300 went to bed and to sleep, leaving us their pistols to defend ourselves in case of any attack from without, as we were in a very hostile neighborhood."-Persecution of the Saints, pp. 92-95.
One touching incident we relate here as given by Mr. Pratt.
"The court of inquiry now commenced before Judge A. A. King. This continued from the 11th to the 28th of November, during which we were kept most of the time in chains, and our brethren, some fifty in number, were penned up in the open, unfinished courthouse.
"It was a very severe spell of snow and winter weather, and we suffered much. During this time Elder Rigdon was taken very sick from hardship and exposure, and finally lost his reason; but still he was kept in a miserable, noisy, and cold room, and compelled to sleep on the floor with a chain and padlock round his ankle, and fastened to six others; and here he endured the constant noise and confusion of an unruly guard who were changed every few hours, and who were frequently composed of the most noisy, foul-mouthed, vulgar, disgraceful, indecent rabble that ever defiled the earth. While he lay in this situation, his son in-law, George Robinson, the only male member of his numerous family, was chained by his side; and thus Mrs. Rigdon and her daughters were left entirely destitute and unprotected. One of his daughters, Mrs. Robinson, a young and delicate female, with her little infant, came down to see her husband and to comfort and take care of her father in his sickness. When she first entered the room, amid the clank of chains and the bristle of weapons, and cast her eyes on her sick and dejected parent and sorrow worn husband, she was speechless, and only gave vent to her feelings in a flood of tears. This faithful lady with her little infant continued by the bed of her father till he recovered from his sickness, and till his fevered and disordered mind assumed its wonted powers of intellect.
"In this mock court of inquiry the judge could not be prevailed on to examine the conduct of the murderers, robbers, and plunderers, who had desolated our society. Nor would
(page 300) |