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Show Arranda B. Smith - page 2 was delivered without pain in answer to their prayers. Later she was blessed with four nore children : Ortentia, Armnda, Warren and Sarah Ma.rinda. "My husbai:n's father, Chileab Smith and brothers David and Sylvester, were bot...'1--i baptised, as also Betsy, Sylvester's wife . When David was baptis7d Fanny,~ sister, ho.vled and screarred so that she was heard a half nule, she said she never ¼Ould eat nor drink until he left the M::mrons .. She was as good as her word. She went e ight or nine days until ~he was Just about gone and would not put nor let a drop of anything go u,1to her nouth. When her husband saw that she would die he sent and had his narre taken off from the church record; his father soon follaved, so by one woman, two iten fell. '_'Sy~ves~er was a srrart and good nan. He was chosen one of the first coun~il in Kirtland, was one of Zions camp and attached to good things--he attained to great height, and kno.vledge, then fell away and was lost. "War7en rraintained his integrity till the last. He sold out his property in Amherst and went to Kirtland and bought down west of the temple on. the Shagrin River. He enjoyed himself well, done all .he could to es~lish the bank and build the temple. Through the downfall of that place in ?Ons~en~ of our enemies he lost his property, except only a ~are outfi~ with which he started with his family for the land of Missouri, in the spring_of 1838 V'lhen he bid farewell to the land of our fathers and t<J?k up '?ur line of rrarch for the Jand of the saints. We visited our friends in .ArnrErst but the treatrrent we received will never be forgotten by rre • My nother. said ~he hoped she should never see rre, hear of rre nor hear my narre rrentioned in the world again. We bid them good-bye and left them. II . "~ sold our beautiful hone in Kirtland and traveled all surmer to ~hssouri--our teams poor and with hardly enough to keep body and soul t~ether. We journeyed about six rronths as we were forced to stop at t1.ITEs and. work for food and. clot.hes. ~e were often threatened on the way and sorret~s traveled at night and laid over during the day to avoid nobs. Several tl.ITEs we were warned of nobs waiting ahead for us and we wDuld then leave the road and journey over unbroken prairies and through the woods to avoid them. . "We arrived in Caldwell County, near Haun's Mill, nine wagons of us · in company. Two days before we arrived we were taken prisoners by an a.med nob that had derranded every bit of anmunition and every weap:>n we had. We surrendered all. They knew it, for they searched our wagons. "A few miles nore brought us to Haun's Mill, where that awful scene of murder was enacted. My husband pitched his tent by a blacksmith's shop. "Brother David Evans rrade a treaty with the nob that they would not nolest us. He cmre just before the rrassacre and called the company together and they knelt in prayer. "I sat in my tent. IDoking up I suddenly saw the rrob coming--the sarre that took away our weapons. They carre like so rrany derrons or wild Indians. "Before I could get to the blacksmith's shop door t:o alarm the brethren V'lho were at prayers, the bullets were whistling arrongst them. ·-·· ... .. . •, ~; Amanda B. Smith - page 3 "I seized my two little girls and escaped across the millpond on a slab-walk. Another sister fled with rre. Yet though we were warren, with tender children, in flight for our lives, the derrons poured volley after volley to kill us. "A nmnber of bullets entered my clothes, but I was not wounded. The sister, havever, who was with rre, cried out that she was hit. We had just reached the trunk of a fallen tree, over which r urged her, bidding her to sheiter there where the bullets could not reach her, while I continta:1 my flight to sarre bottom land. "When the firing had ceased I went back to the scene of the rrassacre, for there were nw husband and three sons, of whose fate I as yet knew nothing. "As I returned I found the sister in a pool of blood where she had fainted, but she was only shot through the hand. Farther on was lying dead Brother r.tBride, an aged white haired revolutionary soldier. His murderer had literally cut him to pieces with an old cor cutter. His hands had been split down when he raised them in supplication for IIErcy. Then the nonster cleft open his head with the sarre weapon, arrl the veteran who had fought for his country, in the glorious days of the past, was m.mbere:i with the martyrs. "Passing on I cane to a scene nore terrible still to the rrother and wife. Energing from the blacksmith shop was nw eldest son, bearing on his shoulders his little brother Alma. "Oh! My Alma is dead!" I cri ed in anguish. "'No, M:)ther; I think Alma is not dead. But Father and Brother Sardius are killed!' "What an answer was this to appall IIE! My husband and son murdered; another little son seemingly nortally wounded; and perhaps before the dreadful night should pass the rrurderers would return and corrplete their work! · "But I oould not weep then. 'I'he fmmtain of tears was d:ry; the heart overburdened with its calamity, and all the rrot..'1er's sense absorbed in its anxiety for the precious boy which Gcxl alone could save by his miraculous aid. "'Ihe entire hip joint of my wounded boy had been shot away. Flesh, hip bone, joint and all had been ploughed out from t.he muzzle of the gun, V'lhich the ruffian placed to the child's hip through the logs of the shop and deliberately fired. "~le laid little Alma on a bed in our tent arrl I examined the wound. It was a _g astly sight. I knew not what to do. It was night now. "There were none left from that terrible scene, throughout that long, dark night, but about half a dozen bereaved and lanenting woIIEn, and the children. Eighteen or nineteen, all grown rren excepting rey murdered boy and another about the sarre age, were dead or dying; several rrore of the :rren were wounded, hiding away, whose groans through the night .too well disclosed their hiding places, V'lhile the rest of the :rren had fled, at the rnarent of the massacre, to save their lives . |
