John W. Hess and Emeline Bigler Grandparents of ... - Bateman Family

Across Three Centuries Alfred John Bateman & Clara May Hess Familydid not record his own manifestation until about 1898,may have been influenced by Smith’s account; still, it offersmuch insight into the sources of his strong commitmentto Mormonism:Shortly after I was confirmed by the laying on of handsand while at secret prayer next morning in the woods theHoly Spirit came upon me in so powerful a manner that Isprang to my feet and shouted for joy but before jumpingup and while praying, my eyes being shut, I saw a lightthat rested on me from behind and a stream of a fog likeappearance shot out of my mouth and as I jumped up Ithought an angel was surely present and at the same timemy tongue seemed to move and talk of itself and I felt lightas a feather. I spent most of the day alone in the woods andat night while at secret prayer had pritv much the samemanifestations as in the morning.Bigler’s commitment, rooted in his initial belief andnourished by such experiences, would grow strongerwith each passing year. It was a faith that both lifted hisheart and wrenched it. For example, soon after his baptism,Henry tried to share his newfound belief with hisgrandfather, Basil Harvey, the itinerant preacher. Harvey,however, refused to listen to the missionaries or read theMormon scriptures. He informed Bigler, “If I was to findthe Book of Mormon in my house I would burn it.” Theold man then charged, “If your mother had been alive, younever would have joined the Mormons.” Henry does notrecord his immediate response, but a year later he dreamedthat Harvey, then dead, came to him “in a fright” becausehe was in “great trouble” for not listening to the gospel.“Since then I have been baptized for him,” wrote Henrywith sober satisfaction.The family’s conversion to Mormonism ended three generationsof geographical and social stability. Twenty-yearoldPolly Bigler died in April 1838, “a good girl,” wroteHenry, “and beloved by all that knew her.” Two monthslater, in June, a group of Virginia converts migrated to FarWest in Caldwell County, Missouri. The Bigler contingentwas a large one, consisting of Jacob and Sally, twenty-threeyear-oldHenry, eighteen-year-old Hannah, fourteen-yearoldEmeline, and the four children of the second marriage,ranging from ten to four. (The fifth child, Mariah, wasborn near Nauvoo in 1843.) This was the first of manysuch displacements in response to a prophet’s voice forHenry Bigler, but it was a community near the brink ofdisaster that welcomed the Virginians that summer.According to an 1831 revelation of Joseph Smith, JacksonCounty, Missouri, was the site of both the biblicalGarden of Eden and of the future temple to which JesusChrist would return at his Second Coming. A small groupof the Saints had arrived in 1831 to establish a communitariancolony; but their exclusivist economic policy,Northern politics, and communal social customs quicklybrought them into conflict with the older residents of JacksonCounty. These Missourians resented the Mormons’claims of being God’s chosen people, doubted the apocalypticfuture outlined for their real estate, and feared anabolitionist agenda. Just eleven years earlier, Missouri hadentered the Union as a slave state and Jackson County wasa hotbed of proslavery sentiment. These fears seemed confirmedwhen the Evening and Morning Star, the Mormonnewspaper published at Independence, Missouri, printedan ill-advised editorial in June 1832 inviting free blacks toinvestigate Mormonism. By the end of 1833 the MissouriMormons had been forcibly driven from the county.After a brief sojourn in Clay County, the unwanted Mormonsmoved to less-settled Caldwell County in the northwestwhere they founded Far West. After a period that washardly tension free, though not marred by open violence,economic reversals in Ohio coupled with religious persecutionforced Joseph Smith from Kirtland to Far West inJanuary 1838. Thus, the Mormon prophet was in residencewhen Henry Bigler and his family arrived in Missouri.On their first Sunday in Far West, the Biglers attendeda church service where a “beardless boy” named ErastusSnow was the first orator. Henry Bigler admitted that theyouthful Snow, later an apostle, had “some preach in him.”Then, to their delight, Joseph Smith made some concludingremarks. Bigler admiringly recorded that Joseph Smithwas indeed “all that the Elders [in Harrison County] saidhe was.” Smith, over six feet tall and weighing about twohundred pounds, was powerfully built and charismatic.Contemporaries described him as “a plain, honest man,full of benevolence and philanthropy.”25 To Henry Bigler,who was short, slight, and never weighed over 150 poundseven in his prime, Smith’s physical presence alone wouldhave been imposing.Bigler also recorded the presence of other Mormon notables,including Joseph Smith, Sr., father of the prophet,whom he rather fancifully described as “favoring] the oldpatriarch Jacob.” Sidney Rigdon, then a counselor to JosephSmith in the church’s First Presidency, was “large”and “rather corpulent” but an excellent orator who spoke“comforting words to us.” Quoting Matthew 13:11 Rigdonpromised the Mormon faithful, “To you it is given toknow the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.”Later that summer Henry Bigler eagerly accompanied aparty led by Joseph Smith to visit Adam-ondi-Ahman, aprospering Mormon settlement in Daviess County to thenorth. According to Smith, Adam and Eve had made theirpost-expulsion home in this locale; Bigler and his grouplistened in wonder as Smith identified a particular spot asthe site of Adam’s altar at which he offered prayers andsacrifices. “It was in a grove of timber and the stones ofwhich it had been made were in big blocks laying aroundnear each other,” Henry wrote, “and where they came fromI never learned for I saw no other stones in the country likethem.”The Mormons were not long allowed to construct suchsacred histories. Contemporary politics pressed in uponthem. Hostility mounted in Caldwell and Daviess Countiesfor several reasons. The local Missourians feared thatthe Mormons might become violent . . . The continuedrapid growth of the Mormon population in western Missouribrought accompanying political and economicthreats. Mormon millennial expectations, while devout,were no doubt indiscreet in anticipating the possession ofthe whole of Missouri at the Second Coming.Henry Bigler was living with his uncle, Mark Bigler, whohad been baptized in 1834, at Adam-ondi-Ahman whenhe observed that “the Missourians began to hold meetingsand resolutions passed to drive the Mormons out of thestate “ These initial protests culminated in an armed clashbetween Missourians and Mormons at Crooked River on25 October 1838 that left three Mormons slain and oneMissourian killed and several wounded. Missouri’s governor,Lilburn Boggs of Jackson County, issued an executiveorder that the Saints “must be exterminated or driven fromthe state.” On 20 October 1838 a loosely organized detachmentof state militia whom Bigler termed a “mob army”killed eighteen men and boys, apparently unarmed, at nearbyHaun’s Mill, then surrounded Adam~ondi~Ahman.Although he was “lieing sick with ague,” Henry Biglerjoined the other besieged citizens in battle preparations,but the fight was aborted when Joseph Smith capitulatedat Far West. Those at Adam-ondi-Ahman also decided336