So this was our last day on the road! While usually you'd think we'd be totally excited, we couldn't actually get to our apartment until the next day...so we were only halfway excited. Only one more night in a hotel!
For this Sunday our planned stop of the day was Carthage, IL. It was the last stop on our little "Mormon History Tour." Carthage is where our prophet Joseph Smith and his brother were shot and murdered by an angry mob.
Here is a description of what happened, from History of the Church.
"Around five o’clock in the evening a mob of about one hundred men attacked the jail. Many of the men had blackened their faces with mud and gunpowder so they would not be recognized.The guards at the jail were friends of the mobbers and made no serious attempt to stop the attack. Some members of the mob shot at the windows of the jail, and others ran up the stairs to shoot into the room where the Church leaders were.
The brethren tried to bar the door shut and use their few weapons to drive off the mob. Joseph Smith fired a pistol and John Taylor used his heavy cane to try to knock down the guns of the mob as they were pushed into the room through the door, but there were too many people in the mob for the brethren to defend themselves.
He fell to the floor, crying out, “I am a dead man!” As he fell he was hit by three other bullets. Joseph cried out, “Oh dear, brother Hyrum!”
John Taylor moved toward the open window, hoping to jump to safety. A bullet fired from inside the jail hit his leg and he started to fall out the window, but a second bullet from outside the jail hit his pocket watch with such force that it pushed him back into the room, saving his life. Elder Taylor was hit with three more bullets as he crawled under the bed.
After Hyrum and John Taylor were shot, the Prophet moved to the window.
He was hit by two bullets fired from the doorway of the room and a third bullet fired from outside the jail. He cried, “Oh Lord, my God!” and fell out the window."
The jail had been lived in for many years before the church purchased it, and obviously the furniture are not originals but put in to give you a feel of the time. But the jail is still laid out the same. The woodworking around the doors and windows, and the floors are the same. The door on the room where the prophet stayed is the same. Bullet hole and all. It is crazy to me that after so many years of being lived in, no one ever replaced the door.
The tour was very nice. There was a video about Joseph Smith before hand (man, Mormons love their videos) But at the end of the tour we stopped in the room where it all happened. The spirit while listening to the audio of what happened in that room was very unmistakable and humbling. Of course, since I am and will forever be a crybaby, a few tears escaped while I listened to audio of what happened, while making sure Ashlyn didn't try to crawl under the bed.
It was a perfect way to end our "Mormon History Tour."
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