The story of prosperity is so much easier to tell, and in truth is so
much shorter than the tale of adversity and suffering, that we may
well hasten over the remaining five years of their waiting in that
far-distant land.
Everything prospered. But about the second year William's health
commenced to break down. Gradually he became more and more incapable of
work, until at last, one day, he came in and throwing himself down, he
exclaimed, "Mary, I have done my last day's work." It was even so. But
God did not fail them.
In 1875, two men came up to the door, and asked for food and shelter.
When they announced themselves as Elders from Utah, Mary's hands were
outstretched and her heart filled with great joy, even as her eyes ran
over with happy tears.
The Elders were Jacob Miller of Farmington, and David Cluff of Provo,
since dead. A month or two afterwards, Elder Charles Burton and John M.
Young of Salt Lake City, also were warmly welcomed at the farm.
William's illness was Bright's disease of the kidneys, and he was
slowly dying.
They left Sydney on the 7th of April, 1877, for Utah, six souls in all,
William and Mary, their children Caroline, Louise and Hyrum, with the
one grandchild, Lavinia.
On their arrival they went at once to Provo. William had much more to
bear of poverty and suffering, than any one could have dreamed, even
after their arrival here. Mary went out washing to eke out their store,
(they had barely ten dollars left,) and the two girls got positions in
the factory.
Within a year, Caroline married Eleazer Jones, and Louisa married
Abraham Wild. The last named couple live near their mother now.
Caroline has moved with her husband to Arizona. Mary's eldest daughter,
Mary Ann Mayberry, also came with her husband and family to Utah in
1879.
I would not linger if I could on the severe suffering, and painful
death of William, just twelve months from the day they left home.
When the sad day came on which he left them all, in spite of his awful
agony, he called his only boy Hyrum, who was then thirteen years old,
and stretching out the thin, wasted hands he blessed him fervently, and
said, "You are going to be a good boy to your mother, I think?"
"Yes, father, I will," answered the lad, manfully.
"My boy, I can do nothing, no work in the Temple for her, nor for
myself; I have got to go."
"If you have got to go, father," tremblingly said the boy, "I will do
all that lies in my power."
"Remember mother, Hyrum, she has been good to us, and worked hard for
us all her days." Then again he blessed him, and soon the peaceful end
came, and the poor aching frame was at rest.
A year or two of hard, constant work at the wash tub passed away, and
one night the personage who had visited Mary before came to her in a
dream and said:
"Mary, the time has now come for you to go and do the work for
yourself and your husband. If you will go, you shall soon have a home
afterwards."
Here was a command and a promise. Hyrum had shot up and was a tall,
quiet-mannered young man, and had gone out on a surveying expedition,
carrying chains for the men, to earn some money. His great ambition was
to get a home for his mother.
On his return from the surveying expedition he put nearly $100.00 into
his mother's hands. A day or two after he said, "Mother I would like to
go down to St. George and do Father's work; you know I promised him to
do it as soon as I could, and this is the first money I have ever had.
I am sixteen years old, and if the Bishop thinks I am worthy, I would
like to go."
Mary quickly told her dream, which she had hesitated mentioning,
fearing he would not like it, but he believed it.
"Mother, I will go this very night," he said when she had concluded her
story, "and see what the Bishop says."
So down he went, and Bishop Booth very willingly told him to go, and he
felt pleased to give the necessary recommends.
They went and had a most glorious time, and on her return Mary went to
washing again. But mark! In less than one year from that time they had
bargained for a place, and got two little rooms built upon it.
If you come to Provo, go and see dear old Sister Chittenden; she is
sixty-six years old, and quite a hearty, happy little woman yet.
She meditatively pushes aside her neat, black lace cap from her ear,
with her finger, as I ask what to say to you in farewell, and with mild
but tearful eyes, says:
"Tell them for me, always to be obedient to the counsel of those who
are over them; and obey the whisperings of God, trusting to Him for the
result! And then, God bless them all! Amen."
A HEROINE OF HAUN'S MILL MASSACRE.
The name of Sister Amanda, or Mrs. Warren Smith, is well known to the
Latter-day Saints. She has had a most eventful life, and the terrible
tragedy of Haun's Mill, in Caldwell county, when her husband and son
were killed, and another son wounded, have made her name familiar to
all who have read the history of the mobbings and drivings in the State
of Missouri. Mrs. Smith was born in Becket, Birkshire Co., Mass., Feb.
