Fountain Green, Ill., May 16th.
Dear Sisters of the “Home Columns,” — Living remote as I do from any branch of the church, I feel the more drawn out to communicate with you through the Herald. The time allotted me for my sojourn here in all probability is near an end, therefore while I live I want to do all that I can for God and the truth. I am living with my son and his family and we seldom have any preaching here. The Herald is the only messenger of glad tidings which visits us and it gladdens my heart to see the interest my sisters take in helping on this great and glorious work of the last days. When I wrote before I did not know that David Whitmer was still living, for I had heard he was dead. David Whitmer and his wife were both of them present when the first conference of the church was held. They were members of the church at that time and I have often heard him about seeing the angel and also the records and say “Tongue can never express my feelings, while talking to the heavenly messenger.” This testimony he still bears.
The persecution we suffered, after the church was organized, was so great that we left our home and moved into the house with my brother Hyrum’s family. The Lord warned Hyrum in a vision when he was out preaching to return and take his family to a place of safety, for his enemies were in search of him. A few days after he was gone, a number of men, came and searched our house for him. Mother, myself and younger sister were the only ones at home; but the men insisted that they knew he was there and they meant to have him. When we insisted that he was not there, their anger was turned upon us and they commenced to rob the house. While they were plundering us, my brother, William, came. He had been warned that we were in trouble, and upon coming in he asked mother, “What were those men doing?” She told him that they had come for Hyrum and were now plundering the house. Arming himself with a stout club, he soon drove them from the house. They had come in carriages with dark lanterns, and if they had found Hyrum it was their intention to have him put to death. His work was not done, therefore the Lord spared him. In the fall our family moved to Waterloo, in LaFayette county, near old father Whitmer’s. My brothers and the Whitmer brothers, held meetings, first at one house and then at the other, for preaching and prayer, and this continued until near spring, first one preaching and then the other, wherever they could get a hearing. As spring approached they were commanded to go to Kirtland, Ohio, and the rest of the church were to go in the spring. When the members of the church had all assembled, ready for the journey, my mother took charge of the company, and with the aid of Bro. Humphry and my brother William, we accomplished the journey as far as Buffalo. Mother then sent brethren to the wharf to inquire for a Capt. Blake. When they found him, and mother had spoken for our passage across the lake he told her that the lake was so blocked with ice he did not think it would be possible for us to sail for two weeks. She tried to rent a room, but could not get one. The captain then gave us permission to go on the boat and stay until we could sail. The ice, he said, was four miles out in the lake, and four miles thick.
The outlook was anything but pleasant. Children were crying, sisters complaining, wishing they had stayed at home where they could enjoy their comfortable rocking chairs, much as the children of Israel longed for the flesh pots of Egypt. Mother bore all their complainings patiently, and had great charity for and sympathy with them. Her faith was strong in the Lord, for she believed that he had commanded us to go and would carry us safely through. We held a prayer meeting and prayed that the Lord would open the way for us to pass out and reach our destination. We also sung our praises to our God for the blessings he had bestowed upon us in restoring the gospel in these last days. The captain came to mother and begged her to have her company quit singing, for his men were so attracted by the music that it was impossible to get them to obey orders, and the ice was liable to break now at any time and then sail must be hoisted. Shortly afterwards we heard a great noise and cracking in the ice. The captain called all hands and set them to work, for the crack had widened and a channel had opened in the ice wide enough for our boat to pass out. The ice then closed up behind us, and not another boat passed out for two weeks. The first night we laid over on the Canadian side and made some repairs on the wheels. The captain said he had been on the lake for thirty years, and that it was the roughest time he had ever had, and he believed nothing had saved us but Mother Smith’s faith and prayers. When we sailed into Fairport we found my brothers waiting for us. They had come to get news of us, as the word had reached them that we were all drowned. Our joy was great in seeing them again after passing through such trials. We took breakfast at Bro. Partridge’s, the first regular meal we had eaten since we started on our journey. I do not remember how many there were in our company, but of our own company there were eight. Mother, my oldest sister, her husband and one child, brother William and Don Carlos, myself and sister Lucy. My brothers took us to Kirtland where we met father. I can tell you it was a day of rejoicing, and when memory brings these things afresh to my mind I can not help weeping. Then we were a united happy family; now all but two have passed over the dark river. With Job I feel to say, “All the days of my appointed time will I wait until my change come.” The church prospered greatly, and members were added unto us daily.
Your sister in gospel bonds, KATHERINE SALISBURY.
[The 1886 CSV citation pointed to The Saints’ Herald vol. 33 no. 17 (1 May 1886); this companion-letter row (the second 1886 excerpt) is most naturally identified with Katharine’s longer narrative letter to the “Sisters of the Home Columns,” dated 16 May 1886 and printed two months later in vol. 33 no. 26 (3 July 1886). Both letters were addressed to the same audience and frequently described together in the secondary literature as “Katharine’s 1886 Saints’ Herald testimony.”]