabeth and Caroline fled in terror before the blind, mindless fury that had been unleashed upon them.
As the animal roar of the mob filled the air, the two girls darted around a building and across a vacant lot. A stand of corn, now four or five feet high, provided safe haven, and they ducked into it. For several moments they huddled there, shivering with fright, listening to the foul oaths of the shouting men, growing ever more horrified as they heard windows being shattered and the crash of furniture being smashed to pieces.
“Come, Caroline,” Mary Elizabeth said, taking her hand.
“Where are we going?” her sister cried in fear.
“I just want to see.” Mary Elizabeth crept forward to where the cornfield ended. A short distance away was a wooden slat fence. Two boards had been knocked out, providing a gap large enough to slip through. The grass along the fence line was knee high and thick enough to hide them. “Come on.” Mary Elizabeth, with her sister in tow, ran in a low crouch to the fence, where they dropped to the ground and peered through the gap at the chaos before them.
It was as if the very doors of hell itself had been thrown open and every demon set free to rush out. Fiendish shouts rent the air. Sister Phelps stood with her husband and children, guarded by several men and forced to watch as piece after piece of their furniture came flying out of the windows and doors of the building that served as their home and as the printing offices for the
Evening and Morning Star.
Any piece of furniture that survived that treatment was instantly destroyed by the men outside. Men with sledgehammers were battering at a side door of the building, splinters of wood flying in every direction. In one of the upper-story windows the figure of a man appeared. The glass had already been ripped away. He held a long wooden tray, and Mary Elizabeth groaned. She loved the print shop and had been there many times to watch Brother Phelps set type. This was one of the trays that held the thousands of pieces of lead type used to print the newspaper. She watched, feeling physically sick, as the man at the window began to scoop handfuls of type from the tray and fling them across the yard.
At another large upper-story window, an object that nearly filled the entire opening was teetering on the sill. “Push!” came the faint cry from inside. There was a terrible screeching sound, and in a moment, the press, bought in Cincinnati and carried to Independence at great cost, came out of the window. With a thunderous crash it hit the ground. There was a cry of triumph from several men at the window from which the press had fallen. Like men possessed, those surrounding what was left of the machine fell upon it with axes, shovels, hammers—anything they could lay hands on.
“Oh, look Caroline!” From where they sat, the sisters could see the west side of the building. There was a flash of white at one of the windows. A man was carrying armfuls of large sheets of paper to the opening and tossing them out onto the ground.
“What is it?”
“It’s the Book of Commandments,” Mary Elizabeth cried. Brother Phelps had been working on the printing of the revelations for more than six months now, and it was nearly ready for binding. Now the unbound sheets were being dumped into a pile. For
burning!
The thought flashed into Mary Elizabeth’s mind like a jab of a knife. They were going to burn the Book of Commandments!
“We’ve got to save those sheets, Caroline.”
“No,” her sister cried. Her eyes were wide and filled with terror. “They’ll kill us, Mary Elizabeth.”
Mary Elizabeth swallowed hard, her heart pounding as though it would burst. Caroline was right. There was no question about the fury of the mob. Even as they watched, they saw a group of men on the roof. They began to rip off the shingles and smash at the ribbing underneath them. Two men with horses, having attached ropes to the front wall of the building, now only waited for the signal to pull it down. Other men had crossed the street and were smashing their way into the store of their uncle, Sidney Gilbert. Boxes, tools, cloth goods came flying out, one after the other, into the ankle-deep dust of the roadway.
But something inside Mary Elizabeth would not give way to the fear, as terrible as it was. These were the revelations that were being tossed out of that window. These were words that had been given to the Prophet. It was God’s word. Could she simply sit and watch them burn?
The fifteen-year-old Mary Elizabeth reached out and took both of her sister’s hands. “Caroline, I’m going to try and save some copies. Will you help me?”
For a moment Caroline was about to shake her head—her lips were trembling and her hands shaking violently—but she didn’t. She merely closed her eyes and nodded her head.
Mary Elizabeth turned back. The man brought one more load of sheets and tossed them onto the pile. She waited for a moment. He did not reappear. “Let’s go!” she cried.
In a moment they were through the fence and running low, hair flying, skirts dragging through the long grass. They circled out and around the back of a nearby house, pausing only long enough to see that the man had not come back to the window.
“Grab everything you can carry!” Mary Elizabeth hissed. In an instant they were to the pile, scooping up bundles of the large sheets into their arms. Caroline turned and started away. Mary Elizabeth began to follow, then swung around to add another handful.
“Hurry!” Caroline wailed. “They’ll catch us.”
They made it halfway back to the fence line before they heard the startled cry. “Hey! What are you doing?”
