James Stapleton
Lewis became an LDS missionary himself. He was ordained a priest by Seymour Brunson
on December 2, 1831.
“Soon after I traveled with Elder
Fallis into the state of Ohio baptizing some. At one meeting a noted man by the name of Kyler came to criticize.
I being young, only seventeen years of age, was reading the different passages that related to the coming forth
of the Book of Mormon and the work of the last
days. Mr. Kyler interrupted me by asking why I read in detached pieces instead
of reading that book in
connection, he supposed I was reading the Book of Mormon. He was thus made
ashamed before the whole
congregation when he was informed the scripture was quoted from his own Bible.
“At another time a school mate of
mine but older and farther advanced, he belonged to a sect called (secedry ?) noted for reading
scriptures, kept contradicting and talking until I offered him the stand and would wait until he would get
through but he declined. When the Lord put a few words into my mouth that so silenced him he never
spoke another word. At the close of the meeting one requested baptism.
“I returned home and traveled
again into Ohio with Elder Levi W. Hancock. In Greenville, Ohio, a meeting with ____ appointed in the
court house. Time came to open the meeting. A mob had concealed themselves in the upper story of
the house, came down yelling and singing vulgar songs, broke up the congregation, and we traveled on. This
was in Dark County, State of Ohio, March, 1832.
“In April traveled with Elder
Jackson on to the White Water River. Held meetings. Some were convinced of the truth of the gospel,
were afterwards baptized. Some of them crossed the plains with us in the year 1852.
“At the crossing of the Wabash
River there was a camp of Indians – we were told they were Catholics. In the morning Elder Jackson, myself,
and a few others stopped to see them. All but one of the men had gone hunting. Enos, the one left, could
talk so we could understand. They had a flat stick about one foot in length and one inch wide with
seven characters cut in it. This seemed to be a kind of Urem and Thummen to them for they appeared to
understand everything we said to them by pointing from one character to another as the subject changed.
Sometimes they shed freely while we talked to them
and they pointed to their characters.
“Enos said they had a Prophet – we
gave them a Book of Mormon. Enos said, ‘Yes, Prophet say a book first come to white man then come to red
skin. Prophet know all the book in his heart. Prophet say we go West maybe next year.’ They did
and found Elder Jackson and talked with him near Independence, Missouri. On seeing them, Elder W. W. Phelps
wrote the verses, ‘Oh stop and tell me red
man.’ They settled them above Fort Leavenworth.
“The Missouri people called them
‘Mormon Indians.’ I believe they offer prayer in concert. When we had prayer in the morning they said,
‘One good man over the river.’ They were called Kickapoos, but parts
of several tribes, Sacks, Foxes, and some others. Their humility surpassed
anything I have ever seen
before or since – this was 1832. . . . [I am uncertain if this event with the
Indians was part of JSL’s
missionary experiences or whether it happened as he made his way to Missouri.]
“In June, 1832, I started to
gather with the saints in Missouri on foot and alone, going by Logansport on the Wabash River to see my sister
and continued down the river and joined a company of saints also going to Missouri, pitching
their tents by the __________. Fortunately for me, as I was coming into camp, Brother Rawson, a man I had never seen
before, met me and asked me if I would go with him and help him with his team. At once, I told him yes, as I wished
to go with someone. On going to the tent,
to my surprise, there was Sister Anna Jones. She was engaged to help Sister
Rawson on the way to Missouri. I
was of some benefit to the company as a kind of commissary to go ahead and
purchase supplies and have
them ready by the time the teams came up.
“On going to Missouri, I made my
home with Elder Horace Rawson whose family I ever after held in the highest esteem. The last time I
ever saw Sister Rawson was in the Logan Temple. I said to Sister Rawson, ‘This is a good place to
meet in after being acquainted more than fifty years in which time having passed through all of troubles of
Missouri where our houses were torn down over heads and our property destroyed.’ We were compelled to leave
Jackson County, then Clay County, then the State
of Missouri, then Illinois, and the United States. Any one of these was trouble
enough for one life time. And but
very few have survived them all to tell the story of a people persecuted for righteousness in this generation.
