A Resident of the Rich Branch on Log Creek in 1837-1838
This fall and winter I was afflicted with a breast complaint--fever sores and a breaking out on my body so I was unable to work at all. My mind was also greatly troubled, for I had become satisfied of the truth of the gospel and wished to embrace it, but still lingered back and had not courage to go forward and be baptized until on the 22nd day of April, 1838, I and Thomas Rich were baptized by the hand of Charles C. Rich.
It seemed to me that I could almost walk and not touch the ground. I was baptized in Lost Creek, five miles south of Far West. Soon after that I had the elders to anoint me and I was healed of both my breast complaint and fever sores, after the bone had been naked all winter on my leg, etc. I had breaking out on my body in consequence of change of climate and water, which was also healed. Hosea [Stout] and I then rented 15 acres of ground and planted it in corn,
pumpkins, melons, etc. Hosea had some of his own land in cultivation. We spent this summer in tending to our business until crops were laid by, but about that time the Johnson's, Whitmer's, and some other apostates began to go off and swear everything they could against Joseph Smith, and all the heads of the Church. They swore to some lies and some truths which were calculated to excite the Gentiles against us insomuch that mobs began to rise and commit depredations until we were forced to resort to arms in order to save ourselves and property.
The Church was organized under captains tens, fifties, one hundreds, and one thousands. This made the inhabitants mad to see us making ready to defend ourselves. They called our organization the Danite band. I belonged to the third fifty led by Reynolds Cahoon.
On the 4th of July [1838], Sidney Rigdon delivered his declaration of independence, which enraged the mob worse than ever, so that by fall the whole country was under arms. Benjamin Jones took a job of building a warehouse for Mr. Pomeroy, and I went and cooked for his hands one month, but the excitement got so high that some of the inhabitants of Richmond came down to where we were at work to whip us. There came eight men down to whip three of us, and when they came, I was off from our camp on business, and old man Knapp got drunk as soon as they came, so Brother Jones was all alone, and as soon as they made their business known, Jones pulled up a stake out of the ground and bid them come on, but none of them dared to touch him. As soon as I came, Jones told me what had happened. Now, we had our wagon loaded up ready to go home, but we stayed until near night just to let them see that we were not afraid of them. In the afternoon, as we went home, one of them waylaid us to shoot us, but the sheriff found it out and made him come away before we came on.
We went into Richmond and I went to a store to get a wedding dress for my sister Lydia, and the mob was there threatening me on every side, but I did not notice them. We then went on two miles and stayed all night. The next morning we set out for home and got there about three o'clock p.m. and that night there was a call made for men to go and retake some prisoners from Captain Bogart, so Jones and Hosea went, but I had no arms nor saddle, so I could not go, but next morning I heard that the brethren had had a fight with Bogart and retook the prisoners, but David W. Patten, Gideon Carter, and Patterson [Patrick ?] O'Banion were slain in the fight. I helped to tend on Patten while he was dying.
The Church in that settlement all went into Far West that day because Sampson Avard told them that the mob would be upon them by night and kill them, but the mob fled as fast the other way, and one John Estes, went to Richmond and swore that the Mormons had fallen on Captain Bogart and killed all of his men, but him, and that they were ravaging the country, upon which testimony the governor issued his extermination orders.
Brief Resident of Rich Branch on Log Creek
Autobiography of Julia Ives Pack in Kate B. Carter, comp., Our Pioneer Heritage, 9 (1966)
About the first of September the mob began to gather against the Mormons, made attacks on them, burning houses in some places. We moved into Far West and stayed there until Brigadier General Parks and Mr. Donovan came on the scene and dispersed the mob and sent them home. We went back to our home. Shortly after, a company of immigrants came, bringing word that Levi Wood, husband of Phoebe Pack, my husband's sister, had died at Huntsville, Missouri, and that she was very sick, unto death. My husband and I started next day to go and look after them. Our first day's journey took us within five miles of Grand River Ferry. We stopped all night at a neighbor's house. There was but one room in the house, and the landlady made us a bed on the floor. About the middle of the night, the man of the house came home, complained of being very tired and that he had not had his boots off for several nights.
