The people of Carlisle were bitter enemies of the Mormon Church, and a mob threatened to tar and feather me one night, when Armstrong took me home with him and protected me. He was not a believer in any religion, but I always considered him a high- minded, honorable man. I afterwards often stopped at the house.
His wife and sister Sarah were believers in the Mormon faith, but as Mr. Armstrong was not, I advised his wife not to become a member of the Church, and refused to baptize her until her husband would consent to it. Elder Smoot afterwards baptized Sarah Gibbons and Nancy Armstrong.
Brother Smoot had taken his wife with him on the mission, and she laid the plan to get Sarah to go to Nauvoo. A wagon was sent to take Sarah Gibbons' goods to Nauvoo, and in it Mrs. Armstrong sent her valuable clothing and jewelry, amounting to more than two thousand dollars. She intended to join the Saints at the first chance.
Within a few months after Sarah had gone Mrs. Armstrong got the consent of her husband to pay a visit to her sister and the Church at Nauvoo; he fitted her up in fine style, sending two serving maids to wait on her.
Soon after she left home the friends of Armstrong advised him to stop his slaves at St. Louis, if he wanted to keep them, for his wife would never return to him. Armstrong stopped the slaves, and his wife went on to Nauvoo, where she stayed until the Saints left that place after the death of the Prophet. Elder Smoot had planned to get Mrs. Armstrong to Nauvoo, so he could be sealed to her and get her property. Sarah Gibbons was sealed to Elder Smoot, but Mrs. Armstrong would not consent to take him as her husband; but she lived in the family until she got disgusted with Smoot's treatment of her sister. She loaned him nearly all her money and he never paid it back; he wanted the rest, but she refused to let him have it; he then declined to take her with him across the plains. She told her griefs to my wife Rachel, and Rachel brought about the marriage between her and myself.
Mrs. Armstrong told Rachel that I was the first man on earth to bring the gospel to her, and she had always had a great regard for me, but I appeared to treat her coldly. Rachel told her that I always spoke kindly of her, and the reason I had not been more friendly was because I thought she wanted to become a member of Brother Smoot's family; that she had heard me speak of her in terms of praise many times.
Finally she came to my house and I asked her, in the presence of my wives, to become a member of my family. My wives advised me to be sealed to her, and, as the matter was agreeable all round, I was. Brigham sealed her and the Young girls to me. She was a true, affectionate woman. My whole family respected her. She was forty-eight years of age when she was sealed to me, and remained a true wife until her death.
In matters of this kind I tried to act from principle and not from passion. Yet I do not pretend to say that all such acts wore directed by principle, for I know they were not. I am not blind to my own faults. I have been a proud man, and in my younger days I thought I was perfection. In those days, too, I expected perfection in all women. I know now that I was foolish in looking for that in anybody. I have, for slight offenses, turned away good-meaning young women who had been sealed to me; refused to hear their excuses, and sent them away heartbroken.
In this I did wrong. I have regretted the same in sorrow many years. Two of the young women so used still keep warm hearts for me, notwithstanding my conduct toward them. They were young and in the prime of life when I sent them from me. They have since married again, and are the mothers of families. They frequently send letters to comfort me in my troubles and afflictions, but their kind remembrances serve only to add to my self-reproach for my cruel treatment of them in past years. I banished them from me for lesser offenses than I myself had been guilty of.
Should my story ever fall into the hands of Emeline Woolsey or Polly Ann Workman, I wish them to know that, with my last breath, I asked God to pardon me for the wrong I did them, when I drove them from me - poor young girls as they were.