History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Volume 6Smith, Joseph, Jr.
History
History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Volume 6
Smith, Joseph, Jr.
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; Smith, Joseph, Jr., 1805-1844
The magistrate committed me to prison for my safe preservation,
as he was afraid the people would kill me; but he could find no
crime against me. This I was told by the officer who conveyed me to
prison.
I was re-committed to jail, still wearing the iron hobbles, and
was kept in the upper part in the day-time, and in the dungeon at
night, with a little dirty straw for a bed, without any bedding, no
fire, and very cold weather. For eighteen days I was not free from
shaking with cold. I then got permission to buy 1 1/2 bushels of
charcoal, which I put into an old kettle, and kept a little fire.
When that was gone, I could not obtain any more.
After I was arrested at St. Louis, I was visited by Joseph Wood, an
apostate "Mormon," who professed to be a lawyer. He was accompanied
by Mr. Blanerhasset, who told me that everything I had would be
taken from me, and proposed to take charge, keep, and return to
me any property I might have with me. I let him have a pair of
pistols, a bowie knife, and watch, which he never returned to me.
After the weather got a little warmer, they furnished me with a few
old newspapers to read. A family lived at the corner of the jail.
The women once in a while used to send out a little negro girl
with a small basket of victuals. She handed up to the grate a big
Missouri whip-stock, with a piece of twine, which I tied to the
pole and drew up the basket, and let it down again.
I made a pin-hook and tied to the twine, and baited with a chunk of
corn-dodger hard enough to knock a negro down with, and stuck it
out of the grated window and fished for pukes. When passers-by came
along, they would stop and gawk at me awhile, and pass on.
A preacher who had a family of girls lived on the opposite side of
the street. The girls would watch and laugh at them, and call out
and ask me if I got any bites. I replied, No, but some glorious
nibbles.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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