A Time of Trial
Religious Persecution in the 1830s and 1840s
In the first two decades after The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, the members were often the victims of violence. Soon after Joseph Smith organized the Church in New York in 1830, he and other Church members began settling in areas to the west, in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois.
Time and again, the Saints tried to build their Zion community where they could worship God and live in peace, and repeatedly they saw their hopes dashed through forcible and violent removal.
Mobs drove them from Jackson County, Missouri, in 1833; from the state of Missouri in 1839, after the governor of the state issued an order in late October 1838 that the Mormons be expelled from the state or “exterminated”; and from their city of Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1846. Following their expulsion from Nauvoo, Latter-day Saints made the difficult trek across the Great Plains to Utah.
Account from “A Self-Written History of Sarah DeArmon Pea Rich”
“Well, now I will return to some of my experience in my early days of a married life. As Far West was a place every body lived in log houses, so my husband had built a nice little hewed log house and got it ready to live in by the time we were married. It was seven miles from Far West, near my husband's fathers. So I left my father's house in Far West and we moved to our cozy and happy home, and we thought we were the happiest couple in all the land. My husband had a beautiful prospect for a nice farm with plenty of timber and water, and our plans were laid for a comfortable and happy home in the near future. Our religion being first with us in all things.”
They were only able to live in the house for about 8 months, because of persecution by the mob.
“Now, I must return to some of my experiences during the three months I was left alone in the midst of the mob after my husband had to leave. He and I parted that night at one o'clock we had gone to his sister's to stay that night before he knew he had to leave. His sister lived at the store on the public square of Far West. Her husband kept the store; and when we parted, not knowing whether we should meet again for a long time, I felt confident it was the only thing he could do to avoid a maddened mob from taking his life. So I felt contented to have him go, feeling that the Lord would spare us to meet again. So he and Hosea Stout made a covenant to stay together until we should meet again; and Hosea's wife and I made a covenant that she and I would remain together as true friends until we should meet our husbands again, and upon this promise we shook hands with our dear husbands and parted. She and I then went into my sister-in-law's house and went to bed praying the Lord to protect ourselves and our dear companions until He saw fit to have us meet again.
So, in the morning, after we had our breakfast we started to go home to my house, about four blocks away, but found on the road the mob had placed their guards out to protect anyone from passing. We attempted to pass but were stopped by bayonets pointed at us, and told we could not pass. I told him I was going to my home a short distance away; they still refused and all that we could do was to return to my brother-in-law's, but when we got there and were telling in the store what had happened, the captain of the guards happened to be there and heard what I said. He stepped up to me and asked what was the matter. I told him; he then asked my name, and when I told him, he said, "Was it your husband that Captain Beaugerde [Bogart] killed yesterday?"
I said, "Yes, Sir," for they thought he was killed.
He then said he would go with me to where the guard was and see that I passed on to my home. I told him on the way that I had sent my hired boy out with a team of oxen to get me a load of wood, and that the boy was taken prisoner and the oxen kept in their camp. He told me to give him the name of the boy and the description of the cattle, and he would see they were returned. So he told the guard to let us two ladies pass, which they did.
We went to our home and the Captain hurried on to the camp, and arrived there just as they had drove up my oxen to kill them for beef. He called to them to hold on, and asked for the boy that had come for wood with that team. He then ordered some of his men to hitch up the team and go and load on the wood and guard that boy to his home with the wood. So I soon had the boy, wood and team returned to me again. So by his carrying the impression into camp that my husband was killed it kept them from looking for him until he had time to get out of the way; but when they found out he was not killed, they felt awful and got mad and would often come to my house and tell me if I did not tell where he was hidden they would blow my brains out, at the same time pointing pistols at me, for they thought he must be hid somewhere, never once thinking it possible for him to make his escape, when there were so many troops of mobs in the country. This was the kind of a life I had to live under Mob Law for three months, not knowing what time they might set fire to my house, for they threatened several times that they would do so in order to find my husband, and I, at the same time in very delicate health.”
SOURCES
https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/memories/LTW8-P81
