It may not be out of place to relate a statement made to me by E. B. Tripp, who authorizes me to use his name, regarding George M. Hinkle, whose hand he said was out of the lion’s mouth (taking his own word for it.) Elder. E. B. Tripp says:
“In 1852, I lived in Wapelo, Louisa Co., Iowa G. M. Hinkle, a stranger to me, came into my drug store. He introduced himself to me, saying: ‘This is Mr. Tripp, I understand. I hear that you are going to Utah, and I would like to have a private talk with you. I am the man who betrayed Joseph Smith and others into the hands of the mob in Missouri. I am a miserable man, and scarce know what to do with myself. I would be willing to lay down my life if this would atone for the sin I committed. What can I do, Mr. Tripp, for I know Mormonism is true?”
This is the substance of the conversation as reported by Brother Tripp, who save him some good advice before he parted with him. Thomas B. Marsh, one of the Twelve Apostles, apostatized during this dark hour of Missouri persecution. I saw him and heard him speak then, and also when he came to Utah and was rebaptized. I heard him confess with deep regret, saying:
“Look at my trembling limbs and see the fate of an apostate, for I am a wreck, but Mormonism is true, and I advise you not to do as I have done, in my apostasy.”
Gen. John C. Bennett, who once flourished in Nauvoo, apostatized because of his iniquities. He died in Polk City, Iowa, a miserable wreck, debased and degraded. When I was in Iowa on a mission I learned of a party who once had a rope around his neck and over a limb. At that time he barely escaped being hung up like a dog.
Prior to Joseph and Hyrum Smith, and others, being marched to Liberty jail, General Lucas allowed the prisoners to see for a few moments, in the presence of their guards, their weeping [p.40] wives and children. Most of them were not permitted to speak, being merely allowed to look at them before being hurried away.
Mary Fielding Smith, wife of Hyrum Smith, a few days after his painful parting from her husband, became a mother. The favored child thus born amidst those warlike scenes is today known as Joseph Fielding Smith, Counselor to the First Presidency.
The brethren were taken to Independence, Jackson County, Missouri, to be murdered by those who only a few years before drove the Saints from the country, murdering some, tarring and feathering others, and expelling the remainder without color of law. Notwithstanding this, on Sunday, November 4th, 1838, the Prophet preached to many who gathered around them. The officers, finding that the people’s feelings were softened into tears of sympathy, had them removed to Richmond, where they were chained down as felons and then removed to Liberty jail.
In September, 1888, in company with Elder Andrew Jenson and Bishop Black, of Deseret, I visited this place, also Far West and Adam-Ondi-Ahman. This trip brought vividly before me many sayings of the Prophet, more particularly of his speaking of the Garden of Eden, which he said was situated at Independence, which is only about ten miles to the northwest of Liberty jai. The Prophet said it had been manifested unto him that here was where our Father Adam was placed, and where his home was until his fall, when he was driven out into the dreary world, and from thence he took his departure northeast about seventy miles, to where a stake of Zion was located, and it was named Adam-Ondi-Ahman by revelation. This knowledge makes this land, which is good and greatly blessed, all the more attractive to the Saints, and creates a desire to cherish not only the memory of the land, but this loathsome jail as well, which is now going to ruins.
The Bible tells us about the Garden of Eden, and why not locate it here in this goodly land as well as any other part of the earth? Many changes have taken place since Adam’s time, as, for instance, the great deluge and the division of the earth in the days of Peleg. Again, at the crucifixion, when the solid rocks were rent, mountains cast up, and great convulsions took place on the face of the whole earth. All of these events would naturally tend to make it difficult to locate the Garden without revelation, and this is how I became informed on this subject. I was with the Prophet Joseph Smith sixty miles northeast of Liberty jail in 1838, less than one year before he was imprisoned there. We were standing with others on the hill Adam-Ondi-Ahman. The Prophet said, pointing to a mound of stones: