Autobiography
of Julia Ives Pack in Kate B. Carter, comp., Our Pioneer Heritage, 9 (1966)
My father, Erastus Ives,
was born at Farrington, Connecticut, November 2, 1780. He died at Watertown, New
York, September 3, 1828. My mother, Lucy Paine, was born December 25, 1782, at
Amena, New York. They were married in December 1805. Their children were Joel,
Jerome, Julia, and Henry. My mother died October 20, 1839, at Nauvoo, Illinois.
I was born March 8, 1817, at Watertown, New York and was married to John Pack,
October 10, 1832. Our first child, Ward Eton Pack, was born April 17, 1834. My
husband and I were baptized March 8, 1836, into The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints. We migrated to Kirtland, Ohio, in the spring of 1837. There
our first daughter, Lucy Amelia, was born on June 24, 1837. We left Kirtland in
the spring of 1838 and went to Daviess County Missouri, twenty miles from Far
West. We were in Far West at the celebration on July 4, 1838, when the
cornerstone for a temple was laid. The Saints had a good time. It was a general
time of rejoicing.
About the first of September the mob began to gather against
the Mormons, made attacks on them, burning houses in some places. We moved into
Far West and stayed there until Brigadier General Parks and Mr. Donovan came on
the scene and dispersed the mob and sent them home. We went back to our home.
Shortly after, a company of immigrants came, bringing word that Levi Wood,
husband of Phoebe Pack, my husband's sister, had died at Huntsville, Missouri,
and that she was very sick, unto death. My husband and I started next day to go
and look after them. Our first day's journey took us within five miles of Grand
River Ferry. We stopped all night at a neighbor's house. There was but one room
in the house, and the landlady made us a bed on the floor. About the middle of
the night, the man of the house came home, complained of being very tired and
that he had not had his boots off for several nights.
He had been in the mob camp
that was gathered against the Saints at Dewitt on the Missouri River. We started
on our journey the next morning and were nearly to the ferry when a company of
armed men, about thirty in number, met us. About half of them had passed when
the head man wheeled about, rode up to our wagon, and asked if we were Mormons.
My husband told him we were, and he told us we would have to go with them to
their camp. He ordered us to wheel about. They took us about five miles across a
new rough road to their camp. The leader of the gang came up to our wagon and
ordered my husband to take his valise and follow them, saying, "We take you
for a spy." He said to me, "You can bid your husband goodbye. You will
never see him again. You can go to that house," pointing to a log house
across the hollow.
I told him I would not go one inch, I said, "If my
husband dies, I will die with him." I put my foot on the wheel of the wagon
to jump to the ground when my husband took hold of my hand and whispered to me:
"You stay with the wagon and take care of the horses, I am not afraid of
them and will be back soon."
They took him through a
patch of hazel brush to an open space covered with grass. Sachel Woods, a
Methodist minister said: "Here will be your grave, we are going to kill you
unless you will deny Joe Smith." My husband said: "Joseph Smith is a
Prophet of God. You profess to be a preacher of righteousness and so do I. I'll
meet you at the day of judgment."
There were five or six of them. They talked around inquiring
who would shoot him, but none seemed really willing to do the deed. Finally a
man standing by our wagon called out--"Let that damned Mormon go."
Soon they came back with him, ordered him back into his wagon, saying if we were
ever seen in that country again, it would be at the peril of our lives. They
sent the same company back with us to the ferry and saw us across the river. We
went on to our sister at Huntsville and found her very sick. She was completely
salivated with calomel and was near her death. We stayed two weeks and did all
we could for her, then put a bed in our wagon and placed her on it with her
little child six months old. We left the three older children with a Mormon
family, Amos Herrick. We started on our journey home and got as far as Carlton,
a small town forty miles from our home. At a grog shop in this town were several
of the mob that took us prisoners. They knew us and said: "There are the
ones we took prisoners. Let us go for Sachel Woods." A man jumped on his
horse and went full speed for somewhere. We went a short distance through a
piece of timber, then left the road and started for home across the prairie. Two
or three times during the night we came to deep narrow gullies cut by the storms
in the rich soil. My husband would unhitch the horses, get them over, then we
would draw the wagon over by hand, it being a light wagon something like the
delivery wagons we have now. We reached our home shortly after daybreak and
found my husband's brother, Rufus Pack, there sick with chills and fever. The
mob had returned and were annoying the Saints, driving them out of their homes
and burning their dwellings.
My husband's father was
taken sick a few days after. He died. Next day we took him to Far West, held the
funeral and returned home the same day, and stayed up all night, loaded our
wagons with what we could, and started to Far West. The next day when we reached
there, my husband bought some logs for a house, laid them up and chinked the
cracks with wood without plastering it, and we moved into it. It was the last
house of the city towards Goose Creek. There were twenty of us in this one cold
room. The mob came against Far West. Our leading men, the Prophet and others,
were delivered up to them and our city was surrounded by the mob guard. Two of
them stood in front of our door for weeks.
William Bosley and Eleanor Pack, his wife, were with us. She
is my husband's sister. He was in the Crooked River Battle when David Patten was
killed. The mob was after all who were in that battle to take them prisoners.
William came to my husband saying: "I can never get away unless you help
me." They started out, got past the guard and went to Huntsville. My
husband was gone two weeks. During his absence we got out of flour. We had a log
set on end with a mortar in the top to hold the grain, a spring pole with a
wedge in the end to grind the corn. Of this we made bread. During these two
weeks, Rufus' wife was taken sick. I went to Parley Pratt's home, a small room
he had put up for his stable in which his family was living, and asked
permission of his wife who was in her bed sick with one of her children by her
side, to bring our sister there for her confinement. There was a small place at
the foot of her bed where I made a bed for our sister. She was lying in this bed
when Parley Pratt came to bid his wife and family goodbye before going to
prison, he being guarded by two men while doing so.
There came a severe
snowstorm, after our men had given up their firearms and signed a paper at the
point of a bayonet to give up all of their property to pay the expenses of
driving us out of the state which we had to leave before the last of April 1838
or be exterminated. After the mob went home, we moved out on Log Creek, six
miles from Far West. My mother, Lucy Ives, was with us. We stayed there until
the 8th of February 1839.
