| 256 my father, and I think was engaged in teaming at the time of Father's death, having that year married a Miss Olive Farr, and living at the Mansion. With him I had the first serious disagreement about polygamy. It is not needful here to repeat the dispute; he affirmed, I denied.
"In January of 1855 I went to Canton, Illinois, there to prosecute my study of the law in the office of Hon. William Kellogg, at that time an able and influential lawyer of Fulton County. I remained here the better part of a year, visiting home in the spring and being present at the death of Grandmother Smith in May. In June I was chosen clerk of the City Council, and was also employed by Postmaster Parley C. Stearns in the post office, to fill his place when legal duties called him away. During my stay I boarded part of the time at Christian Bidamon's, a brother to my stepfather, and the remainder with Abel H. White, whose wife was a sister to the Major, my stepfather. I made many friends during my stay in Canton, who still express themselves warmly towards me.
"I returned home in 1856, owing to the want of means to continue my studies at Canton, and began farm life with my brother Frederick as my partner. October 22 of this year I was married to Miss Emaline Griswold, the daughter of the widow of Elias Griswold, who had moved into Nauvoo soon after the saints had left, and who had afterwards died while in Texas on a business venture there. Some of her friends had tried to induce her not to comply with her contract to marry me, but failed; and, on the evening of that day, left alone by her every relative, in the presence of Mathew Waldenmeyer, a Presbyterian clergyman, she pledged herself to me in marriage.
"In the fall of this year three events transpired that had much to do with deciding my course religiously and aiding me to answer the question, What part in my father's work, if any, I was to take. For a number of years I had been more or less intimate with the family of Christopher E. Yates, a friend to the saints, who at the time of the disturbances in Hancock County, for his outspoken denunciation of mob violence and mob law, had suffered the loss of a
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