Liberty, p.1
Liberty, page 1
Cover art: Liberty Jail Winter by Al Rounds
Book design © Deseret Book Company
Design: Garth Bruner
© 2024 Dean Hughes
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, Deseret Book Company, at permissions@deseretbook.com. This work is not an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of the Church or of Deseret Book Company.
This is a work of fiction. Characters and events in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are represented fictitiously.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
CIP data on file
ISBN 978-1-63993-287-0 | eISBN 978-1-64933-292-9 (eBook)
Printed in the United States of America
Publishers Printing, Salt Lake City, UT
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For My Great-Grandson
Henry Hsiung Russell
Contents
Preface
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Author’s Note
About the Author
Preface
Many Latter-day Saints visit the reconstructed county jail in Liberty, Missouri, where Joseph Smith and five other Church leaders were held during the winter of 1838–39. Most of us know the story of what happened there. The fact is, however, some of what we “know” has proven to be lore more than history. That creates a problem for me as a writer of historical fiction. If I don’t say that the men in the jail were unable to stand up straight because of the low ceiling, some readers will conclude that I haven’t done my research. That idea, however—that they couldn’t raise themselves to full height—has proven, almost certainly, to be untrue. And that’s only one of the myths about Liberty jail.
I’ve done my best to be accurate about history in this novel. I’ve read historical accounts, biographies, records, journals, letters, along with documents now published in The Joseph Smith Papers. I admit, it’s tempting to include some of the traditionally believed versions of events, partly because they make good stories—and partly not to be doubted by readers—but I believe that readers of historical fiction want to trust that they are receiving an accurate picture. So let me list some of the commonly held folklore that hasn’t held up under the scrutiny of careful historical research:
1. An early estimate of the height of the ceiling in the lower part of the jail, sometimes called the “dungeon,” placed it at six feet. Writers assumed that this estimate was accurate and concluded that Joseph and Hyrum would have bumped their heads on the ceiling and Alexander McRae would have had to bend low to walk around. But in the 1880s, Latter-day Saint historian Andrew Jensen visited the jail and offered more accurate dimensions. He measured the ceiling in the lower room at six feet and six inches, which would have given plenty of clearance to Joseph and Hyrum. McRae has been described as anywhere from six feet three to six feet seven, but such estimates were notoriously exaggerated in the nineteenth century. McRae wrote about his own experience in the jail and complained about the food and the miserable conditions, but he never once reported that he couldn’t stand up straight. It would appear that he was not quite as tall as some had estimated, and even though the ceiling may not have given him much room, he surely would have described the misery of walking around hunched over all the time. So in my novel, the men all stand up when they’re in the dungeon.
2. Another common belief is that the prisoners spent all, or at least most, of their time in the dungeon. Andrew Jensen, in speaking with a jailer who knew the situation firsthand, reported that the men did spend their nights in the lower room but were allowed to climb the ladder to the upper level for meals and for visits by relatives and Church members. Evidence now suggests that they probably spent most of their time upstairs in the daytime hours. Joseph’s important letters were written at a table in the upper room, with his scribes sitting across from him. Alexander Baugh, the preeminent authority on Latter-day Saint history in Missouri, discovered evidence that there was also a stove in the upper room, so the men were certainly very cold at night, but they were probably able to warm themselves during the day.
3. The imprisoned men believed that they were poisoned by their guards and that they were offered human flesh—which they refused to eat. It’s possible that this is true, but in recent years, careful historians have expressed serious doubts about both these matters. The food was less than satisfying to the prisoners, but there is no evidence of poisoning. I decided not to portray the men as being poisoned, but I do portray them believing that they were poisoned, and I left out the suspicion about the human flesh.
4. The accounts of the two escape attempts by the prisoners have not been widely told. But the attempts are well documented and reported by the men themselves, with Alexander McRae providing a full report published in the Deseret News after he reached Utah. I therefore included both of these accounts.
5. A story almost never told is that Joseph had his dog with him in the jail for at least part of the time he was incarcerated. Alexander Baugh has found evidence that the dog spent time in the jail, so when I report that in the novel, please don’t accuse me of stretching the truth. Of course, I did have to decide when Old Major might have arrived and how long he stayed.
6. Most Latter-day Saints know that section 121 of the Doctrine and Covenants was written in the jail. They probably also know that sections 122 and 123 came from the same letter that Joseph wrote to the Saints. What most of us haven’t known is that the material in those sections is a “highlights version” of the letter. The actual letter was very long and took Joseph two days to write. He stopped at one point and closed the letter and got up the next morning and added to it. Some of the passages not included in the Doctrine and Covenants are powerful, written in poetic language. I decided to include some of that material in my novel, and I quoted those passages as they were written, modernizing spelling and punctuation but leaving sentence structure and word choice the same. When possible, I used the spelling and punctuation as found in the Doctrine and Covenants, but otherwise changed things as minimally as I could from the original letters to balance ease of reading and preservation of authenticity.
