Joseph was overcome. He arose to his feet to speak,

but it was with difficulty that he controlled his emotions

to look upon the Saints who had been driven from their homes and scattered as they were among strangers, without homes,

robbed of everything. He could scarcely refrain from weeping.

He then opened the meeting with prayer.

Next on the Joseph Smith Papers,

the Mormon exodus from Missouri and Joseph Smith’s escape.

Refuge in Quincy.

KJZZ television, in cooperation with the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, presents this weekly series highlighting the research of scholars and historians as they prepare for the publication of the Joseph Smith Papers. And now your host, Glenn Rawson.

On the morning of October 31, 1838,

General Samuel D. Lucas of the Missouri state militia, along with twenty five hundred state troops,

surrounded the Mormon settlement of Far West.

Now, at first, the Mormons were determined to fight.

But when Joseph Smith learned at that time of the slaughter of Haun’s Mill and also saw the force of the militia, he knew that any resistance would provoke bloodshed.

Just prior to the surrender

made by Hinkel and the others to the Missouri militia,

Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and other Mormon leaders advised

the members who had participated —the Church members who had participated—in the Battle of Crooked River

that they better get out of town and get out of town quick —out of Far West—

because they had learned that the Crooked River battle had been engaged against state militia.

And if prosecuted, these men could face severe repercussions.

They fled that day. They actually went in two groups. But the ones that did go went north to Adam-ondi-Ahman,

about 23 miles north.

And then from there, they made their way up through northern Missouri to southern Iowa, and then they headed east.

Joseph Smith and the other leaders were arrested on the evening of October 31, 1838.

The next day, General Lucas issued the terms of surrender to the Mormons.

Number one was that the Mormons must give up their leaders,

or those who the state officials believe perpetrated the problems in Missouri

—including Joseph Smith and the First Presidency and so on.

Second provision was that they must turn over their arms:

pistols, swords, rifles, all of that.

The third provision was that they sign over their lands as an agreement for payment of the— for the cost of the war.

And the fourth one was that they must leave the state.

When General John B. Clarke arrived on the outskirts of Far West to take over the command of the operation of the surrender of the Mormons,

he releases or discharges most of

Lucas’s man and takes over with his 1,600-force men

to kind of oversee what we would call

a military occupation of what is now a conquered enemy—the Mormons.

They really do treat them like a conquered enemy.

They, they plunder. They pillage.

They wanted to make sure all the Mormons gave up their arms, so they go into their homes, and they search them.

They take things: saddles, bridles, jewelry, clothing, bedding.

After all, they’re an enemy. “We’ve conquered them. What they have is now ours.”

While most of the Crooked River men fled north to safety,

the rest of the Mormons came in from all over Missouri into Far West, virtually turning the city into a refugee camp.

Now, the situation is in Caldwell County

that you have a small city of Far West that maybe, in the surrounding areas and itself,

housed up to 3,000 people.

And we find evidence that there were maybe another 3,000 or so refugees that came in—homeless.

Without their property into this, this pool, the housing becomes

makeshift.

Some families— Like a tent city. —Some, some families use their wagon boxes, took the wagons, off the wheels, you know, and put the box on the ground and have the covered wagon as their home. Some had tents, some had huts,

and a lot moved in with people that had small cabins.

But it was a crowded situation.

And Mother Smith, she allowed her yard to become a campground for the needy.

She said, “There was an acre of ground in front of our house completely covered with beds,

lying in the open sun, where families were compelled to sleep, exposed to all kinds of weather.

These were the last who came into the city, and as the houses were all full, they could not find a shelter.

It was enough to make the heart ache to see the children

sick with colds, and crying around their mothers for food,

while their parents were destitute of means of making them comfortable.

The extermination order mandated unequivocally that the Mormons had to leave.

And General Clark of the militia was determined to carry out the governor’s order. The Mormons had to leave.

But where in the face of winter could they go?

The Mormons had no place to go. Where do they go?

They certainly have to leave the state.

So they’re not going to go south into Arkansas or further into southern territory .

They can't go back to Kirtland or Ohio.

The move has to be not that far away. We can't move west.

Those are Indian lands, and there’s no big push for the far West until the 1840s.

News had reached Quincy that the Mormons had had this terrible kind of action taken against them.

And the citizens of Quincy began to say, “Why don’t you come here, at least temporarily?”

It was seen as an advantage to the community:

they would provide a workforce— a temporary workforce.

They had compassion. They were, they were willing to, to harbor the Mormons for a period of time until the Mormons could find a place where they could be— where they could gather.

Now with a place to go,

most of the Saints trekked east toward the Mississippi

and Quincy, Illinois, in January through March of 1839.

Quincy was a substantial Mississippi River community in Adams County, Illinois.