“In going to Missouri the company
traveled pitching their tents by the way, stopping over Sunday and having a meeting. Their teams
were for the most part ox teams. . . . At Pekin I was very sick with fever but was cared for in all kindness
and soon recovered at Quincy. The company stopped and worked for a week. Arrived at Independence September the 2nd
day of 1832. I now set about finding a place
to get work. Went to Big Blue River, worked for Father Rockwell and Porter
Rockwell. Stopped over Sunday and
went on to Lyman Wight’s and seen him once on a mission. He directed me to the Whitmer settlement.”
James Stapleton
Lewis and Anna Jones were married by W. W. Phelps on May 10, 1833. (The Marriage Records of Jackson Co., MO, vol
1; TIB and Endowment House records of J. S. Lewis.)
Anna Jones was born in Kentucky on November 10, 1809 according to
her TIB card. [Her birth date is also given as November 5 and 9 and 1810 in
other sources.] Her parents were John Jones and Sarah Sumpter who were married
in Franklin County, Virginia, 12 August 1790 with marriage bond record of 5
July. (Marriage Bonds of Franklin Co.,
Virginia, 1786-1858.) Anna was ninth of eleven children. Only she and her
sister Elizabeth joined the LDS Church.
James’ and Anna’s
first child, Joel Jones Lewis, was born in Clay County, Missouri, February 27,
1834. Anna’s sister Elizabeth Jackson, died in July, 1835, in Clay County and
was buried on Shoal Creek west of Liberty. [In published records of early LDS
Church members in Missouri, Elizabeth’s name is absent. The record of her death
in JSL’s journal is the only place it is recorded (though record of her
marriage to Henry S Jackson can be found in Clinton County, Ohio.) In those
published lists, Henry is listed with his second wife Sarah.]
John Alma Lewis,
second son of James and Anna, was born August 22, 1835 [other records give 1834
and 1836.] In 1838, James and Anna moved their family to Cass County, Missouri.
There on February 6, 1838, James Ammon was born. He died April 28, 1840. (Newsletter, January 1936.)
Writing of his
experiences in Missouri, James’ indignation at the unjust treatment of the
Saints is evident.
“In reading of 123 section book of
Doctrine and Covenants, requirements made of the Latter-day Saints to present an account of their losses
in property and character by being driven by mob violence from the State of Missouri in the year 1833 in the
presence (in open day) of the Civil Authorities
and also of the military officers including Lieutenant Governor Lilburn W.
Boggs of Independence, Jackson County,
Missouri, doth witness that I, James S. Lewis, did clear and fence with nails, it being timberland, five acres of
land and raised a crop of corn and vegetables. Gathered it home half a mile distant
where I had built a good log house 16 by 18 feet in the square. Loss of my labor crop and right to the land 1000 dollars.
“Military orders allowed me three
days to go in which I should not be molested. Having no team I got a small trunk and three quilts in another
man’s one-horse wagon, already crowded with a large family.
My wife and myself thought of no conveyance but to walk out of Jackson County,
Missouri and then where we knew not.
“The Prophet requires facts –
suffering and abuses. Suffering cannot be written; of abuses will only relate one or two. Late in December of 1832,
the house that I was in, Brother Fallises, was assailed on the outside around the doorway and on
top, unroofing and pitching the timbers on the inside where were three beds – all occupied and asleep,
at the first. Any of the pieces pitched in would have crippled or killed any that it might have hit. Those at the doorway
shot through, there being only a quilt
hung up, the walls in the opposite side of the house. Was just opposite the
pillow where Brother and Sister
Fallis lay and about eighteen inches from it. Providentially I lay on the
floor. Had I raised on my knees as
naturally I would attempt to go under one of the beds, would have been shot
through the body. Thanks to a kind
providence no one in the house was injured.
“The same winter at a very late
hour of the night we were aroused by the screams of a widowed sister, Sister R. Stout. Brother Fallis
bounded from our bed, no time to dress, ran to her relief in great danger of violence to ourselves as
there was some dozen of men.
