| 268 life, is attested by the following obituary from the Nauvoo Independent:
Mrs. Emma Bidamon, whose departure from this life on April 30, we noticed in our last issue, was the daughter of Isaac and Elizabeth Hale, and born in the town of Harmony, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, July 10, 1804. She remained an inmate of her father's house until January 19, 1827, when she married Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church, as it is usually termed. It is stated that Joseph Smith stole her away from her father's house and married her against the advice and wishes of her friends; but whether this is true or not, it appears that after her marriage, her father relented, as fathers usually do, and the runaways returned to her father's farm, where they remained for some two or three years. From there Mrs. Smith removed with her husband to Palmyra, New York, and from there to Kirtland, Ohio, where she was a constant participant in the busy scenes of the church's prosperity and exodus from there. During her stay at Kirtland, her two sons, Joseph and Frederick G. W., were born, of whom Frederick died in Nauvoo, in 1862. From Kirtland, Mrs. Smith went with others to Missouri, living with her husband, first in one county and then in another, till the mobbing in 1838; when, her husband having been taken prisoner and lodged in Liberty Jail, in Ray County, she, with the great mass of the Mormons, was obliged to leave Caldwell County and the state of Missouri. She arrived at Quincy, Illinois, where she and other refugees from violence were kindly received. Here, some six months after his capture, Mrs. Smith was joined by her husband, he having escaped from the custody of his guards, in going from Liberty to another county ostensibly for trial, and not long afterwards, they settled on the Hugh White farm below Commerce, in the building now standing opposite the Riverside Mansion, on the west.
During the five years from their first settling here, Mrs. Smith bore her part in the toils, deprivations, and sickness incident to the settling of a new country. Her son Alexander, was born in her stay in Missouri, and one other, Don Carlos, was born to her in Nauvoo, but died in his infancy. Her husband, Mr. Smith, was killed at Carthage, June 27, 1844, and Mrs. Smith remained at Nauvoo during all the troubles attending the expulsion of the Mormons from the state of Illinois, except the time between September, 1846, and February, 1847, when she, with two or three families that went with her, sojourned at Fulton City, in Whiteside County, in this State. Her youngest son, David Hyrum, was born November 17, 1844, a few months after Mr. Smith's death.
Mrs. Smith was keeping the Nauvoo Mansion, so long the principal hotel of the place, during the year 1847, and here became acquainted with Major Lewis C. Bidamon, one of the new citizens, as they were called, and on December 27, 1847, she was married to him, the Reverend William Hana, brother to the celebrated Reverend Dick Hana, of the M. E. Church, officiating in the marriage ceremony.
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