Hyrum Smith, the Patriarch, told me that he would give the Patriarchal Blessing to any that labored on the foundation of the building. The Seventies numbered about four hundred and ninety men. I was to create the material. That is, when I could get a contract to take lumber from the river, as rafts would land at the city, I would take common laboring men, and the portion of the lumber that we got for our pay we piled up for the building. In this way we got all the lumber needed. The bricks we made ourselves, and boated the wood to burn them and our lime from the island.
In the month of March, 1844, we had the building up on the west side nearly two stories high. One day when the wall was built up nine feet high and forty-five feet long, and was, of course, green, a tornado blew the wall down, breaking columns and joists below, doing a damage of several thousand dollars. I was inclined to be down in the lip, but Brigham laughed at me, and said it was the best omen in the world; it showed that the devil was mad, knowing that the Seventy would receive the blessings of God in that house; since they were to be special witnesses to the nations of the earth, they would make his kingdom quake and tremble. Brigham reminded me that when Noah was building the ark he was mobbed three times; but he persevered, and finally his tormentors said:
"Let the old fool alone, and see what he will accomplish."
"Just so with you," concluded Brigham. "Double your diligence and put her up again. If you do not you will lose many a blessing."
After that I went to work with as many men as could labor to advantage. We threw the wall down flat, and commenced a new one, another brick thicker than the former. I borrowed fifty thousand brick, and made them and returned them when the weather was fine. By the 1st of May we had the Hall closed in.
During the winter Joseph the Prophet set a man by the name of Sidney Hay Jacobs to select from the Old Bible such scriptures as pertained to polygamy, or celestial marriage, with instructions to write it in pamphlet form. This he did as a feeler among the people, to pave the way for celestial marriage. Like all other novelties, it met with opposition, though a few favored it.
The excitement among the people became so great that the subject was laid before the Prophet. No one was more opposed to it than was his brother Hyrum, who condemned it as from beneath. Joseph saw that it would break up the Church should he sanction it, so he denounced the pamphlet through the Wasp, a newspaper published at Nauvoo, as a bundle of nonsense and trash. He said that if he had known its contents he would never have permitted it to be published.
At the same time other leading men were advocating it on their own responsibility. The advocacy of polygamy by these leaders pleased the Prophet Joseph, albeit for policy's sake he pretended otherwise. Joseph said on the stand that, should he reveal the will of God concerning them, they - pointing to President W. Marks, P. P. Pratt, and others - would shed his blood. In this way he worked upon the feelings and minds of the people, until they feared that the anger of the Lord would be kindled against them, and they insisted upon knowing the will of Heaven concerning plural wives.
The Prophet Joseph anxiously desired polygamy, but he dared not proclaim it, so it was taught confidentially to such as were strong enough in the faith to take the forward step. About the same time the doctrine of "sealing" for an eternal state was introduced. Also the Saints were given to understand that their marriage relations with each other were not valid, and that those who had solemnized the rites of matrimony had no authority of God to do so. The true priesthood had been taken from the earth with the death of the apostles and inspired men of God. Since then people were married to each other only by their own covenants, and if their marriage had not been productive of blessings and peace, and they felt it oppressive to remain together, they were at liberty to make a new choice, as much as if they had not been married. The Prophet taught that it was a sin for people to live together and beget children in alienation from each other. There should exist an affinity between the sexes, not a lustful one, as the latter can never cement the love and affection that should exist between man and wife.
Perhaps I should mention that Orson Hyde and W. W. Phelps turned against Joseph in Missouri, and forsook him in time of peril and danger and testified against him in the courts. After the troubles were over, and Joseph was again in place in the midst of the Saints, they both wished to be restored to fellowship and standing in the Church, confessing their faults. Joseph laid the case before the Church, and said that if God could forgive them he ought to, and would do so, and give them another chance. With tears he moved that we forgive and receive them back into fellowship. He then sent Elder Hyde to the land of Palestine, to dedicate that land for the gathering of the Jews. Also Hyde's wife, with his consent, was sealed to Joseph for an eternal state. Brigham's wife was likewise sealed to Joseph. Shortly before the death of Joseph Brigham told me that Joseph's time on earth was short, and that the Lord allowed him privileges that we could not have.