OCR Text |
Show Page 202 of Brigham Young. Now it appeared that Brigham denied giving any such orders: "Verrily believing that that these lots were free... It took them in my own name, and paid the surveying and Recording. Intending to keep the choisest corner Lot for you. Now you may judge my surprise, when after toiling with my wives and children for so many years, and going hungry and destitute, even selling our clothes, to make improvements...President Young informed me on last Sunday that I had entirely misunderstood him... His decision was: That if you and I could agree and be satisfied it would satisfy him...Well now, Bro Orson, we can certainly do that with all ease. Because, whatever you wish of me in regard to the matter I will do, if in my power. I want you perfectly satisfied..." 30 Clearly Parley had no intention of getting into Orson's debt. They settled on the corner lots and Parley did not have to sell any more clothes to make improvements. Parley was not the only neglected brother of the family. Apparently, none of them .had had contact with the youngest, Nelson, since his youth. Orson searched him out on a homestead in Huron County, south of Sandusky, Ohio. Nelson responded immediately to Orson's letter and tracts - the youngest of the otherwise apostolic Pratts had never joined the Mormon Church. But Orson's letter "...caused a thrill of joy through my soul even to know that I have a Brother in the United States...I have received and read with interest the seer although its doctrines are new and novel 31 to me...." A small farmer with ten children, he was to remain on his plot the rest of his life. To realize his project of publishing a family genealogy, Orson needed more information than his brothers could give him. He reached into the past for names of distant relations and wrote letters aimlessly, always sending tracts, too. From Asenath Pratt Gorsline,a cousin of Jared Pratt, he received a deferential testimony to the "revelation of the Lord" she received in the Free Communion Baptists - and forwarded |