Why, why winter? One reason was that Joseph Smith would never be released from prison until the Saints were out of Missouri,

and they felt urgency then to help the prophet get free.

That was part of it.

Part of it was that

some families knew they were running out of resources

or didn’t have resources and figured, if somebody is going,

I’ll go with them, sort of thing.

We have a break in the weather in February that makes people think this would be a good time to go, and then as soon as they take off, the weather tanks,

and they get caught in snow and mud and rain and so on.

And I think the expectation was probably twofold: Number one, “Let’s leave as soon as we can.”

For most, that was February. February and early March.

“We’ll get to Quincy— hopefully just have a temporary location— settlement there.

But we’ve got to get up to Commerce or up to

the final area of settlement in spring to get crops.”

There were different routes the Saints took in leaving Missouri.

According to the 1840 maps that I've looked at, there were two basic roads,

or road systems, that they could have taken.

And the accounts that I’ve read show that they used both.

The northern route was more direct, less settled.

And it was a route that the committee for removal I’ll talk about in a second

set aside corn and tried to have some firewood for the people as they crossed. Now, how far do you have to go? It's 200 miles.

From Far West to Quincy?

Yes. And it takes average 10 days. The middle route, I call it, was a little better in terms of civilization if you needed to trade for food or trade for oxen or something along the way. Mm hmm.

Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball,

two members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, somehow escaped the sweep that saw 67 other Mormon men arrested and taken to Richmond.

Now, with Joseph and the First Presidency in jail,

Brigham and Heber, with others, led the Mormons out of Missouri.

You know, went camp by camp and town by town and surveyed how many people needed help.

Then they surveyed what resources they had available,

and then they tried to raise resources to help those people, and so on. On January 29th,

Brigham Young introduced a resolution, quote, “that we this day enter into a Covenant to stand by, and assist each other to the utmost of our abilities in removing from this State,

and that we will never desert the poor, who are worthy until they shall be out of the reach of the exterminating order of

General Clark, acting for, and in the name of the State.”

And then we have 380 names signed to the covenant.

And we find many accounts of people who went over to Quincy—the ten days—

gave up their wagons at the river’s edge

so we could go back— They brought the wagons back. —and bring people out while these people waited for the ferry boats or whatever crossing they could do to get into Quincy.

It was not an easy crossing.

The following represents some of the experiences of the Mormons as they left Missouri for Quincy.

Levi Hancock built a cart—built a cart, he didn’t have a wagon.

Not everybody has a wagon. Right.

Built a cart, filled it with corn, put a little girl in it.

Then the mother walked carrying a little boy.

And then Mosiah Hancock, who was a kid,

about eight or so, was barefooted.

And he followed in his mother's tracks as they crossed Missouri.

He says—they camped by the river—

he says, “The next morning the river was frozen over with ice—great blocks

of frozen ice all over the river, and it was slick and clear.

That morning, we crossed over to Quincy.

I, being barefooted, and the ice so rough, I staggered all over.

We finally got across, and we were—and we were so glad,

for before we reached the other side, the river started to swell and break up.

Father said, ‘Run, Mosiah!’ And I did run.

We all just made it to the opposite bank when the ice started to snap and pile up in great heaps, and the water broke through.” February. We have Emma Smith. February, we have Emma Smith.

Emma was the first one that this committee for removal assisted.

They assigned Stephen Markham to be in charge of getting Emma to Quincy. One of Joseph’s bodyguards. Yeah. And so Emma leaves on February the 7th.

The weather turns bad, the Mississippi is filled with ice.

So she wants to cross the river on the ice.

So, as the story is told, she put one horse ahead,

pulling the wagon, and one horse behind.

And she didn’t ride because they don’t want the weight concentrated as they cross the ice.

She carried her two-and-a- half-year-old Frederick and eight-month-old Alexander in her arms.

Julia hung tightly to her skirt,

and Joseph on the other.

She carried heavy bags of Joseph Smith’s papers fastened to her waist, and she walked across safely and reached Quincy on February 15.

The Mormons found a temporary safe haven in Quincy, Illinois.

The citizens fed them, sheltered them, gave them work.

It was a kindness the Mormons never forgot.

The little town of Quincy is inundated by Mormons.

There is a Democratic committee— part of the Democratic Party, I guess—Democratic committee that calls a meeting and says, “We need to decide how to help these people.”

And they pass resolutions that say, “They’ve been mistreated in Missouri. We need to treat them well.

Do everything you can for them.”

Why was

Quincy so kind to the Mormons once they had been so mistreated almost everywhere else they had gone? Had word gone ahead of them?

Were they just a different cut of people?

They were worried about the Mormons because of the reputation they'd been hearing about the Mormons in Missouri.

