Improvement Era, 1928 by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Religion

"Mormonism" Survives Liberty Jail By President B. H. Roberts, of the First Council of Seventy

LIBERTY JAIL! How paradoxical the title! Liberty and prison are antithetical, and are supposed to have nothing in common; but when it is known that this particular prison is associated with "liberty" simply because it stood in a little Missouri town of that name-the county seat of Clay county, and about fifteen miles directly north of Independence-the seeming paradox vanishes. As will be seen by reference to the cut of this "Mormon" historical monument, Liberty prison is fallen into ruins, and some years ago was entirely obliterated. The prison was built of rough-dressed limestone, the surface of which was of a yellowish color. It faced east and was about two hundred yards from the court house. Its dimensions were about twenty by twenty-two feet and the walls two feet thick. It had a heavy door in the east made strong and of considerable thickness by spiking inch oak planks together. In the south side there was a small opening a foot and a half square with strong iron bars, two inches apart, firmly imbedded in the stones of the wall. the contract for erecting this building was let in April, 1833, and in the December following the jail was completed. It cost the county six hundred dollars, Solomon Fry being the contractor.

It was within these gloomy walls that the Prophet Joseph Smith endured some of the most cruel sufferings that were crowded into his eventful life. For several months during the winter of 1838-9 he was imprisoned within the rude walls of this old structure, awaiting a trial for offenses charged against himself and brethren during the troubles in upper Missouri in the fall of 1838. Those imprisoned with him were his brother Hyrum Smith, Lyman Wight, Caleb Baldwin, Alexander McRae and Sidney Rigdon; but the last named prisoner was admitted to bail after a short time of imprisonment, owing to the delicate state of his health.

The rise of persecution against the Latter-day Saints in Missouri, which culminated in the expulsion of more than twelve hundred of them from their homes in Jackson county, in the winter of 1838; as also their subsequent settlement in several counties north of the Missouri river in 1836, together with the final expulsion of some fifteen thousand of the Saints from the confines of Missouri, in 1838, under the exterminating order of the governor of the state, Lilburn W. Boggs, and executed by the state militia, are circumstances which belong rather to the domain of history than to this article. It will be sufficient here to say that the measures taken by the Saints for self-protection were construed into acts of aggressive warfare; and acts of self-defense were made criminal. It was for his connection with these measures of self-protection and self-defense that the Prophet and his associates were arraigned before courts where well known mobocrats sat as judges, and imprisoned these men to await the slow process of courts

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