Chapter Five
1842
I stayed until fall before I left for Kentucky. I followed teaming through the summer, but I had a spell of the rheumatics that spring and suffered a great deal, but not so much as I used to before obeying the gospel. I had no farm then, so I teamed for one and another hauling up goods from the landing into the city. I left Nauvoo in September and started on my journey to see my friends. I found them all pretty well and bitterly opposed to the principles of the kingdom of God. Yes, they were blinder than ever to the truth of the work of God; they would not see themselves nor let anyone else see if they could help it; they were full of the devil and persecution. I also went and visited my friends in Tennessee, and found them bitter opponents against the Church. I bore my testimony to them and left—leaving them to meditate upon the words that I had spoken unto them.

I found my wife's sister who was deaf and dumb, Charity, still clinging to the kingdom of God, and wanting to go home with me to Nauvoo, but her brothers tried to stop her from going with me. My uncle, John Lowe, was the only one that treated me with kindness. He told me that he would do all he could for me, for I was going to take Charity home with me. Well, her brothers threatened to shoot me if I offered to take her away and her other sisters who were deaf and dumb cried and made so much to do; they were afraid that their brothers would kill me. I told them not to fear although I knew that I was in very close quarters. I got ready to go one morning the day before Christmas, and went down just after breakfast and got Charity and started and I never heard such mournful cries in my life before as the two sisters made when they had to part with their sister. I thought that they would go distracted, but we wished them goodbye and started on our journey to Nauvoo.

I called at my uncle's, John Lowe, as I passed and wished him goodbye. As it happened, Charity's brothers had gone down in the settlement to get a lot of fellows to help them run me off; they had gone while I started with Charity, and as providence willed it, after we had driven some two or three miles, we came to two roads and I did not know which to take, so I took the left hand road and drove on just as usual as if nothing was wrong, although I could not see any difference in the travel upon the roads, for one was traveled about as much as the other. Well, we travelled on and had no one to molest us in any way whatever.

Well, Charity's brothers came back to the house and found us gone; they were then so enraged that they went and got their horses and called upon their friends to help them bring back their sister that had been stolen from them by that damned Mormon devil. They jumped upon their horses and got their rifles and started after us as fast as their horses' legs could carry them, but the Lord was bound to foil them in their mad intentions, for they rode on until they came to the fork in the road; they then took the right hand road and travelled along at head long speed, while we took it easy and comfortable on our journey, so they got but little for their trouble. When they had ridden on for two or three hours they began to think that I had flown on the road with railroad speed, so they thought that it was no use going any further, for I had so much better horses than theirs to outrun them, so they thought surely that they would have caught us before that time, it being about mid-day. Well, they had to return home without us and we kept on our journey. The two sisters that were at home were glad when they heard that they had not found us for I really think that they would have taken Charity home and have killed me and buried me right there on the spot, but the Lord's protecting hand was over us and ever near to help or defend us from our enemies, and I felt to thank him for his mercy in delivering me out of their hands.

Well, we arrived home safely at Nauvoo and my wife was very glad to see her sister. There is one circumstance that I have missed putting down. In the summer before I went to Kentucky, Brother Joseph started with his wife, Emma, to visit her friends, and I expect some of the dissenters told some of the Missourians and a mob came over and put themselves up as officers of the peace to take him to Missouri and make away with him. They were going to Stone River to see her friends and on the way they waylaid him and took him prisoner, and Emma did not know what to do, so she started back again to Nauvoo. Now these Missourians took him to a house belonging to an old man and asked him if he would let them have a room to put their prisoner. Now while they were going and after they had gotten there, there was a fellow with a revolver pointing it to Joseph's ribs, and once in a while he would give him a poke with it, until he had taken the skin off in more than one or two places. Well, the old man heard by some of his folks that they had ill-treated their prisoner so he thought that he would go and see the prisoner, so he went to the door and it was fastened so that he could not get in. They were counseling together what they would do with him. I expect the old man demanded admittance, but they would not let him in, so he told them that he was coming in, or would set fire to the place and burn them up, but what would go in, so they let him in.

"A pretty thing," said he, "to keep a man out of his own house when he had kindly let you have a room to secure your prisoner in." So he asked Joseph whether he had been ill-treated. Joseph opened his shirt bosom and showed him his side which was then bleeding, and said, "If you call that ill treatment, why I have been ill treated." The old man looked and said, "Who did it?" and Joseph said his captors. The old man said, "Gentlemen, you have abused this man shamefully and I tell you, you can't do such things in my house, and I tell you how we serve folks that don't go by the laws of the Constitution of the United States. We just take them by lynch law, and I can tell you that you must not abuse a prisoner in this part of the state or you will be very apt to know of it." He then asked Joseph whether he had had anything to eat. He said that he had not. "Why," said the old man, "these other men have had something to eat, why did you not get some?" "Because," said Joseph, "they would not give me any." "Never mind, you shall have some." "Oh," said they, "he is only a damned Mormon." "Well," said the old man, "Mormon or no Mormon, he is a man and a citizen of the United States and he has got to have justice and he is going to have it so long as he stays with me." They then growled about something, but the old man went off to get something to eat for Joseph. He gave him something good to eat and told him that he should have a bed to sleep upon, but that those other fellers would have to find their own for they should not sleep with him.

