CHAPTER I.

THE DAYS OF MY CHILDHOOD.

WHY I EVER WAS A MORMON.

An Important Question.—Born in Mormonism.—Telling my own Story.—Joseph Smith’s Mission.—He Preaches a New Dispensation.—My Parents Introduced to the Reader.—The Days before Polygamy.—My Mother’s Childhood.—Learning under Difficulties.—First Thoughts of Mormonism.—Received into the Church.—Persecution for the Faith.—Forsaking All for the New Religion.—First Acquaintance with the Apostle Brigham.—His Ambitious Intrigues.—His Poverty.—His Mission-work.—Deceptive Appearances.—My Mother’s Marriage.—A Brief Dream of Happiness.—That sweet word “Home.”—The Prophet Smith turns Banker.—The “Kirtland Safety Society Bank.”—The Prophet and Sidney Rigdon Flee.—A Moment of Hesitation.—Another “Zion” Appointed.—Losing All for the Church.—Privation and Distress.—Sidney Rigdon and his “Declaration of Independence.”—He Excites an Immense Sensation.—Mobs Assemble, and Fights Ensue.—Lively Times among the Saints.—The Outrages of the Danites.

DURING the somewhat public career which I have led since my apostasy from the Mormon Church, I have often been asked why I ever became a Mormon. Indeed, I have scarcely entered a town where this question has not been put by some one, almost on the instant of my arrival. It is the first query of the newspaper and the anxious inquiry of the clergymen, who with one accord, without regard to creed or sect, have bidden me welcome into the light of Christian faith, from out the dark bondage of fanaticism and bigotry; and I have often answered it at the hospitable table of some entertainer, who has kindly given me shelter during a lecture engagement.

Curiosity, interest, desire to gratify a wondering public by some personal items concerning me, are the different motives which prompt the question; but surprise is almost without exception betrayed when I tell them that I was born in the faith. Sometimes I think that the people of the outside world consider it impossible that a person can be born in Mormonism; they regard every Mormon as a deluded proselyte to a false faith.

It is with a desire to impress upon the world what Mormonism really is; to show the pitiable condition of its women, held in a system of bondage that is more cruel than African slavery ever was, since it claims to hold body and soul alike; to arouse compassion for its children and youth, born and growing up in an atmosphere of social impurity; and, above all, to awaken an interest in the hearts of the American people that shall at length deepen into indignation,—that I venture to undertake the task of writing this book. I have consecrated myself to the work, not merely for my own sake, but for the sake of all the unhappy women of Utah, who, unlike myself, are either too powerless or too timid to break the fetters which bind them.

I intend to give a truthful picture of Mormon life; to veil nothing which should be revealed, even though the recital should be painful to me at times, coming so close, as it necessarily must, to my inmost life, awakening memories which I would fain permit to remain slumbering, and opening old wounds which I had fondly hoped were healed. Neither shall I intentionally tinge any occurrence with the slightest coloring of romance; the real is so vivid and so strange that I need have no recourse to the imaginary.

All the events which I shall relate will be some of my own personal experiences, or the experience of those so closely connected with me that they have fallen directly under my observation, and for whose truth I can vouch without hesitation. To tell the story as it ought to be told, I must begin at the very beginning of my life; for I have always been so closely connected with these people that I could not easily take up the narrative at any intermediate point.

I was born at Nauvoo, Illinois, on the 13th of September, 1844, the youngest child and only surviving daughter of a family of five children.

My father and mother were most devout Mormons, and were among the very earliest of Joseph Smith’s converts. They have, indeed, been closely identified with the Church of the Latter-Day Saints almost from its first establishment. They have followed it in all its wanderings, have been identified with its every movement, and their fortunes have risen or fallen as the Church has been prosperous or distressed. They were enthusiastic adherents of Joseph Smith, and devoted personal friends of Brigham Young, until he, by his own treacherous acts, betrayed their friendship, and himself broke every link that had united them to him, even that of religious sympathy, which among this people is the most difficult to sunder.