22, 1809. Her parents were Ezekiel and Fanny Barnes; she was one of a
family of ten children. Her grandfather, on her mother's side, James
Johnson, came from Scotland in an early day, and in the revolutionary
war held the office of general; he was a great and brave man. Sister
Smith says that her father left Massachusetts when she was quite young
and went up to Ohio, and settled in Amherst, Lorain county, where the
family endured all the privations and hardships incident to a new
country. The following is her own narrative:
"At eighteen years of age I was married to Warren Smith; we had plenty
of this world's goods and lived comfortable and happily together,
nothing of particular interest transpiring until Sidney Rigdon and
Orson Hyde came to our neighborhood preaching Campbellism. I was
converted and baptized by Sidney Rigdon; my husband did not like it,
yet gave his permission. I was at that time the mother of two children.
Soon after my conversion to the Campbellite faith, Simeon D. Carter
came preaching the everlasting gospel, and on the 1st day of April,
1831, he baptized me into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, of which I have ever since been a member. My husband was
baptized shortly after and we were united in our faith.
"We sold out our property in Amherst and went to Kirtland, and bought
a place west of the Temple, on the Chagrin river, where we enjoyed
ourselves in the society of the Saints, but after the failure of the
Kirtland bank and other troubles in that place, in consequence of our
enemies, we lost all our property except enough to fit up teams, etc.,
to take us to Missouri. We started in the Spring of 1838, and bade
farewell to the land of our fathers and our home to go and dwell with
the Saints in what then seemed a far-off place.
"There were several families of us and we traveled on without much
difficulty until we came to Caldwell county, Missouri. One day as we
were going on as usual, minding our own business, we were stopped by a
mob of armed men, who told us if we went another step they would kill
us all. They commenced plundering, taking our guns from our wagons,
which we had brought, as we were going into a new country, and after
thus robbing us took us back five miles, placed a guard around us, and
kept us there in that way three days, and then let us go. We journeyed
on ten miles further, though our hearts were heavy and we knew not what
might happen next. Then we arrived at a little town of about eight or
ten houses, a grist and saw mill belonging to the Saints. We stopped
there to camp for the night. A little before sunset a mob of three
hundred armed men came upon us. Our brethren halloed for the women and
children to run for the woods, while they (the men) ran into an old
blacksmith shop.
"They feared, if men, women and children were in one place, the mob
would rush upon them and kill them all together. The mob fired before
the women had time to start from the camp. The men took off their hats
and swung them and cried for quarter, until they were shot down; the
mob paid no attention to their entreaties, but fired alternately. I
took my little girls (my boys I could not find) and ran for the woods.
The mob encircled us on all sides, excepting the bank of the creek, so
I ran down the bank and crossed the mill pond on a plank, ran up the
hill on the other side into the bushes; and the bullets whistled by me
like hailstones, and cut down the bushes on all sides of me. One girl
was wounded by my side, and she fell over a log; her clothes happened
to hang over the log in sight of the mob, and they fired at them,
supposing that it was her body, and after all was still our people cut
out of that log twenty bullets.
"When the mob had done firing they began to howl, and one would have
thought a horde of demons had escaped from the lower regions. They
plundered our goods, what we had left, they took possession of our
horses and wagons, and drove away, howling like so many demons. After
they had gone I came down to behold the awful scene of slaughter, and,
oh! what a horrible sight! My husband and one of my sons, ten years
old, lay lifeless upon the ground, and another son, six years old,
wounded and bleeding, his hip all shot to pieces; and the ground all
around was covered with the dead and dying. Three little boys had crept
under the blacksmith's bellows; one of them received three wounds; he
lived three weeks, suffering all the time incessantly, and at last
died. He was not mine, the other two were mine. One of whom had his
brains all shot out, the other his hip shot to pieces." This last was
Alma Smith, who lives at Coalville, and who still carries the bullets
of the mob in his body, but was healed by the power of God through
the careful nursing and earnest faith of his mother. "My husband was
nearly stripped of his clothes before he was quite dead; he had on a
new pair of calf-skin boots, and they were taken off him by one whom
they designated as Bill Mann, who afterward made his brags that he
'pulled a d--d Mormon's boots off his feet while he was kicking.'
