| 612 whither [whether] it was best to kill me. They returned after a while, when I learned that they had concluded not to kill me but to pound and scratch me well, tear off my shirt and drawers, and leave me naked, one cried, 'Simonds, Simonds, where's the tar bucket?' 'I don't know' answered one, 'where 'tis, Eli's left it.' They ran back and fetched the bucket of tar, when one exclaimed, 'God damn it, let us tar his mouth;' and they tried to force the tar-paddle into my mouth; I twisted my head around, so that they conld [could] not; and they cried out: 'God damn ye, hold up yer head and let us give ye some tar.'-They then tried to force a vial into my mouth, and broke it in my teeth. All my clothes were torn off me except my shirt collar; and one man fell on me and scratched my body with his nails like a mad cat, and then muttered out:-'God damn ye, that's the way the Holy Ghost falls on folks.'
They then left me, and I attempted to rise, but fell again; I pulled the tar away from my lips, &c. so that I could breath more freely, and after a while I began to recover, and raised myself up, when I saw two lights. I made my way towards one of them, and found it was father Johnsons.' When I had came to the door, I was naked, and the tar made me look as though I had been covered with blood, and when my wife saw me she thought I was all mashed to pieces, and fainted. During the affray abroad, the sisters of the neighborhood had collected at my room. I called for a blanket, they threw me one and shut the door; I wrapped it around me and went in.
In the mean time, brother John Poorman heard an out cry across the corn field, and running that way met Father Johnson, who had been fastened in his house at the commencement of the assault, by having the door barred by the mob, but on calling to his wife to bring his gun, saying he would blow a hole through the door, the mob fled, and father Johnson seizing a club ran after the party that had elder Rigdon, and knocked one man, and raised his club to lever another, exclaiming: 'what are you doing here?' when they left elder Rigdon and turned upon father Johnson, who, turning to run towards his own house met brother Poorman coming out of the cornfield; each supposing the other to be a mobber, an encounter ensued, and Poorman gave Johnson a severe blow on the right shouleer[shoulder] with a stick or stone, which brought him to the ground. Poorman ran immediately towards father Johnsons,' and arriving while I was waiting for the blanket, exclaimed: 'I'm afraid I've killed him.' Killed who? asked one; when Poorman hastily related the circumstancea [circumstances] of the rencounter [encounter] near the corn field, and went into the shed and hid himself. Father Johnson soon recovered so as to come to the house, when the whole mystery was quickly solved concerning the difficulty between him and Poorman, who, on learning the facts, joyfully came from his hiding place.
My friends spent the night in scraping and removing the tar, and washing and cleansing my body; so that by morning I was ready to be clothed again. This being Sabbath morning, the people assembled for meeting at the usual hour of worship, and among those came also the mobbers; viz: Simonds Rider, a Campbelite preacher, and leader of the mob; one McClentic, son of a Campbelite preacher, and Pelatiah Allen, Esq. who gave the mob a barrel of whiskey to raise their spirits; and many others. With my flesh all scarified and defaced, I preached to the congregation as usual, and in the afternoon of the same day baptized three individuals.
The next morning I went to see elder Rigdon, and found him crazy, and his head highly inflamed, for they had dragged him by his heels, and those too, so high from the earth he could not raise his head from the rough frozen surface, which lascerated [lacerated] it exceedingly; and when he saw me he called to his wife to bring him his razor. She asked him what he wanted of it? and he replied to kill me. Sister Rigdon left the room, and he asked me to bring him his razor; and I asked him what he wanted of it, and he replied he wanted to kill his wife, and he continued delirious some days. The feathers which were used with the tar on this occasion, the mob took out of elder Rigdon's house. After they had seized him, and dragged him out, one of the banditti returned to get some pillows; when the women shut him in and kep [kept] him some time.
(To be Continued.)
CONFERENCE MINUTES.
Continuation of last April's Conference.
The president having arrived; the choir sang a hymn. Elder A. Lyman offered prayer.
The president then arose and called the attention of the congregation upon the subjects which were contemplated in the fore part of the conference. As the wind blows very hard, it will be hardly possible for me to make you all hear unless there is profound attention. It is of the greatest importance, and the most solemn of any that can occupy our attention, and that is, the subject of the dead; on the decease of our brother Follett, who was crushed to death
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