A HEROINE OF HAUN'S MILL MASSACRE.
A NOBLE WOMAN'S EXPERIENCE.
CHAPTER I.
Hyrum Smith, the Patriarch, married Jerusha Barden, November 2, 1826. They had six children, viz: Lovina, Mary, John, Hyrum, Jerusha and Sarah. Mary died when very young, and her mother died soon after the birth of her daughter, Sarah. Hyrum, the second son, died in Nauvoo, in 1842, aged eight years. The Patriarch married his second wife, Mary Fielding, in the year 1837, she entering upon the important duty of stepmother to five children, which task she performed, under the most trying and afflictive circumstances, with unwavering fidelity. She had two children, Joseph and Martha. Thus, you see, Hyrum Smith, the Patriarch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was really a polygamist many years before the revelation on celestial marriage was written, though, perhaps, about the time it was given to the Prophet Joseph Smith; but not exactly in the sense in which the word is generally used, for both his wives were not living together on the earth; still they were both alive, for the spirit never dies, and they were both his wives—the mothers of his children. Marriage is ordained of God, and when performed by the authority of His Priesthood, is an ordinance of the everlasting gospel and is not, therefore, merely a legal contract, but pertains to time and all eternity to come, therefore it is written in the Bible, "What God hath joined together let no man put asunder."
There are a great many men who feel very bitter against the Latter-day Saints, and especially against the doctrine of plural marriage, who have married one or more wives after the death of their first, that, had their marriages been solemnized in the manner God has prescribed and by His authority, they themselves would be polygamists, for they, as we, firmly believe in the immortality of the soul, professing to be Christians and looking forward to the time when they will meet, in the spirit world, their wives and the loved ones that are dead. We can imagine the awkward situation of a man, not believing in polygamy, meeting two or more wives, with their children, in the spirit world, each of them claiming him as husband and father. "But," says one, "how will it be with a woman who marries another husband after the death of her first?" She will be the wife of the one to whom she was married for time and eternity. But if God did not "join them together," and they were only married by mutual consent until death parted them, their contract, or partnership ends with death, and there remains but one way for those who died without the knowledge of the gospel to be united together for eternity. That is, for their living relatives or friends to attend to the ordinances of the gospel for them. "For, in the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage;" therefore marriage ordinances must be attended to here in the flesh. Hyrum Smith, however, was a polygamist before his death, he having had several women sealed to him by his brother, Joseph, some of whom are now living.
At the death of the Patriarch, June 27th, 1844, the care of the family fell upon his widow, Mary Smith. Besides the children there were two old ladies named respectively, Hannah Grinnels, who had been in the family many years, and Margaret Brysen. There was also a younger one, named Jane Wilson, who was troubled with fits and otherwise afflicted, and was, therefore, very dependent, and an old man, named George Mills, who had also been in the family eleven years, and was almost entirely blind and very crabbed. These and others, some of whom had been taken care of by the Patriarch out of charity, were members of the family and remained with them until after they arrived in the valley. "Old George," as he was sometimes called, had been a soldier in the British army, had never learned to read or write, and often acted upon impulse more than from the promptings of reason, which made it difficult, sometimes, to get along with him; but because he had been in the family so long—through the troubles of Missouri and Illinois—and had lost his eye-sight from the effects of brain fever and inflammation, caused by taking cold while in the pineries getting out timbers for the temple at Nauvoo, Widow Smith bore patiently all his peculiarities up to the time of her death. Besides those I have mentioned, Mercy R. Thompson, sister to Widow Smith, and her daughter, and Elder James Lawson were also members of the family.
On or about the 8th of September, 1846, the family, with others, were driven out of Nauvoo by the threats of the mob, and encamped on the banks of the Mississippi River, just below Montrose. There they were compelled to remain two or three days, in view of their comfortable homes just across the river, unable to travel for the want of teams, while the men were preparing to defend the city against the attack of the mob. They were thus under the necessity of witnessing the commencement of the memorable "Battle of Nauvoo;" but, before the cannonading ceased, they succeeded in moving out a few miles, away from the dreadful sound of it, where they remained until they obtained, by the change of property at a great sacrifice, teams and an outfit for the journey through Iowa to the Winter Quarters of the Saints, now Florence, Nebraska. Arriving at that point late in the Fall, they were obliged to turn out their work animals to pick their living through the Winter, during which some of their cattle, and eleven out of their thirteen horses died, leaving them very destitute of teams in the Spring.