In 1833, when mobbing reigned triumphant in Jackson Co. Mo. I and O. Cowdery [fled] from our homes, for fear of personal violence on Saturday the 20th day of July. The mob. . .offered eighty dollars reward for any one who would deliver Cowdery or McLellan in Independence. . .I slipped down into the Whitmer's settlement, and. . .I met with David Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery. I said to them, 'brethren I never have seen an open vision in my life. . . Is that book of Mormon true?' Cowdery looked at me with solemnity depicted in his face, and said, 'Brother William, God sent his holy Angel to declare the truth of the translation of it to us, and therefore we know. And though the mob kill us, yet we must die declaring its truth.'