It was at sunset when the mob left and we crawled back to see and
comprehend the extent of our misery. The very dogs seemed filled with
rage, howling over their dead masters, and the cattle caught the scent
of innocent blood, and bellowed. A dozen helpless widows grieving for
the loss of their husbands, and thirty or forty orphaned or fatherless
children were screaming and crying for their fathers, who lay cold and
insensible around them. The groans of the wounded and dying rent the
air. All this combined was enough to melt the heart of anything but a
Missouri mobocrat. There were fifteen killed and ten wounded, two of
whom died the next day."
"As I returned from the woods, where I had fled for safety, to the
scene of slaughter, I found the sister who started with me lying in a
pool of blood. She had fainted, but was only shot through the hand.
Further on was Father McBride, an aged, white-haired revolutionary
soldier; his murderer had literally cut him to pieces with an old
corn-cutter. His hands had been split down when he raised them in
supplication for mercy. Then one of the mob cleft open his head with
the same weapon, and the veteran who had fought for the freedom of
his country in the glorious days of the past, was numbered with the
martyrs. My eldest son, Willard, took my wounded boy upon his back
and bore him to our tent. The entire hip bone, joint and all were
shot away. We laid little Alma upon our bed and examined the wound. I
was among the dead and dying: I knew not what to do. I was there all
that long dreadful night with my dead and my wounded, and none but
God as physician and help. I knew not but at any moment the mob might
return to complete their dreadful work. In the extremity of my agony
I cried unto the Lord, 'O, Thou who hearest the prayers of the widow
and fatherless, what shall I do? Thou knowest my inexperience, Thou
seest my poor, wounded boy, what shall I do? Heavenly Father, direct
me!' And I was directed as if by a voice speaking to me. Our fire was
smouldering; we had been burning the shaggy bark of hickory logs. The
voice told me to take those ashes and make a solution, then saturate a
cloth with it and put it right into the wound. It was painful, but my
little boy was too near dead to heed the pain much. Again and again I
saturated the cloth and put it into the hole from which the hip joint
had been plowed out, and each time mashed flesh and splinters of bone
came away with the cloth, and the wound became white and clean. I had
obeyed the voice that directed me, and having done this, prayed again
to the Lord to be instructed further; and was answered as distinctly
as though a physician had been standing by speaking to me. A slippery
elm tree was near by, and I was told to make a poultice of the roots of
the slippery elm and fill the wound with it. My boy Willard procured
the slippery elm from the roots of the tree; I made the poultice and
applied it. The wound was so large it took a quarter of a yard of linen
to cover it. After I had properly dressed the wound, I found vent to
my feelings in tears for the first time, and resigned myself to the
anguish of the hour. All through the night I heard the groans of the
sufferers, and once in the dark we groped our way over the heap of dead
in the blacksmith shop, to try to soothe the wants of those who had
been mortally wounded, and who lay so helpless among the slain.
"Next morning Brother Joseph Young came to the scene of bloodshed and
massacre. 'What shall be done with the dead?' he asked. There was no
time to bury them, the mob was coming on us; there were no men left to
dig the graves. 'Do anything, Brother Joseph,' I said, 'except to leave
their bodies to the fiends who have killed them.' Close by was a deep,
dry well. Into this the bodies were hurried, sixteen or seventeen in
number. No burial service, no customary rites could be performed. All
were thrown into the well except my murdered boy, Sardius. When Brother
Young was assisting to carry him on a board to the well, he laid down
the corpse and declared he could not throw that boy into the horrible,
dark, cold grave. He could not perform the last office for one so young
and interesting, who had been so foully murdered, and so my martyred
son was left unburied. 'Oh, they have left my Sardius unburied in the
sun,' I cried, and ran and covered his body with a sheet. He lay there
until the next day, and then I, his own mother, horrible to relate,
assisted by his elder brother, Willard, went back and threw him into
this rude vault with the others, and covered them as well as we could
with straw and earth.
"After disposing of the dead the best that we could, we commended
their bodies to God and felt that He would take care of them, and of
those whose lives were spared. I had plenty to do to take care of my
little orphaned children, and could not stop to think or dwell upon
the awful occurrence. My poor, wounded boy demanded constant care, and
for three months I never left him night or day. The next day the mob
came back and told us we must leave the State, or they would kill us
all. It was cold weather; they had taken away our horses and robbed us
of our clothing; the men who had survived the massacre were wounded;
our people in other parts of the State were passing through similar
persecutions, and we knew not what to do.
