Yes, the Mormons were hated. But their property was also coveted. And the worthless land of the northern counties had now become rich and productive farmland. Greed had a wonderful way of fueling the fires of hate.
He stopped his pacing and turned to Caroline. “The point is, Boggs is a real Mormon-hater. Lucas too.”
So was Joshua Steed. Once.
But Caroline didn’t say what was in her mind. Thankfully things had changed. There still was no deep affection for the Mormons per se, but now Joshua’s family was involved. And that changed everything.
Joshua was still talking. “The old settlers up north are stirring things up.” He shook his head. “That talk we heard on the Fourth of July isn’t helping any. I warned Joseph that it was gonna mean trouble. And that affidavit signed by that man from Daviess County. I’m sure Boggs has seized on that and the Indian problems as an excuse to do whatever he wants.”
“You can’t go,” Caroline said quietly.
Joshua’s head came up slowly.
“You can’t, Joshua,” she said, standing now too. “How can you be part of something in which you end up fighting against your own family?”
“You think this is a matter of choice?”
“I don’t care whether it’s a matter of choice or not. You can’t do this, Joshua.”
This was the very thing that had hit him the hardest when he had first read the letter to General Atchison. He walked over and took her by the shoulders. “Caroline, you don’t understand. I hold a commission in the militia. If the governor activates that militia, no one is going to ask me if I feel all right about it. I am duty bound to comply.”
“Figs on your duty!” Caroline cried. “This is your family, Joshua. You can’t do it!” Suddenly her eyes brightened as a thought struck her. “Go on a trip, Joshua. Go to St. Louis.” Her mind was racing now. “Or better, take that wagon train to Santa Fe you talked about. I know I told you I didn’t want you to go, but I’ve changed my mind. Take it. It’s the perfect excuse. And by the time you get back, hopefully it will all be over.”
He gripped her shoulders more tightly. “Caroline, listen to me. You weren’t here in ’33 and ’34. You don’t know how deeply the feelings against the Mormons run. And now, everyone in town knows about my family. If I leave . . . If they think I’m running out on them . . .” He let her go, stepping back, shaking his head.
“What?” she asked, already sensing what he was saying.
“You wouldn’t be safe.”
That shocked her deeply, but almost instantly she knew he was right. Down deep—and it terrified her to know it—she knew he was exactly right. “Then we’ll all go to Savannah,” she burst out in a rush again. “You need to check on the cotton crop for next year. It’s been a long time since—”
“It’s too late for that now, Caroline,” he said sharply. Then more gently, “And you know it.”
She took his hands now, looking up into the bleakness of his gaze. “How can you, Joshua? How can you possibly do this?”
His shoulders sagged, and the lines around his mouth were deep. “General Atchison is friendly to the Mormons. He and Alexander Doniphan are both lawyers. Doniphan holds a general’s commission too. They defended Joseph Smith and the Church during the Jackson County troubles. Maybe I can get assigned to one of their divisions.”
Finally he looked at her. “I think Joseph and the Mormons”—he took a quick breath—“and my family are going to need all the friends in the militia they can get.”
Chapter Notes
The two documents cited in this chapter—the affidavit signed by William Peniston and the letter activating units of the Missouri militia—are quoted almost exactly as given in Joseph’s record (see
HC
3:60–62, 65).
Details about the actual troubles in Indian Territory are not given in the historical records, so the mention of the burning of the trading post and the death of an agent is the author’s creation. But we do know that the Missourians were very sensitive about the dangers of living that close to the Indians and that Governor Boggs capitalized on that fear to call out the militia against the Mormons.
Chapter 10
Under date of Saturday, September 1, 1838, Joseph Smith, Jr., President and prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had his scribe make the following entry in Joseph’s journal history: “There is great excitement at present among the Missourians, who are seeking if possible an occasion against us. They are continually chafing us, and provoking us to anger if possible, one sign of threatening after another, but we do not fear them, for the Lord God, the Eternal Father is our God, and Jesus the Mediator is our Savior, and in the great I Am is our strength and confidence.