He had been in the mob camp that was gathered against the Saints at Dewitt on the Missouri River. We started on our journey the next morning and were nearly to the ferry when a company of armed men, about thirty in number, met us. About half of them had passed when the head man wheeled about, rode up to our wagon, and asked if we were Mormons. My husband told him we were, and he told us we would have to go with them to their camp. He ordered us to wheel about. They took us about five miles across a new rough road to their camp. The leader of the gang came up to our wagon and ordered my husband to take his valise and follow them, saying, "We take you for a spy." He said to me, "You can bid your husband goodbye. You will never see him again. You can go to that house," pointing to a log house across the hollow.
I told him I would not go one inch, I said, "If my husband dies, I will die with him." I put my foot on the wheel of the wagon to jump to the ground when my husband took hold of my hand and whispered to me: "You stay with the wagon and take care of the horses, I am not afraid of them and will be back soon."
They took him through a patch of hazel brush to an open space covered with grass. Sachel Woods, a Methodist minister said: "Here will be your grave, we are going to kill you unless you will deny Joe Smith." My husband said: "Joseph Smith is a Prophet of God. You profess to be a preacher of righteousness and so do I. I'll meet you at the day of judgment."
There were five or six of them. They talked around inquiring who would shoot him, but none seemed really willing to do the deed. Finally a man standing by our wagon called out--"Let that damned Mormon go." Soon they came back with him, ordered him back into his wagon, saying if we were ever seen in that country again, it would be at the peril of our lives. They sent the same company back with us to the ferry and saw us across the river. We went on to our sister at Huntsville and found her very sick. She was completely salivated with calomel and was near her death. We stayed two weeks and did all we could for her, then put a bed in our wagon and placed her on it with her little child six months old. We left the three older children with a Mormon family, Amos Herrick. We started on our journey home and got as far as Carlton, a small town forty miles from our home. At a grog shop in this town were several of the mob that took us prisoners. They knew us and said: "There are the ones we took prisoners. Let us go for Sachel Woods." A man jumped on his horse and went full speed for somewhere. We went a short distance through a piece of timber, then left the road and started for home across the prairie. Two or three times during the night we came to deep narrow gullies cut by the storms in the rich soil. My husband would unhitch the horses, get them over, then we would draw the wagon over by hand, it being a light wagon something like the delivery wagons we have now. We reached our home shortly after daybreak and found my husband's brother, Rufus Pack, there sick with chills and fever. The mob had returned and were annoying the Saints, driving them out of their homes and burning their dwellings.
My husband's father was taken sick a few days after. He died. Next day we took him to Far West, held the funeral and returned home the same day, and stayed up all night, loaded our wagons with what we could, and started to Far West. The next day when we reached there, my husband bought some logs for a house, laid them up and chinked the cracks with wood without plastering it, and we moved into it. It was the last house of the city towards Goose Creek. There were twenty of us in this one cold room. The mob came against Far West. Our leading men, the Prophet and others, were delivered up to them and our city was surrounded by the mob guard. Two of them stood in front of our door for weeks.
William Bosley and Eleanor Pack, his wife, were with us. She is my husband's sister. He was in the Crooked River Battle when David Patten was killed. The mob was after all who were in that battle to take them prisoners. William came to my husband saying: "I can never get away unless you help me." They started out, got past the guard and went to Huntsville. My husband was gone two weeks. During his absence we got out of flour. We had a log set on end with a mortar in the top to hold the grain, a spring pole with a wedge in the end to grind the corn. Of this we made bread. During these two weeks, Rufus' wife was taken sick. I went to Parley Pratt's home, a small room he had put up for his stable in which his family was living, and asked permission of his wife who was in her bed sick with one of her children by her side, to bring our sister there for her confinement. There was a small place at the foot of her bed where I made a bed for our sister. She was lying in this bed when Parley Pratt came to bid his wife and family goodbye before going to prison, he being guarded by two men while doing so.
There came a severe snowstorm, after our men had given up their firearms and signed a paper at the point of a bayonet to give up all of their property to pay the expenses of driving us out of the state which we had to leave before the last of April 1838 or be exterminated. After the mob went home, we moved out on Log Creek, six miles from Far West. My mother, Lucy Ives, was with us. We stayed there until the 8th of February 1839.