"I told them they might kill me and my children in welcome. They sent
to us messages from time to time, that if we did not leave the State
they would come and make a breakfast of us. We sisters used to have
little prayer meetings, and we had mighty faith; the power of God was
manifested in the healing of the sick and wounded. The mob told us we
must stop these meetings, if we did not they would kill every man,
woman and child. We were quiet and did not trouble anyone. We got our
own wood, we did our own milling, but in spite of all our efforts to be
at peace, they would not allow us to remain in the State of Missouri.
I arranged everything, fixed up my poor, wounded boy, and on the first
day of February started, without any money, on my journey towards the
State of Illinois; I drove my own team and slept out of doors. I had
four small children, and we suffered much from cold, hunger and fatigue.
"I once asked one of the mob what they intended when they came upon our
camp; he answered they intended to 'kill everything that breathed.' I
felt the loss of my husband greatly, but rejoiced that he died a martyr
to the cause of truth. He went full of faith and in hope of a glorious
resurrection. As for myself I had unshaken confidence in God through it
all.
"In the year 1839 I married again, to a man bearing the same name
as my deceased husband (Warren Smith), though they were not in the
least related. He was also a blacksmith and our circumstances were
prosperous. By this marriage I had three children. Amanda Malvina, who
died in Nauvoo; also Warren Barnes and Sarah Marinda, who are still
living, the former at American Fork and is counselor to the Bishop, the
latter at Hyde Park.
"I enjoyed the privilege of seeing the Temple finished, and of
receiving therein the blessing of holy ordinances. Willard, my
first-born son, also had his endowments in that Temple, and came out
among the first who left there; was one of the Mormon Battalion, who
were called to go to Mexico while we were _en route_ to find a resting
place for the Saints. Willard is now, and has been for several years
past, President of Morgan Stake."
During the time they lived in Nauvoo, President Joseph organized a
Relief Society. Sister Smith became a member of its first organization
and greatly rejoiced in the benevolent work; much good was accomplished
by it.
In July, 1847, they started from Nauvoo intending to go with the Saints
to the Rocky Mountains, but for the want of sufficient means for so
long a journey they were compelled to stop in Iowa. They remained until
the year 1850, when they took up their line of march for Salt Lake
City, arriving on the 18th of September, safe and well. Shortly after
arriving in this city, her husband, who had been for some time dilatory
in his duties, apostatized from the faith, and they separated. She took
the children with her and provided for herself.
On the 24th of January, 1854, a number of ladies met together to
consider the importance of organizing a society for the purpose of
making clothes for the Indians and other charitable work, which was
properly organized Feb. 9th. Sister Smith was one of the officers of
the society, which resulted in much temporal good being accomplished.
In consequence of the many hardships she endured through the
persecutions in Missouri which were heaped upon her and her family by
a relentless mob, her health was undermined, and as years increased,
infirmities settled upon her which rendered her unable to retain the
position she had held in the Relief Society. She was honorably released
and will ever be remembered by the Bishop and his counselors and the
members of the Ward for her benevolence and self-denial in ministering
to the unfortunate.
Sister Smith has much to rejoice over even in her present affliction,
for she has raised her family in the principles of the gospel of Christ
and the fear of God, and they remain true and steadfast to the faith
of the latter-day work. A good woman, who has reared to manhood and
womanhood a large family almost without a father's help, is certainly
worthy of commendation and must have great satisfaction in her life and
labor. She has been for more than fifty years a member of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
There are very few now living who have a record of more than half a
century in the Church. Sister Smith has endeared herself to a very
large number of the Latter-day Saints, who are ever ready to do her
honor for her faith, integrity and the many estimable qualities which
have beautified and adorned her life.
Her testimony of the massacre at Haun's mill, in Missouri, is that of
an eye witness and participator. Indeed she might with all propriety
be termed the heroine of that fearful tragedy, for her sublimity of
courage surpassed that of ordinary mortals. God was with her in His
power in her hour of severe trouble and she was indeed a host in
herself. In conclusion we would say may heaven's choicest blessings
rest upon her the remainder of her days here upon the earth, and her
heart be filled with joy and peace continually and may she continue
to bear a faithful testimony to the truth, and live until she has
accomplished all she has ever anticipated for the living and the dead.
E. B. W.