They become a city on the Underground Railroad for slaves escaping Missouri.

They detested—these Illinois people in Adams County and in Quincy—detested slavery and Missourians who would hold slaves.

And so they already had it in for Missourians.

They were anti-Missouri— Yeah. —and they were pro-Mormon.

And so, and so that was that was part of it.

And then just seeing the people in need—such a great degree.

A number of early settlers of Quincy were from German

provinces, and they had gone through religious persecution in Germany, and they knew what it meant to be persecuted. And so they were an open, open city for Mormons, for slaves, or whatever. I see. A compassionate place.

I think it’s important to note that although

the citizens of Quincy opened their doors and their homes

and provided jobs and shelters for the Latter-day Saints during

the early—or the winter

and early spring of 1839,

most recognized, “They’re not going to be here very long.”

Plans were already in place or underway for the Mormons to find another place of gathering,

which was just up the road 40 miles.

So I don't think they had any necessary fears of the Mormons like some other people may have had.

The Mormon War in Missouri was a costly travesty

in a number of ways.

In addition to the property, many people suffered health problems.

And we have a death toll in Nauvoo at 18.

You know, that next summer is a summer of death because of the worn-outness and the exposure that our people had suffered.

The expulsion of the Mormons from Missouri cost Lilburn W. Boggs politically. I think the Mormon issue probably nailed—

was the nail in the coffin that caused Boggs to basically recognize he would have no success whatsoever running for reelection. And he did not.

The Missouri legislature had to appoint—appropriate

$200,000 for appropriations for the Mormon War.

So the Mormon War cost the state of Missouri a pretty penny.

As we mentioned, there were those within the state of Missouri who felt that the treatment of the Mormons was unfair.

Some of them even tried to get the Missouri legislature to conduct an official investigation.

I think what's interesting is that at this point in time, the new state legislator from Clay County is none,

none other than David Rice Atchison.

Atchison goes down to the session, the legislative session, and really was a defender of the Latter-day Saints.

And he and several others— Korrell John Korrell, the Mormon representative from Caldwell County, and other state representatives—demanded an investigation be made into

the legality or illegality of Boggs’s extermination order.

A newspaper reporter summarized

the speech with David Rice Atchison in the state legislature

as follows:

“This order he looked upon as unconstitutional and he wished to have an expression of the legislature upon it.

If the Governor of this state or any other power had the authority to issue such orders

he wished to know it. For, if so,

he would not live in any state where such authority was given.”

The legislature refused to convene a formal investigation into the Missouri problems.

Of all the costs and injustices brought about by this war,

the greatest was in human suffering.

On March 9, Emma writes to Joseph, “I still live

and am yet willing to suffer more if it’s the will of Kind Heaven that I should for your sake. ...

No one but God knows the reflections of my mind and the feelings of my heart

when I left our house and home

and almost all of everything we possessed, excepting our little children,

and took my journey out of the state of Missouri,

leaving you shut up in that lonesome prison.

But the reflection is more than human nature ought to bear. And if God does not record our sufferings and avenge our wrongs on them that are guilty, I shall be sadly mistaken.”

While the Saints took shelter in Quincy, Illinois,

Joseph Smith remained behind in Liberty Jail.

Then on April 6, 1839, Joseph and the other prisoners were taken out of Liberty

and went to Gallatin for a hearing.

In that hearing, they were indicted for treason and ordered to stand trial in Columbia, Boone County.

While in route they escaped and escaped and made the

170-mile journey to Quincy.

The citizens of Missouri, however,

did not believe that it was an escape.

Was it truly an escape or was it merely that they got released?

This is a copy of the preamble, or the petition, that the citizens filed in trying to critique and want the,

the sheriff and the deputies held accountable.

And their conclusion here is—if we read it—

“From facts within our own knowledge and all the circumstances taken together

we are forced to accept the opinion that they were willfully set at liberty.”

Oh, no escape— And so the citizens themselves —there wasn’t an escape; they were actually freely let out— which would support so many of the diary and journal recounts of Saints who lived through this experience,

who understood that these men were being held, in essence, as hostages until the Saints left the state.

But there's one more little piece. This is a promissory note.

OK, it is dated the 16th day of April 1839,

which is the day they escaped from Missouri.

It is made payable to John Brassfield,

who was one of the guards guarding Joseph.

And it’s— A hundred and fifty dollars. —for $150 that the Joseph and others, I believe probably Hyrum— they changed “I” to “we.” I think initially, it was going to be “I, Joseph” and then it put a “we,” so someone else signed on with him to pay John Brassfield $150.

What, if they’re engaging in an escape, what would they be doing executing a promissory note the day of their escape to one of the guards? What would you think they would be paying for?

A horse? Or a horse.

It is a long way to Nauvoo.

