| 264 tent of the same, which was the only shield from the inclemency of the weather during the three weeks of my expulsion from home. Having found my family in this situation, and making some enquiry [inquiry], I was informed I had been hunted through Jackson, Lafayette and Clay counties, and also the Indian territory. Having made the enquiry [inquiry] of my family, why it was they had so much against me, the answer was, "He believes in Joe Smith and the Book of Mormon, God damn him, and we believe Joe Smith to be a damned rascal!!" Here on the bank of the Missouri river were eight families, exiled from plenteous homes, without one particle of provisions, or any other means under the heavens to get any only by hunting in the forest. I here built a camp twelve feet square, against a sycamore log, in which my wife bore me a fine son on the 27th of December. The camp having neither chimney nor floor, no covering sufficient to shield them from the inclemency of the weather, rendered it intolerable. In this doleful condition, I left my family for the express purpose of making an appeal to the American people to know something of the toleration of such vile and inhuman conduct, and travelled [traveled] one thousand and three hundred miles through the interior of the United States, and was frequently answered "That such conduct was not justifiable in a republican government; yet we feel to say that we fear that Joe Smith is a very bad man, and circumstances alter cases. We would not wish to prejudge a man, but in some circumstances, the voice of the people ought to rule." The most of these expressions were from professors of religion; and in the aforesaid persecution, I saw one hundred and ninety women and children driven thirty miles across the prairie, with three decrepit men only in their company, in the month of Nov., the ground thinly crusted with sleet, and I could easily follow their trail by the blood that flowed from their lacerated feet!! on the stubble of the burnt prairie. This company not knowing the situation of the country, nor the extent of Jackson county, built quite a number of cabins, that proved to be in the borders of Jackson county. The mob, infuriated at this, rushed on them in the month of January 1834, burned these scanty cabins, and scattered the inhabitants to the four winds, from which cause many were taken suddenly ill, and of this illness died. In the mean time, they burned two hundred and three houses and one grist mill, these being the only residences of the Saints in Jackson county.
The most part of one thousand and two hundred Saints, who resided in Jackson county, made their escape to Clay county. I would here remark that among one of the companies that went to Clay county, was a woman named Sarah Ann Higbee who had been sick of chills and fever for many months; and another of the name of Keziah Higbee, who was under the most delicate circumstances, lay on the bank of the river, without shelter, during one of the most stormy nights I ever witnessed, while torrents of rain poured down during the whole night, and streams of the smallest minutia were magnified into rivers. The former was carried across the river, apparently a lifeless corpse.-The latter was delivered of a fine son, on the bank, within twenty minutes after being carried across the river, under the open canopy of heaven, and from which cause, I have every reason to believe, she died a premature death. The only consolation they received, under these circumstances, was "God damn you, do you believe in Joe Smith now?" During this whole time, the said Joseph Smith, Senior, living in Ohio, in the town of Kirtland, according to the best of my knowledge and belief, a distance of eleven hundred miles from Jackson county, and thinks that the church had but little correspondence with him during that time. We now mostly found ourselves in Clay county-some in negro cabins-some in gentlemen's kitchen-some in old cabins that had been out of use for years-and others in the open air, without anything to shelter them from the dreary storms of a cold and stormy winter.
Thus like men of servitude we went to work to obtain a scanty living among the inhabitants of Clay county. Every advantage which could be taken of a people under these circumstances was not neglected by the people of Clay county. A great degree of friendship prevailed between the Saints and this people under these circumstances for the space of two years; when the Saints commenced purchasing some small possessions for themselves; this together with the emigration created a jealousy on the part of the old citizens that we were to be their servants no longer. This raised an apparent indignation and the first thing expressed in this excitement was: "you believe too much in Joe Smith,"-consequently they commenced catching the Saints in the streets, whipping some of them until their bowels gushed out, and leaving others for dead in the streets. This so exasperated the Saints that they mutually agreed with the citizens of Clay county that they would purchase an entire new county north of Ray and cornering on Clay. There being not more than 40 or 50 inhabitants in this new county, who frankly sold out their possessions to the Saints, who immediately set in to enter the entire county from the General Government. The county having been
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