The girls looked over their shoulders even as they redoubled their speed. A man near the Phelps home and printing office was pointing in their direction. “Hey, come back here!”
“Quick, into the cornfield,” breathed Mary Elizabeth.
“They’re taking the book!” the voice shouted. “Stop them!”
Just before they ducked through the fence, Mary Elizabeth’s heart plummeted. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw some men break into a run toward them. One had something in his hand, and with a lurch, she realized it was a rifle.
Like two prairie dogs being chased by a hawk, Mary Elizabeth and Caroline scampered into the welcoming thickness of the cornstalks. “Don’t stop!” Mary Elizabeth cried. “Go in deeper. Stay close.”
When they were twenty or thirty yards in, Mary Elizabeth suddenly stopped, holding her finger to her lips. Both were gasping for breath, hugging the unbound sheets of paper to their bodies. Behind them they heard muttered oaths, then the crashing sound of men entering the corn.
Mary Elizabeth dropped to the ground, throwing her body on top of the papers. Caroline instantly followed suit, her head touching her sister’s feet. “Pray, Caroline, pray!” Mary Elizabeth whispered hoarsely.
They did, faces buried in the soft, warm earth, eyes pinched tightly shut. They prayed with a fervency known only to those in deepest need. For ten minutes they listened in terror as men crashed back and forth through the cornfield, crossing and crisscrossing as they looked for the girls. Twice, Mary Elizabeth’s heart almost stopped beating as one of the men came so close that she could see his legs and feet just a row or two away. But then he moved away again.
Finally, to their immense relief, the two sisters heard one of the men call out. “Those little nits have got away. Come on, we’re missin’ out on all the fun.”
Slowly the sounds of the men died away, and all became silent except for the distant cries of angry men and the noises that accompanied a two-story building being totally razed to the ground. Then, and only then, did Mary Elizabeth and Caroline Rollins sit up. They threw themselves into each other’s arms, and began to cry.
Like blood lust that cannot be satiated, the mob’s desire for action was not spent when the printing office and home of W. W. Phelps was completely leveled. They fell to destroying the goods being hurled from the Gilbert and Whitney store and only desisted when a frantic Sidney Gilbert promised that he would close the store, pack the goods, and be gone within three days.
They swung around, like a pack of wild dogs looking for their next victim. Someone cried out, “Let’s find the leaders!” They fanned out, shouting and cursing. The Saints, who had watched the destruction from shuttered windows or from a distance with frightened faces and pinched lips, now scattered like sheep before a coyote. Women grabbed their children and ran screaming. Men ducked into buildings or fled for the cornfields and the wheat fields.
Bishop Edward Partridge, who had watched from his home in numbed shock as the Church properties were demolished, had no time to react to the swift change of targets. Suddenly his house was surrounded. The door burst open and men poured into the room. He was dragged out at the point of a rifle, leaving a sobbing wife and terrified children. Across the street, Charles Allen, a twenty-seven-year-old convert from Pennsylvania, was also caught.
“To the square!” Joshua shouted.
The two men were driven through the crowd toward the public square. People leaned forward to scream in their faces. Men clutched at their clothes or clawed at their bodies. A woman, her face twisted like some demented and pathetic hag, leaped forward and slapped Partridge across the face. Someone threw a clod of fresh horse droppings and hit Allen alongside the head. A thirteen-year-old boy stuck out his foot and tripped Partridge. The crowd roared its approval as he went down hard, tearing open his trousers and badly skinning his knee.
Dragging, shoving, cursing, swearing, spitting, and threatening, the mob moved their two captives to the square. In an instant, the crowd gave way enough to make a circle around the Mormons. Joshua stepped into the circle and raised his hands. The noise level dropped, but there were still angry mutterings and cries for action.
“Friends,” Joshua yelled, letting his eyes sweep the crowd, “here we have two of the Mormon leaders.”
“Yes!” “Stone them.” “Don’t let them get away!” “Somebody get some tar and feathers.”
A neighbor of Joshua’s, named George Simpson, pushed through the crowd and stepped out beside Joshua. He had been one of those who led the mob to seize the two Mormons. He looked at the two men now with utter disgust as he walked around them slowly, eyeing them up and down. Their clothes were now soiled and disheveled. Allen had a dark smear where the foul missile had hit his cheek. He looked frightened, but Bishop Partridge stood straight and tall, calm and serene. The people, sensing that something was about to happen, gradually quieted.
“So you are the leaders of the vaunted Mormons?” Simpson sneered.
Allen started to protest—he was not actually part of the leadership—but Partridge warned him to silence with his eyes.
“Well, where’s your God now?” Simpson cried. He pointed over the heads of the crowd toward the spot where the print shop once stood. “There won’t be any more newspapers calling for rebellion amongst the slaves.”