A heroic incident
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RICHMOND, MO.
One of the more heroic incidents of Church history occurred during the Missouri persecutions of 1838, when, beginning Nov. 9, Joseph Smith and six other prisoners were chained together in a vacant log cabin in Richmond for more than two weeks while a hearing was held to see if they should be tried for an assortment of trumped up charges.
As recollected later by Elder Parley P. Pratt, the prisoners were abused by the guards who, with obscene oaths, boasted of the atrocities they had committed against Church members.
Elder Pratt said he could scarcely refrain from rebuking the guards when Joseph rose and "in a voice of thunder," said:
"SILENCE, ye fiends of the infernal pit. In the name of Jesus Christ I rebuke you, and command you to be still; I will not live another minute and bear such language. Cease such talk, or you or I die THIS INSTANT."
According to Elder Pratt, the "quailing guards" lowered their weapons, their knees "smote together," they shrank into a corner or crouched at the Prophet's feet and begged his pardon.
Now, the location of that incident is memorialized with a marker placed Nov. 19 by the Missouri Mormon Frontier Foundation.
In an unveiling presided over by President Jeremiah J. Morgan of the Liberty Missouri Stake, BYU Church history professor Alex Baugh spoke of the incident at what is now a vacant lot on Buchanan (formerly Locust) Street not far from the Pioneer Cemetery where the Three Witnesses Monument is located.
Brother Baugh said the hearing was held from Nov. 12 to Nov. 29. He said Elder Pratt's reminiscence was written in a letter to the Deseret News in Salt Lake City published Nov. 12, 1853.
Later, it was included in his autobiography published in 1874 in New York.
"It's a marvelous statement, and I really appreciate Parley writing that," Brother Baugh said. He reasoned that in Doctrine and Covenants 122:4, the Lord and Joseph perhaps are alluding to that incident. It reads: "Thy voice shall be more terrible in the midst of thine enemies than the fierce lion, because of thy righteousness."