My father, Chauncey G. Webb, was born in 1812, in Hanover, Chatauqua County, N. Y. He first heard the Mormon doctrine preached in 1833, only a very short time after Joseph Smith had given the Book of Mormon to the world, and had announced himself as another Messiah, chosen by “the Lord” to restore true religion to the world, to whom also had been revealed all the glories of “the kingdom” that should yet be established on the earth, and over which he was to be, by command from the Lord, both temporal and spiritual ruler.

They—the old folks—embraced the new faith immediately, and prepared for removal to Kirtland, Ohio, which was to be the nucleus of the new church, the “Zion” given by revelation to Joseph Smith as the gathering-place of the Saints. They were naturally anxious to gather all their children into the fold, and they urged my father, with tearful, prayerful entreaties, to accompany them to the city of refuge prepared for the faithful followers of the Lord and His prophet Smith.

Like many young people, he had at that time but little sympathy with religion. He had given but very little thought to the peculiar beliefs of the different churches. This world held so much of interest to him, that he had considered but very little the mysteries of the future, and the world to come. Of a practical, and even to some extent sceptical turn of mind, he was inclined to take things as they came to him, and was not easily influenced by the marvellous or supernatural. If left to himself, he might, probably, never have embraced Mormonism; but he yielded to the entreaties of his parents, and joined the Mormon Church more as an expression of filial regard than of deep religious conviction. The Saints were at that time an humble, spiritual-minded, God-fearing, law-abiding people, holding their new belief with sincerity and enthusiasm, and proving their position, to their own satisfaction at least, from the Bible. They had not then developed the spirit of intolerance which has since characterized them, and though they were touched with religious fanaticism, they were honest in their very bigotry. The Mormon Church, in its earliest days, cannot be fairly judged by the Mormon Church of the present time, which retains none of its early simplicity, and which seems to have lost sight entirely of the fundamental principles on which it was built. My father, although not entering fully into the spirit of his new religion at that early period of his saintly experience, yet found nothing of the insincerity which he claimed to have met in other beliefs; and having embraced the new faith, he was prepared to hold to it, and to cast his lot with it. So he went with his parents to Kirtland, in 1834, where he found the first romance of his life in the person of Eliza Churchill, my mother, then a young girl of seventeen, just blossoming into fairest womanhood.

Never was there a greater mental or spiritual contrast between two persons. My mother was a religious enthusiast, almost a mystic. She believed implicitly in personal revelation, and never doubted but that the Mormon faith came directly from “the Lord.” She “saw visions and dreamed dreams,” and at times it would have taken but little persuasion to have made her believe herself inspired. It was a religious nature like hers, dreamy, devoted, and mystical, that, in other conditions and amid other surroundings, had given to France a Joan of Arc. It must have been the attraction of opposite natures that brought together in so close a relationship the practical, shrewd, somewhat sceptical man, and the devoted, enthusiastic, religious girl. It was probably the very contrast that made the young man feel such tenderness and care for the homeless orphan girl, and made her cling to him, trusting her helplessness to his strength.

Her early life had by no means been so sheltered as his, and to her the thought of tender care and protecting watchfulness, through all the rest of her days, was unutterably sweet and restful. If her dream could only have been realized! But polygamy cursed her life, as it has that of every Mormon woman, and shattered her hopes before she had but a taste of their realization.

She was born at Union Springs, Cayuga County, N. Y., on the 4th of May, 1817, but only lived there until she was two years old, when her parents removed to Livingston County, in the same state. When she was four years old her mother died, leaving three little children, the youngest a mere baby. Her father, finding it impossible to obtain any one to take care of the three as they should be cared for, was obliged, much against his will, to separate them, and put them in the charge of different persons, until such time as he was in a situation to make a home for them together. But that was destined never to be, and these children were never...