“At my house late in October, my
wife being alone, hearing a slight sound on the outside of the house, parted the quilt door, when horror of
horrors, there was the blackest negro of Missouri two yards off. With one bound she passed him and ran half
a mile upgrade to the nearest house, and she was in delicate health at the time.
“1837 I settled on Crooked River,
Ray County, Missouri, in what was known as the Dutch settlement of Mormons.
“1838 rented a large farm in
addition to my own. Hired help and raised a crop of grain and vegetables worth 1000 dollars. Paid the rent in making
improvements on the farm for that year, and paid rent for
two years more. I could have more than doubled my interest the two following
years, therefore, place
my damages at 5000 dollars with 10 per cent interest from date, except 6
dollars that was paid on my
crop of 1838.
“I left the state of Missouri
under the exterminating order of Governor Lilburn W. Boggs, leaving the most flattering prospects of
accumulating wealth, and in addition had abundance of promises of protection and safety from all
harm if I would only stay. ‘Thank you for all your personal good wishes, but if my people have to go I
must go with them.’
“In mid-winter with wife and three
small children, we started a distance of two hundred miles to satisfy the demands of a Christian
state. We passed through some of the most bitter places where Sisters were driven out of their
own homes when a new born babe was not an hour old. Of course the mother died before she could be got to a
place of safety. The Christian name of this place was DeWitt, Missouri. It was a Mormon town,
but in the district of Sashel Woods, the Christian minister wielded all his efforts and all his influence in favor
of the mob.
“Damages sustained in losses of
character as a free American citizen. I, James S. Lewis, was by the highest authority of the sovereign state of
Missouri expelled from that state to leave my own house and legally acquired landed property, deprived of my liberty,
and sadly against my will and against my
interest to leave the land of my choice. Being thus humiliated below all the
American races, even those that are
held in ignoramus [sic] servitude and valued only as common property. To say
the least, my indignation is
not bounded in value by dollars and cents.
“When we get to another state how
shall we be received? My outfit was sorry enough, but what can the people say of us. ‘Here is a
family exiled and driven out of Missouri as unfit to live in that sovereign state.’ Can we look
anybody in the face, can we expect a favor or even a kind look from anybody? Not only so, but
Missouri sent all her influence against us with all manner of false and slanderous reports against us and
officers with trumped up writs. Some of our best men were hounded more than three hundred
miles in Illinois and some were kidnapped and taken and imprisoned in Missouri and sadly treated without any just
cause. This unjust persecutive spirit never grew
less but increased as will be shown in their conduct hereafter.
“October, 1838, I will go back a
little when Far West was taken and her leading men captured. A Mock Court Martial was held to try ministers
of the gospel of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. On the jury at this court martial were
seventeen of Missouri gospel mongers. I suppose this was the cream of their religious faith, for they voted that
these Mormon ministers should be shot the next morning at eight o’clock in the presence of
their wives and children. But a Gamaliel was found in the person of General Donephon (the greatest lawyer
in Missouri) who wrung his hands, swore by all the authority of Heaven and Earth that it was murder,
cold-blooded murder, and he would have nothing to do with it, and ordered his Brigade to be
ready to march immediately. October, 1838-1839, the Legislature of Missouri appropriated two hundred
thousand dollars to pay the mob militia for driving the Mormons out of the state of Missouri (over
and above what they obtained by plundering all that the Mormons could not put into a wagon many times
with two or three families to a wagon.)
“I will now come again to my own family.
We are now among strangers and those that know us not (I mistake) this is well known of us –
that we have been expelled from a sovereign state as being unworthy to live in in. This is
humiliating beyond the value of dollars and cents to a true American citizen guilty of no crime against any state
or against the morals of any religious denomination.
“But, I, James S. Lewis, plainly
charge the state of Missouri for the loss of my liberty in all its bearings in that state and by its authority One Hundred
Thousand Dollars for my share with legal interest from 1838, thinking by the time that is paid Missouri will learn
to respect decent people respectfully.”
