Nauvoo moment: Long-tried friend
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Joseph Smith spent Christmas Day 1843 at his home, the Mansion House, in Nauvoo, Ill. About 1 o'clock that morning, he had been serenaded by a choir of townspeople, which, he said, "caused a thrill of pleasure" to run through his soul.
At about noon, he gave counsel to a group of brethren from the nearby Morley settlement who had been subjected to persecution.
At 2 p.m., about 50 couples assembled at his home for a Christmas dinner, and the evening was spent in music, dancing and general socializing.
At one point, a man came in, looking unkempt with his long hair falling about his shoulders and giving the general appearance of a ruffian. Thinking he might be a mobber, Joseph requested the captain of the police to put him out.
In the ensuing scuffle, the Prophet came to recognize the "intruder" as his "long-tried, warm, but cruelly persecuted friend, Orrin Porter Rockwell, just arrived from nearly a year's imprisonment, without conviction, in Missouri."
On May 6, 1842, an attempt had been made to assassinate Lilburn W. Boggs, ex-governor of Missouri. Because of Boggs' role in driving the Latter-day Saints from Missouri and in issuing the extermination order against them, suspicion in the attempted killing had turned to the Mormons, and Joseph Smith and Porter Rockwell had been arrested on separate occasions.
Through legal measures in which he showed he could not have committed the crime, the Prophet had obtained a release.
But his associate did not fare so well. Arrested March 4, 1843, in St. Louis, Mo., Brother Rockwell was taken to Independence, where he was held for many months, though his enemies were unable to make any charges stick. Finally released, he made his way back to Nauvoo. "It is needless to say," wrote historian B. H. Roberts, "he was given a hearty welcome or that the story of his adventures among the Missourians contributed no little to the enjoyment of the evening."
(Sources: History of the Church 6:134-142; B. H. Roberts, The Rise and Fall of Nauvoo, pp. 141-161.)
