"Not long after this a meeting was held at our house, during which every one was invited to speak; and when opportunity presented, I arose and said: 'To-day I come out from all names, sects and parties, and take upon myself the name of Christ, resolved to wear it to the end of my days.'
"For several days afterward, many people came from different denominations and endeavored to persuade me to join their respective churches. At length the associated Methodists sent their presiding elder to our house to preach, in the hope that I might be converted. While the elder was discoursing I beheld a vision in which I saw a great multitude of people in the distance, and over their heads hung a thick, dark cloud. Now and then one of the multitude would struggle, and rise up through the gloomy cloud; but the moment his head rose into the light above, the minister would strike him a blow, which would compel him to retire; and I said in my heart, 'They will never serve me so.'
"Not long after this, I heard of the 'Book of Mormon,' and when a few of us were gathered at a neighbor's we asked that we might have manifestations in proof of the truth and divine origin of this book, although we had not yet seen it. Our neighbor, a lady, was quite sick and in much distress. It was asked that she be healed, and immediately her pain ceased, and health was restored. Brother Bowen defiantly asked that he might be slain, and in an instant he was prostrated upon the floor. I requested that I might know of the truth of this book, by the gift and power of the Holy Ghost, and I immediately felt its presence. Then, when the Book of Mormon came, we were ready to receive it and its truths. The brethren gathered at our house to read it, and such days of rejoicing and thanksgiving I never saw before nor since. We were now ready for baptism, and on or about the 20th of August, 1831, were baptized.
"When we heard of the 'gathering,' we were ready for that also, and began preparations for the journey. On the 3d of July, 1832, we started for Jackson county, Mo., where we arrived some time in the latter part of December of the same year.
"Here we lived in peace, and enjoyed the blessings of our religion till the spring of 1833, when the mob came upon us, and shed its terror in our midst. The first attack was made upon Independence, about twelve miles from our place. The printing press was destroyed, and the type scattered in the streets. Other buildings, and their furniture, were destroyed; and Bishop Partridge was tarred and feathered. Next, we heard that the enemy had attacked our brethren in the woods about six miles distant. Then my husband was called upon to go and assist his brethren. He arrived on the field in the heat of the battle, and received fourteen bullet-holes in his garments, but received no wounds, save two very slight marks, one on the hip, the other on the arm.
"The mob was defeated, and my husband returned home for food. I gave it him, and bade him secrete himself immediately. He did so, and none too soon; for scarcely was he hidden, when the mob appeared. As soon as my husband was secreted I took my children and went to a neighbor's house, where the sisters were gathering for safety. About this time Sister Parley Pratt was being helped from a sick bed to this place of security, and the mob, seeing the sisters laboring to carry her, gave their assistance and carried her in. The mob then searched for fire-arms, but could find none.
"The brethren and the mob formed a treaty about this time, in which we agreed to abandon the country by a specified time. Immediately our people commenced moving across the Missouri river, into Clay county. The people of Clay county becoming alarmed at our numbers, and incited to malice by the people of Jackson county, cut away the boat before all our people had crossed, and thus compelled our family with some others to remain in Jackson county. There were nine families in all. And the mob came and drove us out into the prairie before the bayonet. It was in the cold, cheerless month of November, and our first night's camp was made the thirteenth of that month, so wide-famed as the night of falling stars. The next day we continued our journey, over cold, frozen, barren prairie ground, many of our party barefoot and stockingless, feet and legs bleeding. Mine was the only family whose feet were clothed, and that day, while alone, I asked the Lord what I should do, and his answer was: 'Divide among the sufferers, and thou shalt be repaid four-fold!' I then gave till I had given more than fifteen pairs of stockings. In three and a half days from the time of starting, we arrived at a grove of timber, near a small stream, where we encamped for the winter. From the time of our arrival till the following February we lived like saints.
"For awhile our men were permitted to return to the settlements in Jackson county, and haul away the provisions which they had left behind; but at last they would neither sell to us nor allow us any longer to return for our own provisions left behind.
"A meeting was held, and it was decided that but one thing was left to do, which was to return to Jackson county, to the place we had recently left from compulsion. This we did, and on the evening of February 20, 1834, soon after our arrival in the old deserted place, we had been to meeting and returned. It was about eleven o'clock at night, while we were comfortably seated around a blazing fire, built in an old-fashioned Dutch fireplace, when some one on going out discovered a crowd of men at a little distance from the house, on the hill. This alarmed the children, who ran out, leaving the door open. In a moment or two five armed men pushed their way into the house and presented their guns to my husband's breast, and demanded, 'Are you a Mormon?' My husband replied: 'I profess to belong to the Church of Christ.' They then asked if he had any arms, and on being told that he had not, one of them said: 'Now, d—n you, walk out doors!' My husband was standing up, and did not move.
"Seeing that he would not go, one of them laid down his gun, clutched a chair, and dealt a fierce blow at my husband's head; but fortunately the chair struck a beam overhead, which turned and partially stopped the force of the blow, and it fell upon the side of his head and shoulder with too little force to bring him down, yet enough to smash the chair in pieces upon the hearth. The fiend then caught another chair, with which he succeeded in knocking my husband down beneath the stairway. They then struck him several blows with a chair-post, upon the head, cutting four long gashes in the scalp. The infuriated men then took him by the feet and dragged him from the room. They raised him to his feet, and one of them, grasping a large boulder, hurled it with full force at his head; but he dropped his head enough to let the stone pass over, and it went against the house like a cannon ball. Several of them threw him into the air, and brought him, with all their might, at full length upon the ground. When he fell, one of them sprang upon his breast, and stamping with all his might, broke two of his ribs.