“We have been driven time after time, and that without cause; and smitten again and again, and that without provocation; until we have proved the world with kindness, and the world has proved us, that we have no designs against any man or set of men, that we injure no man, that we are peaceable with all men, minding our own business, and our business only. We have suffered our rights and our liberties to be taken from us; we have not avenged ourselves of those wrongs; we have appealed to magistrates, to sheriffs, to judges, to government and to the President of the United States, all in vain; yet we have yielded peaceably to all these things. We have not complained at the Great God, we murmured not, but peaceably left all; and retired into the back country, in the broad and wild prairies, in the barren and desolate plains, and there commenced anew; we made the desolate places to bud and blossom as the rose; and now the fiend-like race is disposed to give us no rest. Their father the devil, is hourly calling upon them to be up and doing, and they, like willing and obedient children, need not the second admonition; but in the name of Jesus Christ the Son of the living God, we will endure it no longer, if the great God will arm us with courage, with strength and with power, to resist them in their persecutions. We will not act on the offensive, but always on the defensive; our rights and our liberties shall not be taken from us, and we peaceably submit to it, as we have done heretofore, but we will avenge ourselves of our enemies, inasmuch as they will not let us alone.”
* * *
“Don’t open them, Mother. Pa, make sure she keeps her eyes closed.”
Benjamin was standing behind his wife, so he reached up and put his hands over her already tightly closed eyes. “All right, son, she can’t see.”
“What is it?” Mary Ann asked, laughing. “What are you doing?”
Matthew pushed the door open wider and nodded at Brigham Young. “You just wait a moment, Ma,” he called, “then you can look.”
Matthew and Brigham each took one end of the large chest, then lifted it up and walked it in quick little steps into the house.
“Over there, by the sink,” Benjamin called.
There was a heavy thump as they set it down. “What in the world?” Mary Ann exclaimed. “What is it?”
“Just one more minute,” Matthew said. He stepped back, eyeing the chest to make sure it was lined up straight. He looked to his mentor. Brigham smiled and nodded. “All right, Ma,” Matthew said. “You can look now.”
Benjamin dropped his hands and moved back. For a moment, Mary Ann stood there, blinking, trying to let her eyes adjust to the light again, then they flew wide open. “Oh,” she said softly.
“Happy birthday, Ma,” Matthew said proudly. “I know I’m about a month early, but I couldn’t wait.”
“Oh, Matthew, it’s beautiful.” The sunlight was coming through the window above the sink and lit the wood, making it gleam like satin. She walked over to the chest and ran her hand along the top.
Matthew was instantly at her side. “Look inside.”
Smiling at his excitement, she lifted the top. He had counterbalanced it and it came up easily in spite of its weight. Again there was a soft “Oh.” Inside, the chest had been partitioned off into a series of long, narrow compartments on one end. The other half had been blocked out into pigeonholes about three inches square.
“Your plates go here,” Matthew said, pointing to the narrow slots. His hand moved to touch the other compartments. “And these will hold your cups.”
She looked at him in wonder. “Matthew, this is wonderful. And you did this?”
Brigham nodded instantly. “He’ll try and tell you I helped him, but all I really did was give him a suggestion or two here and there. This boy of yours did the rest.”
Matthew dropped to one knee. The lower front of the chest had two drawers. He pulled the top one out. “And this one is big enough to hold your serving dishes.” He pushed it back in and pulled out the second drawer, which was deeper than the first. “And you can put tablecloths or towels in this one.” He moved the drawer in and out to show how smoothly it glided on its track.
Mary Ann reached down and took Matthew by the elbow and pulled him back up to stand in front of her. Looking up into his face, she shook her head in amazement. “I think that is the most wonderful dish chest I have ever seen,” she murmured.
“Really?” he cried. “Do you really like it, Mother?”
She started to speak, then suddenly couldn’t. She reached up and laid one hand on his cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you, Matthew.”
* * *
Brigham was standing on the porch putting on his hat as Benjamin stepped out to join him. Benjamin shut the door and said, “Thank you, Brother Brigham. That really is a fine piece of work. The ash turned out beautifully.”
“It did,” Brigham agreed. He gave Benjamin a piercing look. “I meant what I said in there about Matthew, Ben. He’s got a gift.”