7. Alexander Doniphan, attorney for the Saints, said that when Sidney Rigdon spoke at a local hearing and was granted bail, “Such a burst of eloquence it was never my fortune to listen to, at its close there was not a dry eye in the room, all were moved to tears.” (Even Doniphan, a lawyer, couldn’t punctuate.) Sidney’s speech must have been powerful. My problem, however, was that no one recorded what he said. I wanted the reader to feel Sidney’s passion, but I couldn’t make up the speech out of whole cloth, so I used an impassioned plea that Sidney made when he wrote an affidavit seeking redress from the federal government for the depredations against the Saints in the state of Missouri. I followed his logic and often his choice of words, and above all, his passion. I hope it was a way of creating that moment without “inventing” history.
This last example gets at another challenge of writing historical fiction. Some of what I’ve written is invention. What I set out to do was provide insight into what happened to all the men—Joseph and Hyrum Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Alexander McRae, Lyman Wight, and Caleb Baldwin—during the four months and one week they spent in the jail. But especially, I was interested in what happened inside the heart and mind of Joseph Smith that brought him to the point that he could write one of the most beautiful and insightful revelations ever recorded. And yet, I knew that if I wrote the novel from the point of view of Joseph himself, readers would struggle with my pretending to know what went on in his mind. Latter-day Saint historians have written that Joseph changed during that time, gained depth and compassion, and received doctrinal insights. So what happened to change the Prophet? I decided I could only create a sense of Joseph’s inner life by viewing the events through the perception of the person most readers know the least about: Caleb Baldwin. True, I had to “invent” Caleb’s mental and emotional experience, and I had to let the reader see Joseph through Caleb’s eyes. But I felt safer doing that than entering the mind of the Prophet directly.
The main problem in writing historical fiction is always the same: filling in gaps in places where historical research hasn’t provided the entire story. I try mightily to stay as close to reality as I know how. But in this novel, all the characters are real people. I couldn’t plant a fictional character in the jail to observe what happened. So relatives of Caleb Baldwin will have to forgive me—if they can—for probing his mind on the basis of what I could learn about him.
Let me say too—fo r those historically sophisticated—that I left a few things out. For example, during one short period of time, another prisoner was kept in the jail. I could learn little about this man, and his presence seemed more a distraction to the story than a useful bit of knowledge. The men in the jail also wrote and received other letters than the ones I mentioned, and some of these letters are extant, but again, a novel has to stay with information that moves the story forward. (And let me add, nonfiction historians also have to decide what details to include and what is trivia unimportant to the account.)
Professional historians often relate various, sometimes conflicting, sources for the events they describe. This is an effective way to offer differing perspectives without taking a stand on which version is correct. As a writer of historical fiction, however, I am forced to choose one version of an event, but I search for reliable sources to guide me in my choice. For example, in the prologue to this novel, I report some intense verbal exchanges: Caleb Baldwin questioning Judge Austin King, and King’s response; Joseph Smith’s query directed to Samson Avard; and the statement of one of the guards before the Richmond hearing began. The exchange between Caleb Baldwin and Judge King is based on an affidavit written by Caleb Baldwin himself. He paraphrased the words, and I turned them into direct dialogue, but Baldwin is my source. The other two exchanges were recorded by eyewitnesses David Pettigrew and Ebenezer Robinson.
As I said before, I didn’t try to report Joseph’s thoughts, but some readers may wonder whether or not I should have made up dialogue for him to speak. There is simply no way to know exactly what Joseph said in certain situations, but I have made a careful attempt to quote him when I could and to base conjectured dialogue on descriptions of events, and upon his opinions, attitudes, anxieties, and even self-doubt. I read and took notes on every entry in all three volumes of his journals published in The Joseph Smith Papers, and I did my best to understand the man and the prophet he was. I’ve attempted to be certain that I can trace anything he says in my novel to a source or at least to an explanation as to why I think he would have held a certain opinion or expressed various feelings.
Joseph was clearly angry when he wrote his first letter to the Saints from the jail. He was disturbed by the men he considered traitors—the men who witnessed against him in the court of inquiry in Richmond, Missouri. To read that letter is to feel his resentment. What I tried to trace, as best I could, was the emotional and spiritual process he experienced that brought him to the point that he could express some of the most lofty, inspired concepts spoken by any prophet in any era. I may have invented the spoken words of his conversations, but I don’t think I’ve misinterpreted his growth and deepened spirituality.
