My sister was a young woman of excellent mind and character. Having a good common education, she had for some years taught our district summer school, and, being religiously inclined, had joined the Freewill Baptist church. Like my mother, who was also a religious woman, she was not only respected, but was beloved by all who knew her. But, although she had obeyed the gospel, the time had not come for her release from her crutches by the healing power of God. The wicked were seeking it for a sign, as in the days of our Savior, when they followed Him even to His crucifixion, demanding that He come down from the cross, as a sign, to prove to them that He was the Son of God; yet no sign was given except that of their overthrow and destruction.
After a few weeks of successful preaching and baptizing, Elder Brackinbury was taken violently sick, and, within a few days, died of the bilious cholic.
To us, then young and inexperienced members of the Church, his death came as a trial to our faith, as well as a very great grief. To think that so good a man, in such a field of useful labor, and far away from his home and family, should be permitted to die, and that too so suddenly, was naturally a test to the faith and integrity of so young a branch.
Although the grave had closed over his body and we were in deep sorrow, our enemies were not satisfied, for while we were assembled in the evening after his burial, to talk and pray and mourn together, the spirit of revelation said to my brother David that they were then digging up the body of Brother Brackinbury for dissection.
My brothers with others quickly started, and proceeding rapidly to the grave about one mile away, found three men there who had unearthed the coffin and were just dragging the corpse from under its lid. As our party approached they sprang out of the grave and fled.
David, then a stripling of about twenty years, pursued them, and like a young lion, grappled with, captured and brought back as a prisoner one of the most powerful young men of the country—not only much older but nearly double his size—a student of medicine in our native town.
The prisoner was afterwards committed by a magistrate, and put under bonds to appear at his trial.
These, with other unhappy events, caused us to desire to leave our native place and gather with the Saints at Kirtland, which we did in the spring of 1833. In the summer of that same year it was proposed to build the Kirtland Temple, and as it was designed at first to build it of brick, my three eldest brothers, with those of us who were younger, engaged in making the brick for that purpose; and there brother David, who was then about twenty-two years of age, became a martyr to the great and good cause. Through his ambition to perform more labor than he was able to endure, and by over-exertion in procuring the wood, he bled at the lungs and died the same fall. He bore a faithful testimony of the gospel being again revealed, and spoke with the gift of tongues with his latest breath, which was interpreted by Don Carlos Smith, the Prophet's brother, who was present at the time.
About this time the Spirit of the Lord seemed to be poured out upon the Saints in Kirtland. There families often met together to "speak of the Lord," and the gifts of the gospel were enjoyed in rich abundance. As yet my sister Nancy had never, since her hip had been broken, taken one step unaided by her crutches; but the time had now come for her release.
She was commanded by Elder Jared Carter—then a man of mighty faith—to arise, leave her crutches and walk.