Benjamin nodded. “I know. He sure didn’t get it from his father.”
Brigham was still pinning him with his eyes. “His heart’s not in farming, Ben. You know that, don’t you?”
Startled, Benjamin peered at his friend. “I . . . Maybe not, but he does well at it.”
“Of course he does. Matthew is a fine young man. He’ll do well at whatever he’s asked to do. But his heart’s not in farming. Not like it is in this.” He shook his head, remembering. “You should see him when he’s in that shop, Ben. It’s like he’s an artist, painting on a canvas.”
Benjamin was silent for a moment, then finally conceded. “I know he loves it.”
“I’d like to make him more than just my apprentice, Ben. Give me another year to help him develop his natural abilities, and then I’d like to make him a partner with me.”
Benjamin made no effort to hide his surprise.
“But I know you need help with the farm too,” Brigham said, “so I won’t encourage him without your permission. You know that.”
“I know. Thank you, Brigham.”
“I don’t need an answer now. You think about it. And talk it over with Mary Ann.”
“I will.”
Brigham stuck out his hand and Benjamin gripped it tightly. “Think about it hard, Ben. That’s one fine boy you’re raising there.”
* * *
In 1833, during the trouble in Jackson County, Joseph Smith found two lawyers in Clay County who agreed to represent Joseph and the Church. David Atchison and Alexander Doniphan had proven to be not only fair and competent attorneys but also friends to the Mormons. That friendship had continued since that time, and Joseph was so grateful for the integrity of Alexander Doniphan that he named the son born to Emma on June 2, 1838, Alexander Hale Smith. Both Doniphan and Atchison were also generals in the Missouri militia, Atchison being the senior commander in northern Missouri. So it was not surprising that, on September second, Joseph wrote and asked if they would represent the Church as legal counsel once again. Both agreed, and Atchison immediately suggested that Joseph and Lyman Wight submit to trial in Daviess County to answer the charges filed by William Peniston. Atchison also promised he would do all he could as a military officer to disperse the mobs and protect the Saints.
Joseph agreed, and the trial was set for September seventh. Wary of being trapped by the same mob spirit that had flared on election day in Gallatin, Joseph asked that the proceedings be held at the home of a nonmember who lived just across the Caldwell-Daviess county line. He then stationed a company of the brethren just south of the line, with instructions to be ready at a moment’s notice should trouble erupt.
Austin King, the same one who had taken the original deposition from William Peniston, sat as judge. Peniston and Adam Black came into the court with the wildest concoction of lies and exaggerations ever heard. Joseph countered with a series of defense witnesses who refuted their testimony.
When the testimony was finished, Judge King ordered the two defendants bound over to be tried before the circuit court, then released them on five hundred dollars bond. Privately he told Joseph and others that there was not enough incriminating evidence to convict them of any wrongdoing, but he feared the reaction of the citizenry and did not dare acquit them. Not surprisingly, this waffling did nothing to satisfy the Mormons, and only infuriated the Missourians all the more.
* * *
“Maybe we should have waited,” Derek said in disgust. “By spring I could have done something with this.”
“Derek Ingalls, you stop that!”
He didn’t look at Rebecca. Morosely he let his eyes sweep around the small room. This was the third day of incessant rain, and the sod roof was now leaking muddy water in nearly a dozen different places. Some of the leaks were slow drips, others steady streams. They didn’t own enough jars, pans, and buckets to catch them all, and several places on the packed dirt floor were becoming muddy slicks.
He shook his head. “Mice in your bed, water coming through the ceiling like it wasn’t there, moldy corn bread to eat. What in the world was I thinkin’ of, bringing you here now?”
Rebecca’s lips pressed into a tight line. She couldn’t remember a time when she had been so miserable. Though it was still only mid-September, the rain had brought a cold spell along with it and she was constantly chilled. Their bedding was damp. Their clothes were damp. The firewood was soaked and seemed to put out no heat at all as it sputtered and smoldered in the fireplace. The night before, just after they had gone to bed, she felt something crawling across her feet. She had jumped up screaming. Even the mice were looking for somewhere warm to sleep.