A Biography of Ezra Thompson Clark

Ezra Clark, page 004

4 EZRA THOMPSON CLARK religious service, she expected to untie her horse and return home, when she found that the horse was gone. An en- raged mob had taken it. Ezra's father at one time was im- prisoned, but, on account of his age, was admitted to bail. One of his friends, Mary Stevenson, whom Ezra later married, had worked for the money to buy herself a pair of shoes and a shawl. .A mob entered her mother's home and took them, with other things that belonged to the family. Once, his sister Laura saw the mob approach and ran to the cornfield, where her brother, Ezra, and her sister's little son, Louis Cooper were, and hid them in a corn shock to keep them from danger. Later Ezra was arrested, but his youth saved him from imprisonment. His sister Laura's husband was imprisoned at one time for eight months and subjected to great indignities, similar to those that befell Joseph Smith, Parley I?. Pratt, and others. The Clark history was again woven around Church movements. Just before the migration of the Church from Far West, Missouri, the Church historian of that time re- cords: "The Twelve left the Clark home earlv in the mor- ning of April 26, 1839, and made their way to the public square and placed in the ground the corner stone of a tem- ple. This was a fulfilment of prophecy made July 8, 1838, which the enemies said should never come true." At this early morning meeting on the public square at Far West, the historian further records: "Wilford Woodruff and George A. Smith were chosen to the Quorum of the Twelve. Missionaries were set apart and took their depar- ture for the East. Before the year ended all of the Saints, about 12,000 in number, were driven `from Missouri."