"This interview over, the horsemen withdrew and left Phelps to pursue his way in peace; * * * * and he finally arrived in Illinois in safety, having reached the ferry before his pursuers, and before the news of the escape had spread so far." (Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt pp. 282-4).
[3]. What befell Brother King Follet after he was captured, and his final escape from Missouri is thus related by Parley P. Pratt:
"He had been surrounded, overpowered and taken at the time we were each separated from the others. He was finally rescued from the mob, and thrust alive into the lower dungeon and chained down to the floor. He remained in this doleful situation for a few days, till the wrath of the multitude had time to cool a little, and then he was unchained by the Sheriff and again brought in to the upper apartment and treated with some degree of kindness. They now laughed with him about his adventure, praised him for his bravery, and called him a good fellow. The truth of the matter was, they had no great desire to take the lives of any but those whom they had considered leaders; and since they had discovered that Mr. Follett and Mr. Phelps were not considered religious leaders among our society, they were in no great danger, except they should happen to be killed in the heat of excitement or passion. * * * * * Mr. Follet remained in confinement for several months, and finally was dismissed and sent home to Illinois, where he met his family, who had been expelled from the State of Missouri, in common with other, during his confinement." (Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt, pp. 288-9).
The escape of these prisoners form Missouri completed the expulsion of the Latter-day Saints from that state, and closed a great epoch in the history of the Church.
APPENDIX TO VOLUME III.
Affidavits Of Hyrum Smith et al. On Affairs In Missouri, 1831-39; Officially Subscribed To Before The Municipal Court Of Nauvoo The First Day Of July, 1843.
Explanatory Note.
In the month of June, 1843, a desperate effort was made to drag the Prophet Joseph Smith back to the state of Missouri, on a charge of treason against that state; and also alleging that because of his escape from Liberty prison in Clay county, Missouri, he had become a fugitive from justice. A process was issued by Thomas Reynolds, governor of the state of Missouri, and placed in the hands of Joseph H. Reynolds, appointed the agent of that state to receive the Prophet from the hands of the Illinois authorities who were to make the arrest. Thomas Ford, governor of Illinois, issued the necessary papers for the arrest, and placed them in the hands of Harmon T. Wilson, who, in company with Reynolds, the Missouri agent, arrested the Prophet near Dixon in Lee county, Illinois, something more than two hundred miles north and east of Nauvoo. The Prophet managed with the assistance of his friends in Illinois, to be returned to Nauvoo, where he succeeded in getting out a writ of habeas corpus before the municipal court of that place, by which he was delivered from the hands of the Missouri agent. In the course of the ex parte hearing the following witnesses were examined, viz., Hyrum Smith, Parley P. Pratt, Brigham Young, George W. Pitkin, Lyman Wight, and Sidney Rigdon. In the course of the examination of these witnesses by affidavit the story of the persecutions of the Latter-day Saints is related at length. It cannot be said that anything new is added to the Missouri period of the Church history by these affidavits, but they are statements made officially before a court of inquiry and therefore have a value of their own on that account, and as this is a documentary history of the Church, these volumes would be incomplete without them. A desire to group all events closely related has induced the Editors to take these affidavits out of the place where they were given, in 1843, and place them in this volume, which is so largely devoted to the Missouri period of the Church history.