The president of their church declares that he was blessed in Liberty Jail, twice afterwards before the fall of 1843, and again publicly in the Grove at Nauvoo. (True Succession, p. 40). However, he is very careful in the wording of his statement and deals with glittering generalities. All he dare tell us is that the "promise and blessing of a life of usefulness to the cause of truth was pronounced upon his head." Lyman Wight declares that the Prophet blessed his son in Liberty Jail in 1839 as his successor. In another place he states that this blessing was given shortly after they came out of Liberty Jail. (See Succession, pp. 51-2). So you see that Lyman Wight contradicts himself. We will further examine his statement. Sidney Rigdon, Caleb Baldwin and Alexander McRae were fellow prisoners with the Prophet Joseph, Patriarch Hyrum and Lyman Wight in Liberty. If any such blessing or ordination, or whatever you desire to call it, had taken place at that time these brethren would have known something of it. Moreover, Hyrum Smith and Sidney Rigdon were counselors to the President, and in such an appointment they would in all reason have been called on to assist in such blessing; an account of it would have been made on the records of the Church. In other words it would have been done in an official way, and not in a corner. These fellow prisoners with the Prophet and Patriarch, even including Lyman Wight, knew nothing of such an appointment, calling or ordination while in Liberty prison. No record of such a thing was made. Again, that such a blessing did not take place, either in or shortly after they came out of that prison, is quite evident from the fact that Sidney Rigdon, August 8, 1844, while making his claim to the "guardianship" of the Church, declared that there could be no successor to Joseph Smith. It is also quite evident that this expression was an afterthought on the part of Lyman Wight from the fact that on that memorable 8th of August, 1844, he voted to sustain the Twelve Apostles as the presiding quorum and Presidency of the Church, (History of the Church, for August 8, 1844). If such a thing had taken place Sidney Rigdon and Lyman Wight would most certainly have remembered it on that day. But they were not only ignorant of such a thing, but each took a course diametrically opposed to this alleged blessing. The entire lives of Caleb Baldwin and Alexander McRae also protest against the statement of Lyman Wight.[4] The testimony of James Whitehead is as follows: