Porter Rockwell’s return on Christmas Eve
David Kenison
Orrin Porter Rockwell is a legend in Church history, and there are many stories and legends, true and fictional, about his life. The following events are described in the History of the Church. vol 6.
Rockwell was arrested on March 4, 1843, in St. Louis, and charged with the attempted assassination of Govenor Lilburn W. Boggs, which had occurred the previous year. Joseph Smith prophesied that Porter would eventually be freed unharmed, but that took almost 10 months. Some interesting events too place during the first week as he was transported in a stage from St. Louis to Jefferson City:
“The next night, the driver, being drunk, ran against a tree, breaking the king bolt. Not knowing what to do, I crawled into the boot and found an extra bolt. In the dark I fixed the coach, got it off the tree, and we continued on our way. Soon after that, we ran against a bank, and could not move. I was asleep at the time, but the bustle woke me up, and I told them, if they would take off my irons, I would drive the coach, as the driver was too drunk to manage the horses. They refused. However, I got ahold of the lines and, by the help of other passengers lifing at the wheels, got it righted, and I drove to the next stand. The roads were very bad, and the load heavy, so we got along very slowly.”
Rockwell was imprisoned in Independence, bound in iron hobbles. The weather was very cold at first, and he suffered from exposure and lack of adequate food. Once he escaped briefly, but was recaptured when he stopped to help another prisoner. There were several mock trials, at which no solid evidence to support the charges was ever produced. There were persistent threats of hanging, and persecution by mobs. After the escape attempt, he reported:
“I was then put into the dungeon, my feet ironed togcther, and my right hand shackled to my left foot, so close that I could not straighten myself. The irons, when put on my wrists. were so small that they would hardly go on, and swelled them, but in eighteen days I could slip them up and turn them around my arm at the elbow. I was fed on cold corndodger and meat of the poorest description, and if I did not eat it all up. it was returned the next time. About a month after the court sat, my irons were taken off, and I was so weak that I had to be led to the courtroom by the officer.”
At one point, Rockwell was transported to Clay County when his lawyer moved for a change of venue, but he was returned to Independence after 10 days. There were more threats on his life during the transports, but he was miraculouly preserved from harm. In Independence, the prosecutors were told Rockwell had great influence over Joseph Smith. and they offered him a bribe:
“During this time, Joseph H. Reynolds, the sheriff, told me he was going to arrest Joseph Smith, and they had received letters from Nauvoo which satisfied them that Joseph Smith had unlimited confidence in me, and that I was capable of transporting him in a carriage or on horseback anywhere that I pleased, and if I would only tote him out by riding or any other way so they could apprehend him, I might please myself whether I stayed in Illinois or came back to Missouri: they would protect me, and that any price I would name the citizens of Jackson county would donate, club together, and raise, and that I should never suffer want afterwards; ‘you only deliver Joe Smith into our hands, and name your price.’ I replied, ‘I will see you all damned first, and then I won’t.’
“About the time that Joseph was arrested by Reynolds at Dixon. I knew that they were after him. and yet had no means under heaven of giving him any information. My anxiety became so intense upon the subject, knowing their determination to kill him, that my flesh twitched on my bones. I could not help it; twitch it would. While undergoing this sensation. I head a dover alight on the window in the upper room of the jail. It commenced cooing, and then went off. In a short time, he came to the window, and where a pane was broken he crept through between the bars of iron, which were about two-and-a-half inches apart.
“I saw it fly round the trap-door several times: it did not alight, but continued cooing until it crept through out again through the broken window.
“I relate this, as it was the only occurrence of the kind that happened during my long and weary imprisonment, but it proved comfort to me; the twitching of my flesh ceased, and I was fully satisfied from that moment that they would not get Joseph into Missouri, and that I should regain my freedom. From the best estimates that can be made, this incident was about when Joseph was in the custody of Reynolds.”
On December 13, a final trial was held, in which Rockwell was sentenced to 5 minutes imprisomment for breaking out of jail. That evening, he was finally released, with the advice that he avoid the roads and travel at night for his own safety. He made his way to Nauvoo, walking most of the way, and complaining once that he “walked past Crooked River to a Mr. Taylor’s place, with all the skin off my feet.” At one point, he spent a night at a house where he was “well known”, but no one recognized him, and he did not make himself known. He arrived in Nauvoo on Christmas Day, 1843.
December 25, 1843 was Joseph’s last Christmas; he and Emma were residing in the newly completed Mansion House in Nauvoo. Joseph records: “This morning, about one o’clock, I was aroused by an English sister, Lettice Rushton, widow of Richard Rushton Sr. (who, ten years ago, lost her sight) accompanied by three of her sons, with their wives, and her two daughters, with their husbands, and several of her neighbors, singing, ‘Mortals, awake! with angels join’ etc., which caused a thrill of pleasure to run through my soul. All of my family and boarders arose to hear the serenade. and I felt to thank my Heavenly Father for their visit and blessed them in the name of the Lord. They also visited my brother Hyrum, who was also awakened from his sleep. He arose and came outdoors. He shook hands with and blessed each one of them in the name of the Lord, and said that be thought at first that angels had come to visit him, it was such heavenly music to hear.
Later that evening, a large gathering of family and friends supped with the Prophet and spent the evening enjoying good music and dancing “in a most cheerful and friendly manner.” Then, an uninvited guest interrupted the party:
“During the festivities. a man with his hair long and falling over his shoulders, and apparently drunk, came in and acted like a Missourian. I requested the captain of the police to put him out of doors. A scuffle ensued, and I had the opportunity to look him full in the face, when to my great surprise and joy I discovered it was my long-tried, warm, but cruelly persecuted friend Orrin Porter Rockwell, just arrived from nearly a year’s imprisonment without conviction, in Missouri.”
After hearing Rockwell’s story, Joseph made a Samson-like prophecy: as long as Rockwell did not cut his hair and remained faithful to the Gospel, “neither bullet nor blade” would ever touch him. Rockwell lived by the prophet’s promise, cutting his hair only once to provide a wig for a woman who had lost her hair to typhoid fever.
It was, for Joseph, the end of a perfect day in which the Lord’s birth was celebrated and an old friend restored to the fold.
