After they left Joseph, he attempted to rise, but fell back again from pain and exhaustion. He succeeded, however, in tearing the tar away from his face so that he could breathe freely, and shortly afterward he began to recover. Arising, he made his way toward a light and found that it was from the house of Father Johnson where he lived. Emma saw his bruised form covered with tar, and thinking him to be fatally mangled she screamed and fainted.
Securing some covering for his person, the Prophet entered the house, and spent the night in cleansing his body and dressing his wounds.
Before making the assault upon Joseph, the mob had locked Father Johnson in his room. He had called for his wife to bring his gun, saying that he would blow a hole through the door, and at this the mob fled. As soon as he could force an egress, Father Johnson rushed from the house, seizing a club as he ran. He overtook the party which had captured Sidney Rigdon, and knocked one man down, and was about to smite another to the earth, when the mob deserted their first victim to attack the heroic old man. This diversion saved Sidney only for a brief time. The mob soon returned to him and inflicted serious pain and indignity upon him. They dragged him by his heels and left his head to strike upon the rough and frozen ground. By such barbarous treatment his scalp was lacerated and his body bruised, and he was driven into a delirium.
The next morning, being the Sabbath, the people assembled at the usual hour of worship. With them came some of the mobbers, Simonds Rider, an apostate and Campbellite preacher, leader of the mob; one McClentic, son of a Campbellite minister; and Pelatiah Allen, Esq., who had given the mob a barrel of whisky to fill them with the devilish daring necessary for their crime. Many others of the mob were also in attendance.
With his flesh all bruised and scarred, Joseph went to the meeting and stood before the congregation, facing his assailants of the previous night calmly and manfully. He preached a powerful sermon and on the same day baptized three believers into the Church.
This mob was chiefly composed of religious men, principally sanctimonious Campbellites, Methodists and Baptists, besides several apostates from the Church. They continued to watch the house of Father Johnson, and even the death of one of the helpless little children, which occurred on the Friday following from the exposures of the night of the attack, could not dissuade the demoniac men from their purpose. Indeed, the death of this poor little infant seemed to act upon them like a taste of blood upon a tiger. It drove them to a murderous frenzy. The spirit of mobocracy spread through all that region of country and was particularly fierce at Kirtland. Sidney Rigdon fled to the latter city from Hiram, taking his sick family; but after a brief rest was compelled again to flee and went to Chardon. The Prophet himself remained in Hiram during another week.
CHAPTER XXI.
DEPARTURE OF THE PROPHET FROM HIRAM FOR THE CONSECRATED LAND IN MISSOURI—ACCEPTED AS THE PRESIDENT OF THE HIGH PRIESTHOOD—RETURNING FROM ZION, AN ATTEMPT IS MADE TO POISON HIM—SAVED UNDER BISHOP WHITNEY'S ADMINISTRATION.
On the 2nd day of April, 1832, Joseph started from Hiram for Missouri. He was carried by Elder George Pitkin in the latter's wagon to Stubenville, whence the Prophet and Sidney, who had joined him in the meantime, took passage on Wednesday, the 5th of April, 1832, on board a steamboat for Wheeling, then in the state of Virginia.
After departing from Hiram, Joseph directed his wife to go to Kirtland and await his return; and this she did, finding help and consolation with his friends.