Joseph told him about Emma's going back to Nauvoo and that he expected someone would be along to help him out of the difficulty. The old man then told Joseph that he would keep him there until some of his friends should come to his assistance. His treatment to Joseph was very kind. If it had not been for him, I don't know how Brother Joseph would have fared, but the Lord was his guardian angel and he would just let things go so far and no further. He softened the old man's heart so that he should have justice done him, and to bring about his purposes.

Well, at this time Emma had gone back to Nauvoo and told the brethren that Brother Joseph had been taken by a mob. I, at that time, had been ordained one of Joseph's lifeguards, so some thirty of the brethren with myself started to go to Brother Joseph and rescue him from the bloodthirsty wretches if we could. It took us some time for we did not get on the right track for awhile. Well, we met them coming back. The old man had gone and gotten some of his friends and taken Brother Joseph and started to Nauvoo with him. The mob was taken also and brought with him, except two or three, those who abused Brother Joseph so mean; they went home the next day fearing, I expect that the old man would bring his threats into realities, so they put for home.

Now we met Brother Joseph and his escort and we had not been with him more than half an hour when about three hundred of the brethren came up all mounted and ready for anything that might transpire. The old man gave up Joseph after his thanking him for his hospitality and kindness to him. The brethren took the mob prisoners and the old man and his friends wished us good day and started for home. And we started for home, too. Sister Emma sent Joseph out some clean clothes, but Joseph and his brethren were as dirty as he and he was not going in clean and his brethren dirty, the dust upon the road then was four or five inches deep. The folks all heard of our arrival home and they all came out and lined the street on both sides. Brother Joseph was first and then Brother Hodge and myself, his lifeguards and then came the officers that took him prisoner, and then the rest of the brethren. The folks, both men and women and children, were glad to see their leader again, and out of the hands of murderers; they took off their hats and bonnets and ushered him all the way up the street. Brother Joseph took off his hat and looked around upon the people and shouted, "Hosannah to God." The officers said that the people thought a good deal of him. "Yes," said Brother Joseph, "they are the best people in the world."

I went home with Brother Joseph to the mansion house and saw the prisoners safely under guard. They did not know what to think; they thought that they were about done for; they thought that they would be killed; they took their trial, but Brother Joseph did not want to hurt them at all, so he let them go home and told them in the future to do unto others as they would that others should do unto them. They looked very sheepish; they went home and left us once more to ourselves, but there were lots of apostates there so that Brother Joseph could hardly not make a move without its going abroad to the mobs. There was a widow woman who lived close to us who had her husband die. She had been kept by the bishop of the ward and some of the neighbors. My wife used to take her quantities of food. So one night when I was gone out, one of the sisters that lived close by went to her house and she would not let her in. She asked her the reason. She said that she had company and she would open to the door to nobody. So the sister came to our house and my wife told her that she had thought for several months that she kept company with those she ought not to, so they agreed to go to Sister Chapman and Sister Louis [Lewis?] and get them to go up there and ask her the reason that she acted so and would not open the door to the sister who had treated her with so much kindness. So they went and asked her and she said that it was none of their business. "Well," they said, "I don't see the reason why you cannot let us in." She was looking over the door; there was a space above the door and she said that she had company and she would not let us in. They then spoke up and said, "Well, I would be ashamed if I had a nigger in the house with me," and every taunting words that they could to induce her to open the door, but she would not; so they went home.

So the next day an officer came to take the women before the justice of the peace to answer for what they had done to the poor widow. Well, the justice bound them over to keep the peace under five hundred dollars bonds. There were two brethren there that went their security and the women were set at liberty. They were very frightened at first, not knowing what they were brought up to court for. After that the sisters held a relief society meeting and Brother Joseph came along and asked the sisters if they had been hurt. They told him they guessed not. "Well," he said, "I want you to look after that woman more closely than you have ever done before and I shall take care that the bishop does not feed her anymore." Well, one of the sisters wanted to go and see her one morning and there being no smoke coming out of the chimney, she thought that she was not up and did not like to go, so my wife went with her, and they found the house empty and the bird flown away, and we never heard of her since. The sisters thought that would be the end of her, that some time she would come up missing. There were several such persons in Nauvoo and always will be, for the net gathers all kinds of fish, and there is bound to be some that are no account and of no use.

Things prospered with the Saints all over the city and the city still improved and looked well. I was called with Brother Louis [David Lewis?] to go on a mission into Illinois to preach the gospel to the people. We started in 1843 in July, but we did not have much success. We gathered out some few honest in heart, but the most of the folks were very bitter against us, and they were getting worse every day and were persecuting the Saints more and more; they were not so kind as they were when we first went there. The kindness dwindled away until it became hatred, and a Saint was an obnoxious thing in their sight. Well, we asked no odds of them if they would only leave us alone. We had brought them the word of life and salvation, and they could please themselves either to obey the commandments of God or let them alone. We fulfilled our mission by the help of God and returned home early in the spring of 1844. My wife bore me another son on the 28th of February. We named him after myself, John Lowe.