In the end, I think it is worth taking on the inherent dangers of fictionalizing a real experience. Most of us know some things about the jail experience—including the myths—but we normally read the inspiring sections 121–123 in the Doctrine and Covenants without understanding the context in which they were received. What I hope this book adds is more sense of who Joseph was and how his own humanity, along with his spirituality, entered into his process of self-discovery and his increased understanding of eternal truths. The story of Joseph’s time in jail and the prophetic words contained in the Doctrine and Covenants are among the treasures found in our Church’s history. The Lord tells Joseph in Doctrine and Covenants 122:7, “Know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good,” but if we comprehend what happened in the jail more fully, Joseph’s experiences can bring good to all of us.
Prologue
Caleb Baldwin stumbled as a guard shoved him from behind and ordered, “Get to the back with them others.”
Caleb caught his balance, then twisted around and stared at the guard. “Don’t push me,” he said defiantly. But he didn’t wait for a response; he crowded in among his brothers from Far West and Adam-Ondi-Ahman. They made room for him, but no one spoke. They all looked disheveled from the several nights they had slept on the floor, and downcast, surely from the treatment they had received. Caleb knew they were feeling what he was: defeated and fearful, whether they admitted it or not. The guards kept vowing that all of them would be convicted and put to death. “Don’t even hope for anything else,” one guard had told Caleb. But he had looked the man in the eye and said, “The Lord won’t let that happen.”
It was what he wanted to believe. And yet, his mouth was dry, his hands shaky. The raw hatred of these guards was unnerving.
Several Church leaders were ushered in a few minutes later: Joseph and Hyrum Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Parley Pratt, Lyman Wight, Amasa Lyman, George Robinson. Caleb had learned that these seven had been kept in a nearby log house, chained together. He wondered whether Joseph was shaken by all the rough handling. But the prophet looked resolute. He nodded to the other prisoners—a sign of confidence, Caleb thought—but said nothing.
The room smelled of unwashed men, but there was also the scent of newly cut logs in the windowless little Richmond courthouse, recently built, still unfinished. The lantern light left the room dim, and the wood stove had not yet blunted the cold of the November night. Two guards raised a long wooden pole from the floor and used it to force the prisoners farther back. There were more than fifty defendants, with new ones brought in each day. Now, with the pole forcing them back, they had to crush together so close that there was no room to move.
Several guards with rifles stood around the room. Caleb noticed how jovial they were now that the hearing was finally going to start. One man laughed and called out to his partners, “Now’s the chance to shoot your Mormon. I’ve shot mine.” All the guards laughed.
But Judge Austin King walked into the courtroom and the guards stood straighter, became quiet. King was a thin, stiff man, dressed in a suit of black clothes and a puffy silk necktie. He took a sweeping look around at the crowd of prisoners and stopped directly in front of Caleb, who took the chance to speak the words he had hoped to tell the man at some point. “Sir,” he said, and King lowered his head to listen. “Grant me a fair trial and I’ll be satisfied with the result.”
Caleb had wanted to explain what he meant by that, but King stepped closer and said, “Tell me your name.” Caleb recognized in the man’s voice that he was a Southerner.
“Caleb Baldwin.”
“Mr. Baldwin, this is not a trial. This is a court of inquiry. What will be decided here is whether enough evidence exists to hold you over for a trial. What you must recognize, however, is that Governor Boggs has already ordered that all of you leave Missouri or face extermination. This hearing won’t change that.”
“But sir, what will happen to my family if I’m not there to help them? I have nine children, seven of them girls. Who’s going to take care of them if they’re plundered and driven out across the prairie?”
“The best hope for you, Baldwin, is to renounce your religion, forsake Joseph Smith . . .” He hesitated and glanced at Joseph. “. . . and witness against him. There is no law that can protect you and the rest of the Mormons who have rebelled against the government of our state.”
His eyes moved away from Caleb as though to assess whether others had heard and understood, but Caleb raised his voice and called his attention back. “I will never renounce my religion or turn against my prophet.”
Judge King ignored Caleb’s words. He surveyed the bunched-up men before him. “If anyone wants to witness against this so-called prophet who has led you into this dreadful situation, please speak up. This is your chance to save yourselves.”
The room was silent. Caleb wasn’t surprised. A number of leaders had decided to break with the Church, and rumor had it that some were in town ready to take the stand as witnesses against the defendants, but the men who had been held in this little courthouse for several days had all expressed their loyalty to the Church and faith in Joseph Smith.
The jury—a group of men dressed better than Caleb had come to expect from settlers living in western Missouri—was brought in at that point and given seats near the judge. The doors then opened again and far too many spectators tried to push their way into the space between the defendants and the jury box. These were mostly men, and some of them looked as though they had come directly from their farms—in most cases, after an apparent stop at a local public house. They remained standing, and now the room was crowded far beyond comfort. Some of the crowd looked back at the accused and tossed out slurs, which elicited laughter from the others. The thrust of the abuse invariably included a vow that the defendants would all be shot—as they should be. Caleb tried to ignore all that, not look at the men shouting at him, but one thing was certain to him: he would never receive a fair hearing in this courtroom.