In 1900, James
Stapleton wrote concerning this trying period:
“I write a few lines that come
from some reflections in looking over some incidents of the past. What I know of the history of my father – he
was a Pioneer in practice among the foremost in that line. In my own experience, it seems to have fallen
to my lot to be on the Frontiers nearly all of my life, and have, therefore, been thrown among the
coarser employments of life. My duties seemed to call me to assist in opening up some new localities in which
I have been fairly successful.
“In Jackson County, Missouri, I
made a very fair start – cleared and fenced a small field, built a good log house, raised and gathered a crop
just in time to be obliged to leave it to the mob. At Crooked River I rented a farm and leased land
for a term of years. After putting in my crop, I surprised my employer and his neighbors by hiring some
help, clearing my lease, and putting it in and raising a fine crop on it too; thus, paying my rent for
several years in advance. I barely sold enough to a mobocrate friend
to pay my hired help.
"Now comes Governor Boggs’ order to his mob army to drive
the Mormons from the state of Missouri or exterminate them. I need not say the mob was not buying our farms or crops. It was pick up and go
or we will kill you. It was two hundred miles to any other state, and how we would be received when we got
there was a very serious question. I, being more fortunate than many
others, arrived at the Mississippi the middle of January and got work on an island until spring. There were many on the
road and the Prophet and many others in prison. Many strong men were apostatizing, and among the number were the best
friends that I had in the world, such as
Oliver Cowdery, the Whitmers, David and John, Jacob Hiram Page, a
brother-in-law. [This may be a
reference to Henry S. Jackson who was examined by the Far West High Council and
eventually joined the Reorganized
LDS group.] Some of the twelve staggered and some fell. Times were precarious. There was no
gathering place, many could go no further. I gave up my opportunities to stop to those that could go no further,
and I went to Rock Island, Illinois. Not feeling at home there, I went into Indiana, and here I found
myself of some benefit to Elders passing on missions. Quite a number were baptized, some of which came with
us to Nauvoo in October, 1844.”
In the Bible his
mother had given James, the birth of his fourth son, Francis Marion, is entered
for March 30, 1841, in Carroll County, Indiana. James’ father, Joel Lewis, died
January 20, 1839. It is supposed that James and his family returned to Indiana
after leaving Missouri, perhaps because of this death. They remained in Carroll
County until 1843, at least, while James farmed. His Bible records the death of
Francis Marion on May 27, 1843. (Newsletter,
February 1936.)
While he was
residing in Carroll County, James received reports of the growth of the new
headquarters of the LDS Church in Nauvoo, Illinois, where the Saints had begun
to settle in 1839. Longing to be again with those of his own faith, James
disposed of his farm in Carroll County and moved his family and household to
Nauvoo in 1843 or 1844 [if the 1844 date is correct, the Lewis family would
have arrived after the deaths of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother
Hyrum. In that case they may have moved to the Nauvoo area in order to be
associated with whatever the Church would do in consequence.]
Upon the arrival
at Nauvoo, James and Anna would have found a bustling city. The temple was
under construction which had begun in 1841. However, there were signs of the
difficulties that would lead to the expulsion of the Lewis family along with
the Saints from their homes again. In 1842 an attempt on the life of
ex-governor Boggs had resulted in the Prophet Joseph Smith’s arrest on the
accusation of being an instigator. He was arrested again in June, 1843. In
June, 1844, the destruction of the press of the apostate newspaper, the Nauvoo Expositor, by order of the Nauvoo
City Council brought more mob anger. The outcome was the martyrdom of Joseph
and Hyrum Smith on June 27, 1844.
That same year on
October 15, the fifth son of James and Anna was born. He was named Isaac Morley
Lewis. James, Anna, Joel, John, and Isaac were among the thousands who left
Nauvoo beginning in February, 1846. They, however, did not reach the Salt Lake
Valley until 1852. (Newsletter, March
1936.)
James Stapleton
Lewis noted:
“After the whole Mormon people
were driven from the State of Missouri, their persecution still followed in Illinois until the same
spirit prevailed there and until the same result followed. Governor Tom Ford of Illinois was too cowardly to
come out as Governor Boggs of Missouri by the authority of the state, yet Ford pledged the honor of
the State of Illinois. These are matters of history. I have only to bear testimony of the truth of
them.”