And so they had secured at least one horse, maybe two,

to assist them to get out of, of Missouri.

And they actually didn't have the cash to pay for all of it. So they put the sum of it on a note.

We know that in 1843, John Brassfield comes to Nauvoo and meets with Joseph.

Now, Joseph merely notes in his journal that, you know, something very innocuous: “On this such and day in 1843,

John Brassfield, someone I’d known in Missouri, comes to visit.”

Joseph Smith’s son Joseph Smith III gives a much more complete answer to it.

He writes in his, his journal that he remembers that same event,

that “a man by the name of John Brassfield came with another man in 1843 to meet my dad so that my dad would pay on a note for a horse called Medley that he had acquired to help him leave Missouri.” I think that’s enough to help us understand that Joseph wasn’t a fugitive from the law.

He didn’t jump bail. He didn’t escape.

No— He was let go. He did, he in my mind, I think the facts are compelling.

On April 25th, 1839, sometime in the morning, Joseph Smith crossed the Mississippi River into Quincy,

exhausted, hungry, and looking for his wife and family.

Dimick Huntington spotted him down by the river.

In essence, said, “Is that you, Joseph?”

He said this about Joseph:

“He was dressed in an old pair of boots full of holes, pants torn,

tucked inside of boots, blue cloak with collar turned up,

wide-brim black hat, rim sloped down.

Not been shaved for some time. Looked pale and haggard.

And obviously trying to be in disguise. Yeah. Yeah, keep his face from being seen.

He quietly slipped through town with the help of people that— Brother Huntington helped,

you know, escort him to where Emma was.

Emma spots him coming toward the house and meets him halfway to the gate and is absolutely, absolutely thrilled.

And they spent a day of “commemorating and celebrating and enjoying the congratulations,”

Joseph said, “of my friends and the embraces of my family.”

Joseph talked at a conference on May 4th and 5th, and it was a first time that he could really address the people.

And it's quite an emotional gathering.

Elder Wilford Woodruff said— newly ordained Apostle— “It truly gave us great joy to once more sit in conference with Brother Joseph.” The congregation sang a hymn that enthusiastically said, in part, “Zion, the city of our God.” And Joseph was overcome.

Said Wandel Mace, who was there, “He arose to his feet to speak,

but it was with difficulty that he controlled his emotions.

To look upon the Saints who had been driven from their homes and scattered as they were among strangers, without homes, robbed of everything, he could scarcely refrain from weeping.

He then opened the meeting with prayer.

True to their word, the Mormons did not remain in Quincy for long. They immediately began moving upriver to the area that would later become Nauvoo.

Now, it's interesting how this area, Commerce and Nauvoo, was first introduced to the Latter-day Saints.

It began in November of 1838 with the flight of the Crooked River Boys out of Missouri.

It's in Lee County, Iowa, that the Crooked River participants, particularly one of the Crooked River participants by the name of Israel Barlow,

ran into, came across, met none other than Isaac Galland,

a land speculator, or a land broker.

And in the course of their conversations,

the Mormons learned that Galland had considerable—

he could could sell the Mormons a considerable amount of property in both southeastern Iowa— Lee County—and across the Mississippi River in Hancock County,

in a community that was opening up called Commerce.

And on February 26th,

Isaac Galland writes Joseph Smith and Liberty Jail.

He basically extends an offer to the Mormons. “You can gather in this area. I will help you.”

I think it is so significant, the timing of all this.

Joseph Smith and the other Mormon prisoners were released by the officers guarding them as they were making their way from Gallatin to Boone County.

The release came on April 16, 1839.

Six days later, Joseph crosses the Mississippi,

is reunited with Emma, his family, and the Saints.

(Emma was living with John and Sarah Cleveland.)

Three days later, where is Joseph Smith? He is up in Commerce.

Joseph wasted no time in settling Quincy.

He is going straight to Commerce.

And with him in Commerce, who is going to come?

The rest of the Saints. He made it very clear. “We are gathering.

It’s all set up. Come on.”

And he was one of the first ones to occupy the city of Commerce, Illinois. Commerce would become Nauvoo, and Nauvoo would become a new day

for the Latter-day Saints.

Now, human wisdom would dictate that as Joseph Smith set out to build a new city,

that he would hold close the strongest of his men,

the Twelve Apostles, to help him.

But a revelation had been received that commanded the Twelve to “take leave of my Saints in the city of Far West, on the twenty-sixth day of April next.”

Accordingly, under the leadership of Brigham Young,

the Twelve fulfilled that command,

and from there made their way to Britain to preach the gospel.

Next week on the Joseph Smith Papers,

the mission of the Twelve to England, the making of a quorum.

I’m Glenn Rawson.

Thanks for joining us.