But to return to Kirtland. Hyrum Smith was a widower at the date of Mary Fielding's arrival there from Canada. And this means that his _only_ wife was dead; for polygamy was unknown in the Church at that time. It will therefore, be seen how pertinent is the often-repeated remark of the sisters that the saints were not driven and persecuted because of polygamy, but because of their belief in "new and continued revelation." In becoming Hyrum's wife, Mary assumed the responsible situation of step-mother to his five children, the task of which she performed with unwavering fidelity, taking care of them for years after the martyrdom of her husband, and taking the place of both father and mother to them in the exodus of the Church to the Rocky Mountains. And Mary was well trained for this latter task during her husband's lifetime, besides being matured in years and character before her marriage. From Kirtland, with her husband and family, she removed to Far West, Mo., where, on the first day of November, 1838, her husband and his brother, the prophet, with others, were betrayed by the Mormon Colonel Hinkle into the hands of the armed mob under General Clark, in the execution of Gov. Boggs' exterminating order. On the following day Hyrum was marched, at the point of the bayonet, to his house, by a strong guard, who with hideous oaths and threats commanded Mary to take her last farewell of her husband, for, "His die was cast, and his doom was sealed," and she need never think she would see him again; allowing her only a moment, as it were, for that terrible parting, and to provide a change of clothes for the final separation. In the then critical condition of her health this heart-rending scene came nigh ending her life; but the natural vigor of her mind sustained her in the terrible trial. Twelve days afterwards she gave birth to her first born, a son; but she remained prostrate on a bed of affliction and suffering for several months. In January, 1839, she was taken in a wagon, with her infant, on her sick bed, to Liberty, Clay county, Mo., where she was granted the privilege of visiting her husband in jail, where he was confined by the mob, without trial or conviction, because, forsooth, he was a "Mormon." While in this condition of health, with her husband immured in a dungeon and surrounded by fiends in human form, thirsting for his life, a company of armed men, led by the notorious Methodist priest, Bogart, entered her poor abode and searched it, breaking open a trunk and carrying away papers and valuables belonging to her husband. In this helpless condition also she was forced from what shelter she had, in the worst season of the year, to cross the bleak prairies of Missouri, expelled from the State, to seek protection among strangers in the more hospitable State of Illinois. Here is the story that her sister Mercy tells of those days and scenes: